Cleaning the meeting room (Spanish A1)
At six in the morning María cleans a meeting room in Mexico City with a trapeador. An A1 reading about the Spanish fregona and Manuel Jalón.
Limpiar la oficina
Tap any word to see its translation
, . , , , . . . . , . , .
. . , . , . , . . . . : . . . : .
. , . , . , . , . , , . .
Keep reading with translations
Create a free account: 7 days of Pro, then 20 word translations a day or a paid plan.
About this article
What you'll learn
Cleaning words: trapeador, fregona, cubeta, cubo, fregar, limpiavidrios and rotulador. The verbs barrer, fregar and limpiar.
María wants the meeting room of a large Mexico City company clean before anyone arrives. She sweeps, mops with a blue bucket, wipes the tables with a microfiber cloth, cleans the glass and erases the board, then puts the chairs back. In Mexico the mop is a trapeador and the bucket a cubeta. In Spain they are fregona and cubo. Fregona comes from the verb fregar. More than sixty years ago Manuel Jalón started making that fregona in Spain. Markers are rotuladores in Spain. Limpiavidrios, like lavamanos, is singular.
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.
Primero, María abre las ventanas
newfirst, María opens the windows
Primero opens a sequence. The rest of the shift follows with luego, después and al final.
Four small words let you narrate any routine in order: primero, luego, después, al final.
pasar la fregona
newto mop the floor (Spain)
In Spain you pasar la fregona or fregar el suelo. In Mexico the same job is trapear or pasar el trapeador.
Fregar and la fregona come from the same root, so learning one gives you the other.
a las seis de la mañana
newat six in the morning
Spanish tells the time with a las + number, and adds de la mañana, de la tarde or de la noche instead of am and pm.
You need this pattern for every appointment, timetable and opening hour.
Se siente orgullosa
newshe feels proud
Sentirse is reflexive: me siento, te sientes, se siente. The adjective agrees with the person: orgullosa for a woman, orgulloso for a man.
Sentirse plus an adjective is how you say how you feel about anything.
queda como nueva
newit ends up like new
Quedar here means to end up in a state, after something is done: la sala queda como nueva, el suelo queda limpio.
Quedar for a result is everywhere in spoken Spanish, and it is not the same as quedarse (to stay).
Antes de irse
newbefore leaving
After antes de Spanish uses the infinitive, never a conjugated verb. Irse keeps its reflexive pronoun on the end: irse, irme, irte.
Antes de and después de plus an infinitive order two actions in one short sentence.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
La escoba
escoba
broom
La escoba is a broom. The verb that goes with it is barrer: barrer el suelo, sweep the floor.
Escoba and barrer travel together, so learn them as a pair.
Trapeador or fregona
trapeador
mop
Mexico and most of Latin America say el trapeador; Spain says la fregona. The fregona, mop and wringer bucket together, is a Spanish invention from more than sixty years ago.
In Madrid a trapeador may not be understood; there you ask for a fregona.
La cubeta
cubeta
bucket
In Mexico the bucket is la cubeta, and that is the word this text uses. In Spain the same bucket is el cubo, a word that in Mexico is mostly kept for the cube in maths.
One everyday object with two names, and the text is set in the country that says cubeta.
El paño
paño
cloth
El paño is a cleaning cloth. Its everyday cousin is el trapo, an old rag; a paño is finer, like the microfibre one María uses.
Paño and trapo are the two words you will hear for cloth, and they are not interchangeable.
El limpiavidrios
limpiavidrios
glass cleaner
Built from limpia + vidrios, verb plus plural noun. Spain says el limpiacristales. Both are singular despite the final s: un limpiavidrios.
Spanish builds dozens of nouns this way: abrelatas, paraguas, sacacorchos, lavaplatos.
El lavamanos
lavamanos
washbasin, sink
Another verb plus noun compound: lava + manos. It looks plural but takes a singular article: un lavamanos, el lavamanos. In Spain the same thing is el lavabo.
Getting the article right on these words is what marks you as someone who knows the rule.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Comienza, empieza, enciende
Ella comienza a trabajar muy temprano
she starts work very early
The present for habits, with a catch. Comenzar, empezar and encender all change e to ie in the stem: comienzo, empiezas, enciende. Only the nosotros and vosotros forms keep the plain e: comenzamos, comenzáis.
This text uses all three, and the stem change is what stops a reader who learned comenzar from recognising comienza.
Hay: there is, there are
hay jabón, desinfectante y limpiavidrios
there is soap, disinfectant and glass cleaner
Hay never changes. One form covers singular and plural: hay un cubo, hay tres botellas. It states that something exists, without saying whose it is.
Hay is how you describe any room, shelf or street in Spanish.
My day in the first person
Yo empiezo a las seis y termino a las dos
I start at six and finish at two
Same habitual present, now about yourself: empiezo, termino, limpio, trabajo. The yo ending is -o for all three verb groups.
The whole text is about María; this is the line that lets you say it about your own day.
Asking a yes/no question
limpias tu casa los sábados
do you clean your house on Saturdays?
Spanish makes a yes/no question without any extra word: same verb, same order, only the two question marks and the rising voice. Limpias means both you clean and do you clean.
Turn any sentence in this text into a question by adding ¿ and ?, and you can interview somebody.
Read a book in Spanish
All A1 books
Comments
Log in to leave a comment
LoginNo comments yet. Be the first!