The five Spanish phrases that do 80% of the work
First time? Do this
- Audio is built in. Tap any phrase to hear it in a native voice — pre-recorded and cached, so it just works offline, no setup. (The voice bar can still pick a phone voice as a backup.)
- Phrases — drilled by situation: the mesón, tapas bars, directions, the ferry. Hit play, then say it back out loud.
- Sounds — nine letters unlock almost everything. Ten minutes here pays off the most.
- Customs — the unspoken rules. This is where tourists actually give themselves away.
- Practice — hear / read / recall / speak. Use it on the plane.
Right thing, right moment.
Tap a chip to jump to a scene — or just search. Common holds the go-anywhere basics (hello, thanks, where's the toilet); a few phrases like drinks live under more than one scene.
Common — useful everywhere · greetings · basics · the toilet
Greetings & manners · the social handshake
At the mesón (restaurant) · ordering & dining
mesón meh-SOHN — an old-style tavern-restaurant, hearty plates and house wine
Bars & tapas · your scene
At the bodega (winery) · tasting & buying
bodega boh-DEH-gah — a wine cellar you can taste and buy at
Finding your way · asking directions
Taxis & getting around · rides & fares
Ferries & islands · boat days
Shops & getting by · everyday
Sea & scenery · quick vocab
Numbers 1–100 · prices & ordering
Same letters. Five rules unlock them.
Spanish spelling is honest — every letter does one job, every time. Learn the handful that don't behave like English (ñ, ll, j, z, and the silent h) and you can read almost any sign aloud correctly.
Knowing what a letter sounds like isn't the same as being able to make it. These five are where English mouths actually go wrong: what to do, what to stop doing, and a native recording you can slow down and copy.
What your mouth doesA single r between vowels is one flick of the tongue tip against the ridge behind your top teeth — the middle of butter in an American mouth: cerveza. For rr (and r at the start of a word), keep the air flowing so the tip flutters: perro.
The mistakeThe English R for either. And collapsing the two: pero (but) and perro (dog) differ only by the roll — Spanish ears hear two unrelated words.
What your mouth doesj — and g before e or i — is an h said further back, with a light rasp against the roof of your mouth, like fogging a mirror hard: jamón is "hah-MOHN", gente is "HEN-teh".
The mistakeThe English j. "jam-ON" for jamón is the classic tapas-bar mistake, and a plain English h is only half the sound — let it scrape a little.
What your mouth doesñ is the "ny" of canyon said in one beat: España is "es-PAHN-yah". ll is simply the y of yes: paella is "pah-EH-yah".
The mistakeSaying the l's. "pah-EL-lah" is how every menu-reader orders it, and it is wrong every time — the double l stopped being an l centuries ago.
What your mouth doesBoth are the same soft b, lips barely meeting: vino is "BEE-noh", veinte is "BAYN-teh". Which letter a word takes is spelling history, not a difference you can hear.
The mistakeThe English v, teeth against lip. It does not exist in Spanish — saying "VEE-noh" carefully is working hard to get it wrong.
What your mouth doesWritten h says nothing at all: hola is "OH-lah". And hold every vowel on one steady note — no English drift, no lazy "uh": Hasta luego is "AH-stah LWEH-goh", each vowel full.
The mistakeBreathing an h into hola, or letting the o slide into "OH-luh". The h is the one letter you can ignore completely.
- Five vowels, and they never move. a e i o u are "ah eh ee oh oo" in every word, short and clean. No silent e, no drifting — that alone fixes most of an English accent.
- Stress has a rule; the accent marks the exception. Words ending in a vowel, n or s stress the second-to-last syllable, everything else the last. When a word breaks that, Spanish prints the accent: jamón, estación.
- The lisp is a rule, not a quirk. In Spain, z and c before e/i are "th": cerveza = "ther-VEH-tha". Latin America says "s" instead — both are correct Spanish.
- One r or two is a different word. pero is "but", perro is "dog". Tap the single r, buzz the double one.
- b and v are the same sound. Spelled apart, said identically — somewhere between an English b and v. vino starts closer to "bee-no".
The rules nobody prints on the menu.
Your Spanish rarely outs you. These do. Read once, and you'll move differently.
Greet the room, then leave it
Walk into a bar, bakery or small shop and lead with Buenas (BWEH-nahs) or Buenos días (BWEH-nohs DEE-ahs) before you ask for anything. On the way out, hasta luego (AHS-tah LWEH-goh) — even if you bought nothing.
Lunch at 2, dinner at 9
Kitchens generally run 13:30–16:00 and 20:30–23:30. Turn up at 6pm hungry and you'll find only tourist menus and closed stoves.
Tipping is small and optional
Round up, or leave a euro or two per person; 5–10% for a special meal. Waiting is a salaried profession here — nobody is doing mental math on 20%.
Order a caña, not a pint
A caña (KAH-nyah) is a small draft beer, ordered small so it stays cold in the heat. Drink it, move to the next bar — that's el tapeo (el tah-PEH-oh).
The sobremesa is the point
Sobremesa (soh-breh-MEH-sah) is the long stretch of talk after the plates are cleared. The bill arrives only when you ask for it; lingering isn't rude, rushing is.
Don't expect free tapas everywhere
Granada, León, Almería and Jaén still send a free bite with every drink. In Madrid, Barcelona and Basque pintxo (PEEN-choh) bars you pay for every plate — count your toothpicks.
Don't flatten Spain into one culture
Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia have their own languages and strong identities. Spanish is understood everywhere, but calling a Catalan or a Basque simply "Spanish" can land badly.
Two kisses, right cheek first
Dos besos (dohs BEH-sohs) — air kisses, right cheek then left — between women, and between a man and a woman. Men shake hands. In business or a first introduction, a handshake is safe.
The siesta is closed shops, not naps
Small shops and family businesses often shut roughly 14:00–17:00, especially in the south and in summer. Plan errands around it; big-city centres are less strict.
Learn to say "vale"
Vale (BAH-leh) is Spain's all-purpose okay: agreement, understanding, let's go. Doubled up — vale, vale (BAH-leh, BAH-leh) — it means "got it, got it". Use it constantly.
The plates and glasses worth going out of your way for — each with the name as you'd say it out loud.
Test the four channels.
Understanding Spanish by ear, reading, recall, and your own mouth. Quick rounds — do them twice.