A room for tonight in Seville (A1)
Marta wants a room for tonight at a hotel in Seville. Clara asks for her ID, records it, and gives her the card for room twenty. An A1 Spanish reading.
Una habitación para esta noche
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense, the verb querer, and hotel words: reservation, identity document, room, and elevator.
Marta arrives in the afternoon at a hotel in Seville and wants a room for tonight. Clara finds her reservation, writes down the ID details, and gives the document back. Then she gives her the card for room twenty, on the second floor. The text says hotels in Spain ask for a DNI, a NIE, or a passport.
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.
buenos días
newgood morning
Buenos días is the greeting from waking up until the midday meal. In Spain that meal is around two in the afternoon, so it covers most of the working morning.
The first words a receptionist says, and the ones you say back when you walk in.
buenas tardes
newgood afternoon
Buenas tardes runs from the midday meal until it gets dark. In Spain people eat at about two in the afternoon, so buenos días lasts much longer than the English good morning.
The switch depends on lunch, not on twelve o'clock: buenos días at one in the afternoon is normal in Spain.
tiene que ver un documento de identidad
newhas to see an identity document
Tener que plus an infinitive is how Spanish says must: tengo que trabajar, el hotel tiene que ver. Only tener changes with the person; the second verb stays in the infinitive.
Careful with the look-alike idiom: tener que ver con algo means to have to do with something. Here ver is a real verb, and Spanish hotels really are obliged by law to record every guest document.
le da la llave de la habitación
newshe gives him the room key
Le is the indirect object pronoun, to him or to her. Spanish puts it in front of the verb and uses it even when the person has already been named.
Le and lo look alike and do different jobs: lo saluda (she greets him), le da la llave (she gives him the key).
a qué hora sirven el desayuno
newwhat time do they serve breakfast
Sirven is the third person plural used impersonally: nobody in particular serves, the hotel does. The article itself says sirven, not sirve.
Spanish says services this way all the time: sirven el desayuno, cierran a las diez, abren a las nueve.
paga con tarjeta o en efectivo
newpays by card or in cash
The preposition changes with the means of payment: con tarjeta but en efectivo. Say con efectivo and you will be understood, but it is not what a native writes.
In Spain cash also goes by en metálico, the wording you meet on signs and receipts: pago en metálico.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Hotel guest
huésped
hotel guest
Huésped is the person staying at a hotel. It is more formal than cliente and has one form for both sexes: el huésped, la huésped.
Core hotel word, and the accent carries it: huésped, never huesped.
Floor, storey
planta
floor, storey
La planta is a floor of a building. La planta baja is the ground floor, at street level, and la primera planta is the one above it.
A false friend worth remembering: planta also means plant, and in Spain the first floor is not the one on the street.
Room
habitación
room
Habitación is a room in a hotel or a bedroom at home. Hotel lists often shorten it to hab.
The whole job turns on it: the habitación is booked, cleaned and paid for.
Breakfast
desayuno
breakfast
Desayuno is built exactly like the English breakfast: ayuno means fast, and des- undoes it, so desayunar is to break the night fast.
The Spanish one is light: café con leche and a tostada, often with olive oil and tomato. The big meal of the day comes at about two.
Invoice
factura
invoice, bill
The text uses both words: la cuenta is the amount you owe, la factura is the formal document that lists it with your name on it. In a bar you ask for la cuenta; la factura would sound like paperwork.
Ask for una factura at the desk if you need the stay on paper for work; la cuenta gives you the total, not the document.
Computer, Spanish style
ordenador
computer
El ordenador is what a computer is called in Spain. Latin America says la computadora or el computador, so this one word already tells you which side of the Atlantic a text comes from.
It was taken from French ordinateur, not from English, which is why it looks nothing like computer.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Indirect questions
pregunta en qué puede ayudar
she asks how she can help
This is an indirect question inside a sentence, so it takes no ¿ and no question mark, but qué keeps its accent. Out loud the receptionist says the direct version: ¿En qué puedo ayudar?
The accent on qué, cómo and dónde survives inside a reported question, and it is what separates them from que, como and donde.
Present tense for daily work
da la primera impresión
gives the first impression
The present describes what somebody does every working day. Regular -ar verbs take -o, -as, -a, -amos, -áis, -an: saluda, explica, trabaja.
Dar takes those same endings with two quirks worth remembering: yo doy, and vosotros dais with no written accent.
Reflexive verb: sentirse
se sienten bienvenidos
they feel welcome
Sentirse carries a reflexive pronoun that changes with the person: me siento, te sientes, se siente, nos sentimos, os sentís, se sienten. The stem e turns into ie in every form except nosotros and vosotros, which keep the plain e.
Sentir means to feel something; sentirse says how you feel: me siento bien, se sienten bienvenidos.
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