Common Spanish Phrases for Beginners (50 Essentials)

Questions about this deck

What is the difference between perdón and lo siento?

Perdón is the quick, light apology: you bump into someone, you interrupt, you step on a foot. It also works for getting attention, like "excuse me". Lo siento carries real regret — arriving late, breaking something, or offering condolences. If you say lo siento after brushing past someone on the metro, it sounds oddly dramatic.

Should I use ¿cómo estás? or ¿cómo está?

¿Cómo estás? is the tú form: friends, family, classmates, people your age, and in most of Spain almost everyone. ¿Cómo está? is the usted form for older people, shop and office staff in Latin America, and anyone you want to show respect to. The same split applies to ¿cómo te llamas? / ¿cómo se llama? and ¿me ayudas? / ¿me ayuda?

Why do Spanish speakers say tengo hambre instead of estoy hambriento?

Spanish treats hunger, thirst, sleepiness, heat and cold as things you have, not things you are: tengo hambre, tengo sed, tengo sueño, tengo frío. Because hambre and sed are nouns, you intensify them with mucho/mucha — tengo mucha hambre — never with muy. Estoy hambriento exists but sounds literary, and nobody orders food that way.

Is adiós or hasta luego more common when leaving?

Hasta luego, by a long way, especially in Spain, where people say it walking out of a shop they may never enter again. Adiós feels more definitive, almost like a farewell, though in some regions it's also tossed out as a greeting when passing someone in the street. In Latin America nos vemos, ahí nos vemos and chao are the everyday choices.