Lesson 04: San Patricio - drinks, and numbers

Hey! que tal? - Free spanish lessons

Hi! And welcome to the fourth lesson of Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and today we´ll push the edge a little bit.
Hola y bienvenidos a la cuarta lección de Hey que tal? Lecciones de español gratuitas. Mi nombre es Pablo Apiolazza y hoy vamos a ir un poco más al límite.
Since Saint Patrick´s Day is this wednesday we´ll take this chance to learn in this lesson how to order a drink, and pay for it. So we´ll learn the numbers as well.
Dado que el día de San Patricio es este miércoles vamos a aprovechar esta oportunidad para aprender en esta lección cómo pedir un trago, y pagar por él. Así que también vamos a aprender los números.
The first thing you want to ask when you get to a bar is a table, if the place is crowded. So to ask for a table we say de following:
Una mesa para dos, por favor?
or
Tendrás una mesa para dos, por favor?
Which means Would you have a table for two, please?
If the place is not crowded, we just sit and wait. In terms of service, Buenos Aires and Argentina in general is very uneven regarding of the quality of the attention. Some places have perfect attention and manners, and some others don´t pay attention to customers at all. Sadly, sometimes that lack of attention is equalized with excelent food or drinks, so good that you bare the bad service. Many of us are used to that, so if you can take it, and you see that the waiter isn´t coming, you can call him raising your hand and saying like this:
Mozo!
Once the waiter´s here, we can ask for the menu or just for a beer. Let´s see how to ask for the menu.
Me traerías una carta, por favor?
And that is: Would you bring me a menu, please?
Once we get the menu we can say "Gracias", and take our pick. Now let´s see how to ask for a beer. There are many different ways but we´ll see three today:
Puede ser una cerveza, por favor?
Which lit. means "Can it be a beer please?"
The second is
Me traerías una cerveza, por favor?
Would you bring me a beer please?
And the third, most used and easiest:
Una cerveza, por favor
A beer please.
Of course, on seldom occasions we drink alone in bars, so let´s learn the numbers from zero to twenty. We will assume that if we have more than twenty people on the table one of them will know how to speak spanish if you need to ask for more, hehe.
So zero is CERO
One is UNO
Two is DOS
Three is TRES
Four is CUATRO
Five is CINCO
Six is SEIS
Seven is SIETE
Eight is OCHO
Nine is NUEVE
Ten is DIEZ
Eleven is ONCE
Twelve is DOCE
Thirteen is TRECE
Fourteen is CATORCE
Fifteen is QUINCE
Sixteen is DIECISÉIS
Seventeen is DIECISIETE
Eighteen is DIECIOCHO
Nineteen is DIECINUEVE
and Twenty is VEINTE.
As you might noticed, from sixteen on we have a little resemblance on the first half, every word starts with ten, and then the other number, sort of like ten and six.
If you´re really anxious to know the rest of the numbers, you should know that this same formula will be the one to make the rest of the numbers until a hundred. But we´ll see that on the next episode.
Let´s go back to the bar and our beer.
Let´s say some friends came later and we ordered our beer, if we want two more we can say it like this.
Dos cervezas más, por favor?
Two more beers, please?
Once we had enough, we can order for the check like this.
La cuenta, por favor.
or
Me traés la cuenta, por favor?
Now they will tell us the number, and probably they will ask cash or credit, so the waiter answer will be something like this:
Son 18 pesos. Efectivo o tarjeta?
Which means
It´s 18 pesos, cash or credit card?
If you´re in Argentina, you shouldn´t be so confident that they will have credit card payment in every single bar, so just in case always bring some cash with you.
So once you have the money or the card, you can say this
Aca tenés, gracias.
There you go, thank you.
Once we get our change, we can leave the tip, that is called propina, and usually is around 10% of what we had. Most of waiters will be more than happy with 10 % or more than 10 %. Some bars and restaurants already take the tip out of the bill, but most of them don´t.
Well, this was our bar night at Saint Patrick´s Day, culturally speaking celebrating Saint Patrick´s Day is something brand new for us, we´ve been doing it for the last ten years, it´s not as big as in Scotland or Boston maybe, but in some neighbourhoods like downtown some streets close so people can gather up on the street and drink outside, so it´s pretty fun. Argentinians are known for being pretty outgoing, and Buenos Aires is a city where every single day there´s something to do or somewhere to go.
So this is the end of the lesson, I hope you liked it, if you have any doubt or comment you can leave it on the website, www.heyquetal.blogspot.com
There´s also a twitter account if you want to follow the podcast, look for heyquetal on twitter and follow it for updates.
My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons.
Stay tuned and goodbye!