At the Restaurant

Sitting down in a restaurant and handling the whole visit in Spanish, from the front door to the last thank you, is one of the most satisfying skills a learner can pick up.

What you will learn

This conversation follows a visitor through an ordinary meal out in Latin America. You will pick up dozens of useful words and phrases for asking about a table, talking with the waiter, choosing between options on the menu, and settling up at the end. Everything happens in the polite usted form, which is what you want with staff you have never met, so you also absorb the courteous verb endings that go with it. The same language works far beyond a restaurant table. Asking ¿Qué me recomienda usted? is just as useful in a market stall or a bakery, and knowing how to say what you want politely carries into almost any place where somebody is serving you.

How the practice works

You read a realistic exchange as it unfolds, one message at a time, and put sentences together word by word from the pieces on screen. Similar looking words are mixed in, so you have to notice the small differences that change a meaning. Every line is recorded by native speakers, which trains your ear at the same time as your reading. A session takes only a few minutes, and you can replay any quiz whenever you want the phrases to stick.

Why nobody brings you the check

Here is something that surprises a lot of first time visitors. Across much of Latin America the waiter will not put the bill on your table until you ask for it, because dropping it off early is considered a way of pushing a guest out the door. You could sit there a long time waiting politely. The phrase that solves it is short: la cuenta, por favor. Many people also catch the waiter's eye and use it with ¿Me trae la cuenta?, and either one will bring your meal to a friendly close.