Buying a SIM Card

Getting a local number should not be the hardest part of your trip. This conversation walks you through buying a SIM card in Spanish and getting it working, from the first hello at the counter to the goodbye on your way out.

What you will learn

The conversation covers what a traveler actually says in a phone shop: describing what you need, weighing a plan with data only against one that includes calls, talking about price and payment, showing your documents, and explaining what went wrong when the connection does not cooperate. Dozens of useful words and phrases come up naturally, from el chip and la señal to the everyday verbs for switching something on, restarting a device, and browsing. It is language you will reuse at any counter where you pay for a service, and at any moment something technical needs a second look.

How the practice works

Each quiz follows a realistic exchange between a customer and a shop assistant, and you take part by assembling sentences word by word, with tempting near-miss words mixed in to keep you honest. Every line is recorded by native speakers of Latin American Spanish, so you are reading and listening at the same time. Sessions are short enough to fit into a coffee break, and you can replay a quiz whenever it suits you.

The word most people actually use

In much of Latin America, the little card that goes into your phone is rarely called la tarjeta SIM in everyday speech. People say el chip, borrowed straight from English and pronounced almost the same way, and a shop assistant is far more likely to offer to cambiar el chip than to mention a card at all. The same habit of short, borrowed words runs through the rest of the vocabulary: topping up a prepaid line is recargar, and the credit you are topping up is el saldo. Those three words will carry you through most of what you hear in a phone shop.