My First Piggy Bank: A Spanish A2 Story about Saving
Read an A2 Spanish story about choosing a goal, counting money and saving for a book with a piggy bank.
La importancia de ahorrar: Mi primera hucha
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About this article
What you'll learn
Money vocabulary (coins, bills, piggy bank), verbs like "to save" and "to buy", expressions for responsibility and planning.
A child saves part of the money received in a piggy bank to buy a book, considers another purchase, makes a simple plan and later reaches the goal. This A2 Spanish story practices money words and saving and spending verbs.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
estuve a punto de sacar
newI was about to take out
The pattern «estar a punto de + infinitive» means the action almost happened. Here «estar» is in the preterite: estuve.
Lets you tell what you nearly did and then did not do.
en lugar de gastarlo
newinstead of spending it
The structure «en lugar de + infinitive» offers an alternative. The pronoun -lo attaches to the end of the infinitive and stands for «el dinero».
Two things at once: contrasting two actions, and pronouns glued onto an infinitive.
dar prioridad a lo más importante
newto give priority to what matters most
«lo + adjective» («lo más importante») builds an abstract noun with no noun in it: the most important thing. English needs the word «thing»; Spanish does not.
The same pattern gives lo mejor, lo peor, lo difícil. You will meet it constantly.
es una lección de vida muy valiosa
newa very valuable life lesson
A ready-made phrase: «una lección de vida» is a lesson life teaches you, not a lesson at school.
Useful for closing an opinion or a story.
cada vez más
newmore and more, closer and closer
«cada vez más» before an adjective or adverb marks a growing change: cada vez más cerca (closer and closer). The opposite is «cada vez menos».
It appears twice in this text and is the normal Spanish way to say that something keeps increasing.
veréis que es muy satisfactorio
newyou will see that it is very satisfying
«Veréis» is the future of «ver» addressed to «vosotros», several people you speak to informally. Spain uses this form; Latin America says «verán».
The whole text is written in the Spanish of Spain, so these endings keep coming back.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
to save (money)
ahorrar
to save (money)
Verb: to set money aside for later. Do not confuse it with «guardar» (to put away) or «salvar» (to rescue).
The key word of the whole article; it appears in almost every paragraph.
piggy bank
la hucha
piggy bank
A container for keeping coins and notes. In Spain it is «la hucha»; in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina the same object is «la alcancía».
One object, two names: which one you use shows which Spanish you learned.
allowance, pocket money
la paga
allowance, pocket money
The small sum parents hand over regularly. «La paga» is a noun; the verb «pagar» (to pay) is a different word.
Everyday word in Spanish families, and the child in the text earns it by helping at home.
effort
el esfuerzo
effort
The work put into reaching something. The verb of the same family is «esforzarse» (to make an effort), which the text uses as «esforzarme».
Noun and verb travel together: el esfuerzo, esforzarse, me esfuerzo.
patience
la paciencia
patience
The ability to wait without rushing. It goes with «tener»: tener paciencia, not «ser paciencia».
Spanish builds many states with tener: tener hambre, tener prisa, tener paciencia.
to keep, to put away
guardar
to keep, to put away
A false friend: «guardar» is not «to guard». It means to keep something or put it away somewhere safe: guardar el dinero, guardar los libros.
It comes back several times in this text, and it is one of the words Spanish learners misread first.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
The infinitive as subject
Ahorrar significa guardar una parte del dinero
Ahorrar significa guardar... = Saving means keeping...
In «Ahorrar significa guardar una parte del dinero», the infinitive «ahorrar» is the subject of the sentence and «significa» stays in the present. English would say «saving», an -ing form; Spanish uses the bare infinitive.
This is how Spanish states any definition: Ahorrar es..., Compartir es..., Esperar cuesta...
me / nos: who is being helped
nos ayuda a conseguir
it helps us to achieve
In «nos ayuda a conseguir», «nos» is an object pronoun, not a reflexive one. The subject is «el hábito» and «nos» is the person receiving the help. Compare «me ayuda a tener paciencia» (it helps me). The pronoun stands in front of the conjugated verb.
Reading the pronoun as reflexive would make you think the subject helps itself, which reverses who does what.
Connectors: pero, porque, también
pero, porque, también, en lugar de
but, because, also, instead of
Four links that hold this text together: «pero» (but) opposes, «porque» (because) gives a reason, «también» (also) adds, «en lugar de» (instead of) replaces one action with another.
They turn a list of short sentences into a paragraph that reads as one thought.
Vosotros: the Spanish of Spain
hablaros, ahorráis, podéis, veréis
you (plural, informal) in Spain
To address several people informally, Spain uses «vosotros»: ahorráis, podéis, queréis, veréis, vuestra hucha, por vosotros mismos. Latin America uses «ustedes» for the same job: ahorran, pueden, quieren, verán, su hucha.
This text is peninsular Spanish. If you learned Latin American Spanish, these endings are the ones that will stop you mid-sentence.
Preterite or imperfect
vi / era, empezó / podían
vi (I saw) / era (it was)
«Vi» and «empezó» are preterite: single finished events that move the story forward. «Era» and «podían» are imperfect: description and background that do not move it. Almost every past sentence in Spanish forces this choice.
English marks none of this, so a learner has to make the decision consciously. It is the main hurdle of the Spanish past.
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