Elementary Spanish/Meeting people/Lesson 1

Goals

Introduce yourself using everyday phrases. After completing all of these exercises, you should be able to understand the dialogues on this page and use all of the listed vocabulary.

Lesson

Let's begin with a couple of short exercises to build some initial vocabulary and listening skills.

Exercise 1

People word vocabulary (Picture match lesson)

This is an interactive lesson where your goal is to select the picture that matches the phrase at the top of the screen. If you click on the wrong picture it will gray out and you can click again to choose another picture. If you want to start the lesson over just reload the page.

Exercise 2

¡Hola! (Audio lesson) Learn how to say hello and how to politely ask for help while learning Spanish.

This is an audio lesson. You can either listen online and read the transcript as you go, or you can download the lesson and listen to it on your phone or music player.

Example formal dialogue

Now that you have some initial grounding, let's look at a full interaction.

Context: In our dialogue two strangers, Raúl and Sofía, introduce themselves. Raúl es un hombre y Sofía es una mujer. They are in the elevator of the apartment building in which they both live. Their introduction is cut short as they have to leave the elevator.

   Raúl: ¡Hola! Me llamo Raúl. ¿Cómo te llamas?
   Sofía: Hola, Raúl. Me llamo Sofía. 
   Raúl: ¿Como estas?
   Sofía: Bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?
   Raúl: Bien.
   Sofía: Bueno, era un placer haberte conocido. Adiós, Raúl.
   Raúl: El placer es todo mío. Adiós, Sofía.

Colloquial dialogue

Just like in English, Spanish has formal and informal ways to greet people and ask them about themselves. In school, your children are taught to speak formally with each other and with the teacher. In this book, we will be covering both formal and more colloquial forms of speaking. This can show you how your children are being taught and how to communicate with the wider Spanish language community in your area. Whether you wish to speak formally or informally with your children at home is a matter of personal preference.

Margarita and Juan are friends but have not seen each other in a while. Though Margarita would like to stay and chat, she is in a hurry as she needs to complete some errands.

   Juan: ¡Hola Margarita! Mucho tiempo sin verte. ¿Qué tal?
   Margarita: ¡Hola Juan! Si tienes razón. Ya pasan como 
              tres meses que no te veo. Todo bien. 
              ¿Qué tal con tigo?
   Juan: Nada. Todo igual. ¿Y tu familia?
   Margarita: Todos están bien pero me tengo que ir. Estoy 
              completando unos mandados. Hay te veo. 
   Juan: Bueno, cuídate.
   Margarita: Tu tambien. ¡Adiós, Juan!
   Juan: ¡Adiós, Margarita!

Vocabulary

• Hola.
• Me llamo ____.
• ¿Cómo te llamas?
• ¿Como estas?
• Bien
• gracias
• ¿Y usted?
• Bueno
• era un placer haberte conocido.
• Adiós
• El placer es todo mío.
• ¿Qué tal?
• Nada.
• ¿Qué tal con tigo?
• Todo bien.
• Completando unos mandados.
• Hay te veo.
• cuídate.
• Tu tambien.