Day 4 of 90
One coffee, please
Every noun in Spanish is masculine or feminine, and today that stops being an abstract fact and starts deciding what comes out of your mouth in a cafe.
Asking for one thing
Three levels of directness, all acceptable.
quisiera is a past subjunctive form and you will not study that for months, but you do not need to. It works as a fixed polite opener in front of any noun or verb, exactly like the English would like. Learn it as one word now and the grammar will arrive later to explain something you can already use.
un and una
Which one you use depends on the noun, not on you.
The o and a endings are a reliable guide, not a rule, and they cover enough of the language to be worth trusting from day one. The exceptions cluster in small groups you meet later: el problema, el día, la mano. Learn each new noun with its article attached, so you store la mesa rather than mesa, and the gender arrives free with the word instead of as a second thing to memorise.
In the cafe
The exchange from ordering to paying.
Notice that the bill is la cuenta with la, not una. You are not asking for any old bill, you are asking for the one that belongs to your table, and Spanish marks that with the definite article exactly as English does with the. Getting un and el the right way round matters more than gender does, because it changes the meaning rather than just the sound.
café is the drink and also the place, so voy al café is I am going to the cafe and quiero un café is I want a coffee. Spanish tolerates this kind of double duty more than English does, and context resolves it every time. In Mexico ask for un café americano if you want something close to filter coffee, because un café on its own can arrive very small and very strong.
Check yourself
Eight questions. Get 5 of them right to finish the day.
More from this course
Weeks 1 to 2: first words, first sentences.
See all 90 days of the course →