Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 1.23 | Problems in a hotel

Episode Date: May 16, 2009

In this week’s lesson of Coffee Break Spanish, Mark and Kara continue the topic of hotels. Listeners will learn how to ask for different kinds of rooms, and deal with problems associated with hotel rooms. Please note that lesson 23 of Season 1 was originally known as lesson 123 of Coffee Break Spanish. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.This season of Coffee Break Spanish features a total of 40 lessons, all of which will be included in the podcast feed. Just stay subscribed to the podcast to enjoy each episode. If you’d like to benefit from video versions, lesson notes and bonus audio materials, you can access the premium version of Coffee Break Spanish in the Coffee Break Academy.Don’t forget to follow Coffee Break Spanish on Facebook where we post language activities, cultural points and review materials to help you practise your Spanish. Remember - a few minutes a day can help you build your confidence in the language. Access the Coffee Break Spanish Facebook page here.If you’d like to find out what goes on behind the scenes here at Coffee Break Languages, follow @coffeebreaklanguages on Instagram.You can also check out our Coffee Break Spanish Twitter page and the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and bienvene to Coffee Break Spanish. Welcome back to lesson 23 of Coffee Break Spanish. Como do you know very well, I'm Mark. And today we're going to be learning how to deal with problems that you may encounter when you're in your hotel. I hope you enjoy the lesson and that you find it useful.

So last week we learned about booking into the hotel. This week we're going to talk about problems that you may encounter while staying in a hotel from check-in time right through to when you're actually in your room and things that you might find that don't work or that you've not got in your room. We're going to begin with learning the phrase for, there is a problem with the room. Let's see how much of this we can work out together.

There is. How do you say that? Aye. Aye, exactly. I. And then the word for a problem. We'll come to that again in a minute. Let's do with the room. What's the word for a room?

Una abitacion. One abitacion. And so the room would be... La abitacion? Exactly, because it's feminine. La abitacion. With the room? Con la abitacion?

Exactly. Aie, then the word for a problem, con la abitacion. Now, let's go back to this word problem. In Spanish, the word for problem is un problema. Un problema. Why is

Un problema, a masculine word, because is it not normal for words ending in A in Spanish to be feminine? A very good question. Problema is indeed masculine, so you say, Un problema. And there are a few words in Spanish that fit into this category. Other examples might be, um programa, or an telegramma, a program or a telegram. And the reason that they're masculine is because these words come from Greek. And in Greek, the ending Ama or Emma is one of the standard endings associated with masculine words. So that's why we have Un Problema and Un telegramma,

an programa. Ah, okay, that makes sense. So let's put the whole sentence together. There is a problem with the room. There is a problem with the room. There's a problem with the abitacion. Very well. Now, if you were in Latin America,

then you would say, La Abidation. There's a problem with the abitacion. Okay. Now, what might the problem be? There are lots of possibilities, and we're going to give you

several examples, several constructions that will work for various situations. We're going to start with the situation where the room is too, for example, small, too small.

La abidation is Demasio Pequena La Abitacion is Demasio peccania We've come across all these words before Demasio we had when we were talking about food

Demasio Pequeena means small So the abitation is Demasio Pequena La Abitacion is Demasio Pequena Very well Or the room might be

too noisy. And the word for noisy in Spanish is Ruidosa. Ruidosa. Ruidosa. Ruidosa. Ruidosa. Ruidosa.

There are four syllables in that word. Ruidoza. Ruidosa. Ruidosa. Ruidoza. Very well. It means noisy. The abitation is

Demasio Ruidosa The invitation Is Demasio Ruidosa Very good Another possibility is that your room may be too expensive Is Demasio Cara

Is Demasio Cara Cara Kara means expensive Do you have expensive tastes Kara? Of course So The Abitacion is

demasio cara. The abitacion is Demasiocared. Very well. Now we've been using S in each of those situations because in each case the adjective that we're using is a permanent characteristic of that room.

