... Spanish Survival Course (Lesson 3 of 4) ...
by Infocostarica Staff

Even if you know how to greet people in Spanish, count numbers or ask for directions, you still need to know some extremely important vocabulary. The following lists have been divided into the essential categories of: common places, food, and adjectives.

Common places 

restaurant: restaurant 
hotel: hotel 
taxi:taxi 
bus: bus (like "booze") 
airport: aeropuerto 
bank: banco 
street:calle 
highway: autopista 
hospital: hospital (no "h" sound) 
school: escuela 
police:policia 
store:tienda 
supermarket:supermercado 
pharmacy:farmacia 
gas station: bomba/ gasolinera 
house: casa 
building: edificio 
city: ciudad 
countryside:campo

It's important to keep practicing terms that you learned in the other courses, so the following questions mix the information provided by courses 1,2 and 3. How do you say the following?

 1. How do I get to the hospital? 
2. There are thirty seven schools here. 
3. Hello, where is the highway? 
4. Good morning. How do I get to the gas station 
5. This is ("es") a supermarket. 
6. This is a good city. 
7. This is a bad house. 
8. Give me a bus ticket.

Without knowing where to place adjectives, your phrases might not turn out to be entirely correct, but the purpose of these short courses is to give you the basic tools, and to enable communication in Spanish, even if it isn't completely accurate.

Food 

food: comida 
I am hungry: tengo hambre 
I want to order: quiero ordenar 
do you have?: tiene? 
I want: quiero 
I would like: quisiera 
breakfast: desayuno 
lunch: almuerzo 
dinner: cena 
spoon: cuchara 
fork: tenedor 
knife: cuchillo 
plate: plato 
napkin: servilleta 
fruits: frutas 
vegetables: vegetales 
salad: ensalada 
meat: carne 
chicken: pollo 
beef: carne de res 
pork: cerdo 
dessert: postre 
coffee: café 
water: agua

It would be impossible to provide an entire list of food and its related terms, but if you learn the previous words, you can at least handle the basics related to food.How would you say the following phrases: 

1. I want to order chicken. 
2. I'm hungry.Where is the restaurant? 
3. Please give me coffee. 
4. I would like coffee. 
5. Do you have fifteen forks? 
6. There are three spoons. 
7. Give me a napkin, please. 
8. Do you have breakfast? 
9. I would like ten salads, two coffees, and twenty five knives.

I know that you might be getting excited about all the information which you've learned in such a short amount of time. However, there are some adjectives that you just need to know, if you want to express even simple things. In Spanish, adjectives are placed after nouns, so that "big restaurant" is "restaurante grande", and not vice-versa.

Adjectives 

big:grande 
small: pequeño 
cheap: barato 
expensive: caro 
fat:gordo 
thin: delgado 
white: blanco 
black: negro 
red: rojo 
blue: azul 
green:verde 
yellow: amarillo 
orange: anaranjado 
purple: morado 
brown:café 
gray:gris 
Intelligent:inteligente 
dumb:tonto 
pretty: bonito(a) 
ugly: feo(a)

O.K., so how do you say the following phrases? 

1. How do I get to the yellow house? 
2. Where is the brown restaurant? 
3. Do you have a green napkin? 
4. Please give me ten black coffees. 
5. This red knife is expensive. 
6. Tomorrow Friday, I would like a green salad. 
7. Excuse me, where is the ugly bank? 
8. I want a big chicken.

All right, I admit that some of these sentences are silly or that they don't make sense at all, but their meaning isn't as important as your practicing them. Besides these practices, it's a good idea for you to make up your own phrases. You'll see how difficult it is to come up with a semi-normal sentence when the vocabulary is limited!

Ok, if you're ready to go on to the last lesson of the Survival Spanish Course click here.