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Spanish/Week 6

Questions: directions, prices, times

Magenta week. Seven question words, and enough fixed phrases to find a station, ask a price and understand the answer.

Colours live this week

10 of 10 in play
Noun

A thing, a person or a place.

Verb

An action or a state — what is happening.

Adjective

Describes a noun.

Adverb

Modifies a verb or an adjective.

Article

the / a / some — and possessives like mon, ma.

Pronoun

Stands in for a noun — I, you, he, it.

Preposition

Links words together — to, in, of, for.

Conjunction

Joins two parts of a sentence.

Question word

Opens a question — where, when, how, why.

Fixed chunk

Learn it whole. Do not take it apart.

Direction phrases stay as grey chunks. A la izquierda is one unit — you will never need to take it apart.

The question words

Every one of them carries a written accent, and that accent is what marks it as a question rather than a statement word.

  • ¿Dónde?Where?
    ¿Dónde está la estación?Where is the station?
  • ¿Cuándo?When?
  • ¿Cómo?How?
    ¿Cómo está usted?How are you?
  • ¿Por qué?Why?

    Two words with an accent. Porque, one word without, means because.

  • ¿Quién?Who?
  • ¿Cuánto?How much?
    ¿Cuánto cuesta?How much does it cost?
  • ¿Qué?What? / Which?
    ¿Qué hora es?What time is it?

The upside-down question mark

Spanish opens a question with ¿ as well as closing it with ?. It looks decorative and it is not: it tells a reader that a rising intonation starts here, which matters because Spanish word order in a question is often identical to a statement. When you write, use both.

Asking directions

All chunks. Say them whole.

  • [¿Dónde está…?]Where is…?
  • [a la izquierda]on the left
  • [a la derecha]on the right
  • [todo recto]straight on
  • [al lado de]next to
  • [enfrente de]opposite
  • [cerca de]near to
  • [lejos de]far from
  • [estoy buscando…]I'm looking for…

Prices, times and opening hours

  • ¿Cuánto cuesta?How much does it cost?
  • [¿Cuánto es?]How much is it?

    The shorter, more common version.

  • [Es demasiado caro]It's too expensive
  • ¿Qué hora es?What time is it?
  • ¿A qué hora?At what time?
  • abierto / abiertaopen
    El café está abierto.The café is open.
  • cerrado / cerradaclosed
    La tienda está cerrada.The shop is closed.

Adjectives agree, and estar is the verb you need

Abierto and cerrado are adjectives, so they are purple and they agree — bold for a masculine noun, slanted for a feminine one. And they take estar rather than ser, because being open is a state, not an identity. That is the ser-and-estar rule from Week 5 doing real work.

Sentence frames

  1. 1

    [Estoy buscando] la estación.

    I'm looking for the station.

  2. 2

    ¿Dónde está la farmacia?

    Where is the pharmacy?

  3. 3

    ¿Cuánto cuesta?

    How much does it cost?

Daily mini-tasks

Listening this week

Español con Juan — short episodes

Podcast apps and YouTube

Slow, funny, entirely in Spanish. Juan repeats himself constantly on purpose, which is exactly what you need at this stage.