So the room is too small. It's not going to get larger all of a sudden. It's too noisy. Okay, the people upstairs may calm down but generally it will be too noisy a room for you. However, there are other situations where you would use esta For example, if you're seeing that the room is dirty,

la abitacion esta sucia. La abitacion esta sucia. It's sucia. The sucia in Latin America would be sucia. Sucia. Okay, so la abitacion ista sucia. The abitacion is sucia. Very well.

So, esta is used here because with a quick cleanup, the room will be no longer soothia and it will be limpia, the word for clean. Limpia. Limpia. Obviously, you wouldn't be complaining that your room ista limpa, that would be the perfect situation. Let's go on and think about a few other situations. It may be too hot or too cold in the room. Now, in Spanish, you would use the same phrase as you would use for the weather in this situation.

So you would say, it's a so it's so literally it does too much cold in the room It's Demasio

in the abitation Has Demasio in the abitacion In the Abitation It makes too

Frio or It's Demasio in the Abitation Has Demacio in Abitation

And can you remember how you would say it is warm? It's hot? Cara. Ace calore. So how would you see it's too hot? Ace demercio calore in the abitacion. Exactly. Ace demasté demastro in the abitacion.

Ace demesiado calore in the abitacion. Perfecto. So so far we've learned to talk about the fact that the room is too small, too noisy, too dirty and so on. We've also learned about the temperature of the room. In the abitacion, it makes too fario or it's deemasio calor. Okay, we'll be back in just a moment. When you're not listening to Coffee Break Spanish, you can still practice your Spanish with our regular posts on social media. Find us on Facebook, just search for Coffee Break Spanish. We're Learn Spanish on Twitter, and you can keep up with the team through our regular

posts on Instagram. Follow Coffee Break. Languages. It's our mission to help you turn your downtime into your due time. Okay, let's get on with the lesson. Sometimes there may be things that don't work in the room. And in Spanish, the word that you use for this is, similar to the English word function. Funciona means function. Funciona. Funciona. So to say it doesn't function, you would say, No functiona.

No functiona. No functiona. No functiona. So, for example, you may have a shower that doesn't work. The shower doesn't function. La ducha no functiona. La ducha no functiona. La ducha no functiona.

La ducha no functiona. Okay. or you could have a television that doesn't work. La television no functiona. The television no functiona. La television no functiona. The television no functiona. I should already have said that in Latin America, you would say,

Funciona. Funciona. So it would be the television no functiona. The television no functiona. Okay, and this is particularly important in this last one. El Aire Aconditionado. El Aire Aconditionado. That's air conditioning.

El Aire Aconditionado no functiona. El Aire Aconditionado no functiona. Yeah, let's take that word for conditioned. It literally means the air conditioned. So the air, el Aire, Aconciliation. Acconditionado. A conditionado. Acconditionado.

A conditionado. Very well. So, the air acconditionado, no function. The air acconditionado no function. Or in Latin America, the air has conditioneded no function. The air acconditioned,

no functiona. Funciona. Obviously, you're going to be learning either the Spanish version or the Latin American version. And the real main difference is always with the C sounds, whether it's a TH sound that's used in most parts of Spain or a S sound that's used many other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, particularly in lots of Latin American countries. So we have descriptions of the room, whether it's too small, too noisy and so on. We've got the temperature in the room. make deemasea frio, make deemaseid du calor,

and then things that don't work, la television, la ducha. There's also the situation where you're unable to do something, for example, you're unable to open the window, put on the light and so on. So to say, I cannot do something,

you say, no puido. No, Puedo. No Puedo. No Puedo. And no Puedo is always followed by an infinitive. So to open is

Abriar. So once more, no Puedo Abriar, it comes from the power to be able to. So no Puedo means I am not able to or I cannot. And it's followed by an infinitive in this case, aubri, meaning to open. So the whole phrase together, no poedo a beir la ventana,

means I cannot open the window. Let's move on and look at the word encender. Encender. Entender means to switch on. If you are particularly interested in Latin American Spanish and not the Spanish of Spain, then whenever you hear a

th sound, you should be thinking, that must be ensender in Latin American Spanish. So if I say encender, you know that the th sound has to be a s sound in Latin American Spanish. So, no puido encender la luce.

