Basic Spanish expressions

¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?
Hi! How are you?

Parting words to a beginner.

Your first task is to learn quite simple common words and expressions. They will help you not only to say hello and goodbye, but to start getting familiar with Spanish writing and spelling. These are the things you will constantly have to deal with. Try to copy words in the exact same way as they are represented in the lesson.

¡Atención!

Before you start copying and learning new words, pay attention at two special characteristics of Spanish writing.

Question and exclamation marks are drawn at both sides of a sentence – not only at the end, but at the beginning as well. When at the beginning, they are drawn upside down. It may seem unusual, but you always know right from the start whether a sentence is interrogative or exclamative.

¡Hola! – Hi!

¿Cómo estás? – How are you?

Try to type or handwrite the flipped marks in order to work them out. Get used to putting them whenever you write a question or an exclamation.

The second characteristic is that many Spanish words have accent marks. For example: Hola, ¿Cómo estás?

The words cómo and estás have graphical accents, but hola does not. There is a special accent rule in Spanish that you will learn later in this course. You will then find out where to put accents and where not. Meanwhile just copy the accent if you find it in a word.

That is a strict requirement to a literate Spanish writing, unless you chat with a pal. When texting a quick message, initial question and exclamation marks, as well as accents, can be avoided.

Now let’s get to the main part of the first lesson. Write down, spell out and learn the following expressions. Imagine that you are talking to a real Spanish speaker.

If you hover the cursor over a phrase or tap it on a mobile device, a tooltip will pop up. It will show you some tips you might be interested in. In this lesson the tooltips will provide you with spelling transcription so that you start learning words with correct pronunciation.

Saludos
Greetings

¡Hola! – Hi! The Spanish letter h is always mute. It’s never pronounced.

¡Buenos días! – Good morning! Good day! This expression is used mainly before lunch. Although, the RAE officially points out that it’s used until noon, Spanish speakers tend to take the lunch time as a reference, (around 2 p.m.). This is when the siestabegins.

Notice that the í letter has an accent over it. There is no dot, because it’s replaced by the accent mark.

¡Buenas tardes! – Good afternoon! The official hour to start saying so is noon, but in real life most of the time people say it after lunch (approx. after 2 p.m.).

¡Buenas noches! – Good evening! Good night! This one is used mostly after dark or starting from 8 p.m., depending on what happens first.

It’s worth noting that buenos días is spelled with o, and buenas tardes as well as buenas noches are spelled with a. It’s an important distinction, because Spanish has genders that should not be confused.

Don’t say: buenas días or buenos noches.

Preguntas
Questions

¿Cómo estás? – How are you?

¿Que tal? – How are you? More literally, “How is (it)”?

Both expressions basically have the same meaning, when it comes to asking somebody about their mood or news.

¿Qué tal? has some broader use cases. For example, you can say ¿Qué tal la vida? (How is your life?) or ¿Qué tal tu coche? (How is your car?). For the moment, you can think of both options as almost similar.

You can even join them and say:

¿Qué tal estás? – How are you?

Respuestas
Answers

ias”]Estoy bien, gracias – I’m fine, thank you

bien – well

mal – bad

– more or less

muy – very

Muy bien, gracias – Very well, thank you

Try it yourself:

I’m very bad, thank you

ias”]gracias – thank you

ias”]muchas gracias – thank you a lot

The c letter pronunciation of gracias in Spain is different from Latin America. Spanish say it as the English unvoiced th [θ] sound, with the tongue touching the top front teeth, just like “thanks” or “thing”. Latin Americans say it as a simple s [s], like “sun” or “sister”.

¿y tú? – and you?

y tú, ¿cómo estás? – and how are you?

Try it yourself:

Hi!

Good morning!

How are you?

Fine, thank you. And you?

Very good

Presentación
Getting acquainted

¿Cómo te llamas? – What is your name? More literally, “How are you called”?

The double ll letter is a bit contradictory and may sound differently depending on a country or a region. The most common way is to pronounce it like y in “yogurt” or “yellow”. But you can hear some people say j like in “Jamaica” or even sh like in “shower”.

Central and northern Spain:

¿Cómo te llamas? [yamas]

Southern Spain and most of Latin America:

¿Cómo te llamas? [jamas]

Argentina, Uruguay:

¿Cómo te llamás? [shamás]

Me llamo Pedro – My name is Pedro

Try it yourself:

And what is your name?

There is another way of asking somebody’s name.

¿Cuál es tu nombre? – this literally translates to “What is your name”?

Mi nombre es Pedro – My name is Pedro

Mucho gusto – It’s a pleasure

Encantado / encantada – I’m glad (to meet you)

Men say encantado. Women say encantada.

Igualmente – Likewise. Same here

Try it yourself:

Good evening! How are you?

Fine, thank you.

What’s your name?

My name is Susana

And what’s your name?

My name is Alex

Nice to meet you

Same here

Origen
Origin

¿De dónde eres? – Where are you from?

Soy de España – I’m from Spain

Try it yourself:

And you, where are you from?

I’m from Colombia

soy español – I’m Spanish (man)

soy española – I’m Spanish (woman)

americano, americana – American

inglés, inglesa – English

¿Dónde vives? – Where do you live?

Vivo en Argentina – I live in Argentina (g is spelled like h in “hello” or a bit harder, like kh)

Despedida
Saying goodbye

¡Adiós! – Bye!

¡Hasta luego! – Goodbye! Literally, “until then”. This is the most common way of saying goodbye among people that are not close friends.

¡Hasta mañana! – See you tomorrow. Literally, “until tomorrow”. Don’t forget that the h letter produces no sound.

There is a long list of expressions that can be used in all these situations. A language is a huge toolset and you can choose any tool you find convenient. You’ll be discovering all these tools step by step, not all at once. So, be patient and take your time to let your memory absorb new information. Get back to the previous lessons once in a while. Every lesson needs to be repeated many times if you want to get really strong at Spanish.