Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 2.28 | Travelling by taxi

Episode Date: November 22, 2010

In lesson 28 we’ll be continuing to create phrases in the language based on the knowledge of grammar we’ve acquired in recent lessons. This week we’re focusing on the context of taking a taxi in a Spanish-speaking country. Please note that lesson 28 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 228 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 bienninoos at Coffee Break Spanish. Welcome back to Coffee Break Spanish. In this lesson, lesson 68, we're looking at the context of taking a taxi and we'll be continuing to look at building phrases from the language, the structures and the grammar that you already know. I hope you find this lesson useful. So last time we were talking about transport, public transport taking the train and indeed other types of public transport too. This week we're still staying on the transport theme, but we're talking about transport. talking about taxis. In Spanish, the word for a taxi is, believe it or not, an taxi. An taxi. Okay. So, Kara, how would you say, if you were in your hotel, how would you say, I would like a taxi? Quisiera, an taxi. Very bien. Quisiera, that's one of the ways to say, I would like. Let's see if we can think of other ways to say, to get the message over that you want

or you need a taxi. How would you say I want a taxi? Quero a taxi. Yeah, Kierro, meaning I want. Now, that may be perceived as being a little direct. If you say I want a little direct, it sounds a little direct. So perhaps Kisiera is a nicer way of saying it. We could also say me Osteria, but to be honest, Kisiera sounds better in this particular situation. How would you say, I need a taxi? Think back. to I necessitate a taxi. Necessito, Necesito, Necesito.

Necesito. Necessito. Necessito a taxi. Yeah, this is one of those words where if you're in Latin America, it's probably easier because you can just say Necessito and they're all s sounds. But in Spain, Necesito. Necesito a taxi. Necessi. Necessito a taxi. Yeah. Now, there's another way that you could ask at reception in the hotel, for example, can you get me a taxi? Now, to get in this sense, it's really to ask for, to order. And there's a word in Spanish, which is bedir. Pedir. Bedir. What's your D sound? Bedir.

Pedir. Bezier means to ask for or to order. So can you order me a taxi? Let's see if we can work this out. Let's do the can part, first of all, which, infinitive are we looking for there? From Poder. From Poder, meaning to be able to. So, you, the Usteed form of Poder, is... Puede.

Puente. Very well. So, in Spanish, we have to work this out and say something like, me, you can ask for a taxi. So let's do that word by word there. Me. Me.

You can, using the Usteed form. me Puebe. Me Puee. Yeah, and that's a very common start of a sentence. Me Pue dee plus an infinitive. So the infinitive we're using is. Piedier. Pede.

Me Puede pedier, a taxi? A taxi? Me Puede pedier. Okay, an taxi. A taxi. I tried to get the E sound of taxi. Taxi. Me can be pedier a taxi, for favor?

Me can be a taxi, please. Okay. So, the hotel. receptionist or whoever is helping you get the taxi would find the taxi for you call the taxi. They may want to know, adon de va. Adonde is one word. It literally means to where, but we can just translate it as where. So, adon de va or adon de va Osteed.

Where are you going? Yeah, where are you going. They may have to tell the taxi company where you're going. So, for example, how would you say, I am going to the station? The station is a word that we covered last week. I'm I'm a

station Boy a la station but I know I'm a station

Boy to the station Boy to the station Or indeed in Latin America Boy a station

Boy to and indeed in some places Voy A station but let's not

go into all that just now So I'm going to the station How would

you say I'm going to the airport I'm going to airport Yeah, almost right That aeroperto You pronounce the A and the E

The Aero puerto Very well I'm going to the airport So of course when you're actually in the taxi You could be saying these things as well You get in the taxi And you could say I am going to the centre

How would you say that? I'm going to Go to center? Boy al center or Al Centro de la Ciudad. Okay, so they may take you just somewhere randomly in the center

and drop you off. Boy al Centro. Boy at center. Now, another way of saying this again, these lessons are all about expanding your range of expression and although Boi at Centro will get your meaning over,

how would you say I need to go to the center of the town? Necessi I need to exactly Necessito I need

to get the city and this is one of those Latin American phrases as well because it becomes

Necessito I need to go the center of the city Necessito I

need to the city Exactly so I need to go If we go back

to the construction can you order me a taxi What was that again? Me

Pue pedir a taxi? Me Puede pedir a taxi let's use

that construction and this time we're going to say can you take me to the centre of town

okay now take in this particular scenario is the word levar leave

yeah now what consonance does that begin with two else two else yes it's that

leh leavar okay now that little means to carry. It can also mean in some cases to wear. I am wearing a

jumper, a jersey. Lever, when we're talking about transport, means to take. So can you take me, using that construction, to the center of the town? Me could leave to the city? Me can't leave to the center? Very well.

How would you say, can you take me to the city? the airport? Me Pue de a airport. Perfecto.

Me Pue de get a airport. Let's just expand this a little more because

a very common way of saying to a taxi driver take me somewhere would be to use the command

form. And this is a slightly different form. We've not really done a lot of this. To say

take me to the airport, you use the form leve me. Leve me. Okay, so it's Lever, but it becomes Ljave, which is the command form,

and then you put the me onto the end because it's a command. Lieve me. Take me to the airport. Lieve me al-aeroperto. Very well. Try take me to the center. Lieve me to the center. Uh-huh.

