A first conversation

Six short steps make a first conversation: greet, names, nice to meet you, where from, a little small talk, goodbye.

This last unit puts the course together. The dialogue below is the kind of short conversation you might have at a café, a language exchange or a hostel. Listen to each line, repeat it, then hide the words and rebuild the dialogue from memory.

The shape of the conversation

Most first conversations follow the same order. Someone greets (Hola, buenas tardes). Names come next (¿Cómo te llamas? Me llamo...), then a polite reaction (Mucho gusto, Encantada). Then comes a question about origin (¿De dónde eres?), perhaps a comment on language (Hablas muy bien), and finally a goodbye that fits the time and the next meeting (Hasta luego, Hasta el sábado). If you know one line for each step, you can hold up your side.

Keeping it going

Two tools help when you run out of words. First, return the question with ¿Y tú? or ¿Y usted?, which hands the turn back to the other person. Second, ask for help: ¿Puedes repetir, por favor? (can you repeat, please?), Más despacio, por favor (more slowly, please), No entiendo (I do not understand), ¿Cómo se dice ... en español? (how do you say ... in Spanish?). Even one word works in a pinch: ¿Perdón? said with a rising tone asks the other person to repeat.

Choosing tú or usted

In the dialogue, Minji and Daniel are young people at a language exchange, so they use tú from the first line. If Minji were speaking to Daniel’s grandmother, every tú form would change: ¿Cómo se llama usted? ¿De dónde es usted? ¿Puede repetir, por favor? Practise the dialogue both ways, once with tú and once with usted.

After the first meeting

If the conversation goes well, you may want to stay in touch. ¿Me das tu número? (will you give me your number?) is the everyday way to ask. To suggest meeting again, say ¿Nos vemos el sábado? (shall we meet on Saturday?), or in Spain ¿Quedamos el sábado? Answer with ¡Claro! (of course) or, in Spain, ¡Vale!