Learn about taking a taxi
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| INTRODUCTION |
| In today’s lesson, we’ll cover a phrase used to get you to your destination when riding a taxi. We’ll look at the most basic way to express this, which is the word “to” (followed by a destination). |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| In today’s lesson, we’ll use Atocha Station, which is the station in Madrid from which high-speed trains depart. |
| In Spanish, “station” is estación. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: es-ta-ción. |
| Now, let’s hear it once again, estación. |
| So, our location is estación de Atocha, which literally means “station of Atocha.” |
| In Spanish, “To Atocha Station” is - A la estación de Atocha. |
| To increase the level of politeness and to show good manners, you could and probably should add “please” to the end forming, A la estación de Atocha por favor. |
| A la estación de Atocha por favor. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: A la es-ta-ción de A-to-cha por fa-vor. |
| The word for “to” in Spanish is a. |
| a |
| For this phrase, we also need la, which in English is “the.” |
| A la estación de Atocha por favor, literally means “To the station of Atocha, please.” |
| This is the most basic way of expressing where you’d like to go, but actually just saying your desired destination should work, but we want to get you speaking as much as possible, so let’s give you another option. |
| You can also say, “I would like to go to Atocha Station,” which in Spanish is Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: Que-rrí-a ir a la es-ta-ción de A-to-cha. |
| Let’s hear it once again, Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Let’s take a look at the components. |
| The first word, querría, means “I would like to.” This is a conjugated form of the verb querer, which means “to want.” |
| Let’s break down this word and hear it one more time: que-rrí-a. |
| querría |
| This is followed by ir, which in Spanish is “to go.” |
| ir |
| ir |
| So, to recap here, we have Querría ir… |
| Literally, this means “I would want to go…” translated as “I would like to go.” |
| Let’s take a look at the remaining parts of the phrase, a la estación de Atocha, means, as we have already seen, “to Atocha Station.” |
| a la estación de Atocha |
| One more time, a la estación de Atocha. |
| So, all together, we have Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Literally, this means “I would like to go to Atocha Station.” |
| In some countries, it’s customary to tip. In Spain, tipping is not an obligation in taxis, though you usually can give about 5% to 10%, if you feel like it. |
| A very convenient phrase to be used even before getting into the taxi is, ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? which means “Do you have change for 50 euros?” |
| It’s very advisable to ask this, if you only have large bills such as €50 or more euro notes, because the taxi driver is not obligated to have change for big bills. And if he doesn’t have change and you haven’t asked him, when you get to the destination, you may run into a problem. |
| So, if you only had bills of €50 or higher, you should ask, ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
| ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: ¿Tie-ne cam-bio de 50 eu-ros? |
| Once again, ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
| For €100 bills, just substitute the word for “100,” cien for 50. |
Outro |
|---|
| Okay, to close out today’s lesson, we'd like for you to practice what you've just learned. I'll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you are responsible for saying it aloud. You’ll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so buena suerte, that means “good luck” in Spanish. |
| Okay, here were go! |
| “To Atocha Station, please.” - A la estación de Atocha por favor. |
| A la estación de Atocha por favor. |
| A la estación de Atocha por favor. |
| “I would like to go to Atocha Station.” - Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| Querría ir a la estación de Atocha. |
| “Do you have change for 50 euros?” - ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
| ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
| ¿Tiene cambio de 50 euros? |
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