Now, do you know the word for an address? It sounds sort of like the English word direction. It's actually direction. Direction. Direction. Direction. And in Latin American Spanish, obviously, direction. Now, this address, therefore, would be

this direction. This direction. So how would you say, take me to this address? Leuven me to this direction. Okay, brilliant. Let's try putting all these constructions. instructions to practice again. I am going to this address. Go to this direction.

Take me to this address. Leve me to this direction. Very well. I need to go to this address. Necessito to this direction. Can you take me to this address? Me can you leave to this direction? Very well. 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. So that's four different ways of saying,

can you get me to this address when you're talking to a taxi driver? And again, these are four constructions that we've worked out from what we know previously. Let's go over some more language that we know. How do you say, is it far? Is it far? Is it far from here? Is it very far from here? Is it very far from here?

be too far from here. Okay, it's too far. I'm not taking you. It's too far. It's too far. It's very lejos deyx dey. Okay. It's that very lejos dey. Okay. And for example, how you would you say, is it very near here? It'sa very close to here. It's a very close to here. Exactly.

When you are answering that question, and I think we've done this before, you can say it's at a distance of 10 kilometers. for example. It's a 10 kilometers of here. And notice that you need that a in there.

It's at a distance of, all translated by a, ista a 10 kilometers of here. Yeah, and also, if you were wanting to say

about the time, you would say it's a 20 minutes of here. It's a 20 minutes of here.

Dependé del trafico. What would that mean? Depends on the traffic? Yeah, depending del traffic. And you also might hear something like, There are lots of

road works. Yeah, Obras, roadworks, okay? A work of theater. Okay, but the works in the carreteras are roadworks.

Depend de el tracico, depend de las obras, and so on. So different situations there. Now, if you're in the taxi, you want to ask how much is it? How much is it? You've come to the end of your journey. How much is it? How would you say that?

Quanto costa? Remember when you're talking about buying items in a shop, you can say, Quanto costa or quanto valet. And in the situation in a taxi, you're probably more likely to say Quanto questa. Okay?

Quanto cuesta. And I'm going to introduce another element here of how much does it cost. And that is, at the beginning of your taxi journey, you might want to ask how much will it cost, for example, to go to the airport. And in that situation, you're going to be using the future tense. Don't worry about this. We'll be covering the future tense, I promise before we finish coffee break Spanish. But in this situation, we'll just learn this as a piece of vocabulary.

Quanto costara. Quanto costa? How can you to get to airport? Kara, can you to fit that, please? Quanto costara to go to the airport? Very well.

Quanto costar to to go to the airport? Or it could be, how costor to go to the station, for favor? How can't costa to go to the station,

for a favor? Very well. In the taxi, you might want to say stop here, please. Now, the verb to stop is parar. Parer. So once again, using a polite

command form, you could say paré here, por favor. Paré here, por favor. Paré here, for favor. Paré here, por favor. Now, let's imagine you've arrived at your destination at this

direction, for example, and you want to to ask the taxi driver, can you wait for me? Now the verb to wait is the same as the verb to hope for something in Spanish. And I'm not sure whether we've done this at any point. It's espera. Esperer.

Okay, a nice regular ER verb. Esperar. Esperer. So Kara, can you work at how you would say, can you wait for me? Okay, it's using that same construction as we used earlier on. Can you wait for me?

Me Puees Esperer? Exactly. Me Puehesperer, for favor. Okay. And we're going to use the same construction again,

Me Puede, for can you give me a receipt? You might need a receipt for your records. And a receipt, in the case of a taxi journey, it would be, Un recivo.

An recibo. Okay, the same word that you would use in a shopping receipt as well. Me Pue de dar a recivo. Me can give a recé Me Pue de'r a recivo.

Okay. So in this lesson, we've looked at a number of situations where you've used me Puebe plus an infinitive. Me Piedier, a taxi, me can't esperer, me can't get, and so on. What I'd like to mention now is the fact that you can also use an alternative version of these, rather than saying, me Puede pedier, you can say,

Puebe. Now notice that me Puede Pedeer is three separate words, me, Puede Piedier, the infinitive, but Pue de Piedierme is two words. In Piedierme, the me, the pronoun, is added on to the end of the infinitive. Just like you saw with some of the reflexive verbs that we did, for example,

I doacharmes. So the me, the reflexive pronoun in this situation, was stuck onto the end of the infinitive, duchar. I'm going to ducharmes. And in this situation, we're talking now about pedirme. And the me is a different type of pronoun.

It's added on to the end of the infinitive, pedir. So, Puede pedine. Puede pedine a taxi. Puede pedine a taxi. And that means exactly. exactly the same thing as me can you

pay a taxi me can you pay a taxi okay car can you convert me can you get a center to this

different way of saying the same thing can get me to center very well you can

get me to get stuck on to the end of what's about can you wait for me give me two

versions of that phrase in Spanish. Can you wait for me? Me Puede Esperer and Puede Esperame? Exactly right. So that's an alternative way of working with infinitives and the pronouns when you stick the pronouns on front. Now notice that there is one situation that cannot work and that is when you put the me after the Puede. Puede me pedir. Do not say that. That is absolutely wrong. don't even think about the fact that I've just said that. It's Pueede pedine or me Puede pedier.

Puede peder or me Pue deeer. Exactly. 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.

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