No putto encender la luce. A luce, what's your u sound. Luce. La luce, very well. No can't sender the light.

No putto encender the light. Or, in Latin American Spanish, no I can't sender the light. No can't

sender the light. Exactly. If you can't switch on the television, then you would say,

no can't sender the television. No can't sender the television.

Or in Latin American Spanish, no I can sender the television. No

I can sender the television. And one other possible would be no Puedo acceder internet. No Puedo accender, internet.

Acceder. Acceder. Acceder or, in Latin American, Spanish, acceder. Acceder. And it means to access. Accceder internet to access the internet. No Puedo acceder internet.

No Puedo acceder internet. Or you could say, no I can acceder internet for escutas coffee break Spanish No can't acceder internet for

to hear coffee break Spanish Exactly watch the pronunciation of internet Okay, we're used to saying internet in English

and if you're used to speaking French you might say something like Anternet in French but in Spanish the I sound

always is an i sound so acceder internet access internet Exactly No

I can acceder internet No Puedo access internet Perfect So if

No Puedo means I cannot then Puedo means I can And in this same situation

I we know I means there is so to say there isn't you would say

No I Noai. And sometimes you get to a hotel room and you find that there aren't any towels or there's no toilet paper, for example. So you would use the phrase no-eye plus whichever word you wanted. So, for example, no-a-to-alias. No-a-to-a-to-a-towias. Tuolias are towels. No-a-to-a-to-a-oias. No-a-to-a-twes. Or again, sticking with the bathroom, no-eye-to-to-o-a.

no have so there's no so there's no soap is soap toilet paper toilet tissue

no hay papel hygienico no no I papel igh i

Hygienico. Literally means hygienic. So hygienic paper, no paper, no paper, no paper, no, paper,

hygienico. Hygienico. Hygienico. Hygienico. Very good. No, paper hygienico. No,

paper hygienico. Hygienico. Injecto. Perfect. No, paper hygienico. So, no, twillas,

there are no towels. no hay japon there's no soap no paper hygienico there's no toilet tissue or in the bathroom no a water caliente

no there's no hot water I'm sure you work that one out no I water no I goa caliente the one final situation that we're going to cover today is perhaps not a nice

situation to encounter in a hotel but it's something equally that we have to learn so that we can deal with it. And it's a situation where your room smells. And the verb to smell is oler. But the word that we're going to be used that's linked to that is wele. Wellie. Now, I don't know if everyone knows what Wellington boots are. In the UK, we talk about Wellington boots.

For those rubber boots, sometimes they're green, sometimes they're blue. Sometimes they're spotty, sometimes are flowery, sometimes they're stripy. Okay, anyway, these boots that you sort of use for going in the garden or wearing on boats or something like that. Splashing in puddles in our own day. Yeah, okay. I don't splash in puddles, but anyway, Wellington boots, I always think of the word well, we call them wellies for short. And so I think of smelly Wellington boots to remind me that whey means it smells. Wellie. Welle.

So you could say la abitacion, wele. The room smells And to be perhaps more clear that it smells of not nice things rather than fresh flowers or something You could say, La Abidation Wele Mal La Abitacion Owele Mal Or El Banyo Wele Mal

Or Cara Wele Mal Or Mark You can see it about people but it's not quite so nice So wele mal means it smells bad. Wele mal. Wele mal. I think we should possibly stop there this week before things get even more silly.

And that's where we're going to leave it today for this edition of Coffee Break Spanish. Thanks for joining us and we hope it's been useful. You can join the Coffee Break Spanish community on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Coffee Break Spanish and follow at Learn Spanish on Twitter. much thanks and this is the production of the Radiolingua network

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