Waiter in Seville: Spanish reading (A1)
Pedro serves people in a hurry at a neighbourhood café in Seville. He writes sin gluten, distinguishes café solo, cortado and café con leche, and describes the menú del día without naming a price.
Trabajar de camarero
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About this article
What you'll learn
Present tense in a café: pedir, servir, a waiter's questions, and the Spanish names for coffee.
Pedro works as a waiter in a neighbourhood café in Seville. People at the door are in a hurry to eat and return to work, and Pedro wants to hear the order correctly and put each plate in front of the right person. He explains that in many Spanish bars the menú del día combines a first course, a second course and a drink for a fixed price, that bread is often included, and that dessert is not in every bar. He does not say what it costs. A woman cannot eat gluten, so he writes sin gluten and leaves the note beside the cook. He distinguishes café solo, cortado and café con leche, confirms toast with tomato and olive oil, and repeats café solo before he carries the cup. The scene ends when her plate is in front of her and she says it is fine.
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.
Le gusta hablar con la gente y hacer sonreír a los clientes
newHe likes talking to people and making the customers smile
Gustar works backwards: the thing that pleases is the subject. Le gusta hablar means that talking pleases him. Before an infinitive gustar stays singular: le gusta.
Gustar carries every 'I like' in Spanish, and its word order surprises every beginner.
Primero enciende las luces y pone música suave
newFirst he turns on the lights and puts on soft music
Encender is an -er verb with an e to ie stem change: the infinitive is encender but the he form is enciende, not encende. The change happens in all three singular forms and in ellos.
Stem changes are the biggest trap at this level: you learn encender and then fail to recognise enciende.
Les pregunta cuántas personas son y los lleva a una mesa
newHe asks them how many people there are and takes them to a table
Two different pronouns for the same people in one sentence. Preguntar takes the indirect pronoun les, because you ask something to someone; llevar takes the direct pronoun los, because you take someone somewhere.
Whether you need le/les or lo/los is decided by the verb, and here both appear side by side.
El plato del día siempre tiene buen precio
newThe dish of the day always has a good price
El plato del día is the daily special. Do not confuse it with el menú del día, which is a whole fixed-price meal: starter, main course, bread, drink and dessert.
Both phrases are chalked on the board of every Spanish bar, and they mean different things.
el trabajo es muy intenso
newAt peak time the work is very intense
Trabajo is a masculine noun, so the adjective is intenso, not intensa. Spanish nouns ending in -o are almost always masculine and take -o adjectives.
Agreement follows the Spanish noun, not the word for work in your own language.
Con su sueldo y propinas, Pedro vive bien y ahorra un poco
newOn his salary and tips, Pedro lives well and saves a little
El sueldo is the fixed monthly pay; la propina is the extra a customer leaves. Ahorrar means to put money aside, not to save time.
Sueldo, propina and ahorrar are the three words you need to talk about what a job pays.
La cuenta, por favor
newthe bill, please
The standard way to ask for the bill in Spain. At the bar you also hear ¿nos cobras? or ¿me cobra? You have to ask: nobody brings it to you unprompted.
One short phrase that ends every meal, and the article now shows it being used.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Waiter
camarero
waiter
Un camarero serves in a bar, café or restaurant; the feminine is una camarera. In Spain you get his attention by saying perdone or por favor, not by calling out the word itself.
Central word of the article, and the polite way to call one is not obvious.
Customers
clientes
customers
Un cliente, una clienta. The masculine plural los clientes covers a mixed group. Bar staff also say la gente or, informally, la clientela.
Shows how one Spanish masculine plural covers men and women together.
Tips
propinas
tips
Una propina, las propinas. The singular is perfectly normal: dejar una propina. In Spain a tip is not obligatory and is usually just the small change.
The word is easy; the custom behind it is what a visitor actually needs to know.
Order
pedido
order
El pedido is what a customer orders, from the verb pedir. Careful: pedir changes its stem from e to i, so he orders is pide, not pede.
Links the noun to one of the two verbs the article teaches, and warns about the stem change.
The bill
cuenta
the bill
La cuenta is the bill at the end of a meal, from contar, to count. The same word also means a bank account.
Pairs with the phrase card la cuenta, por favor, which is how you actually ask for it.
Food allergies
alergias alimentarias
food allergies
Alimentario means food-related, from alimento, a food item. To name your own you say soy alérgico a or soy alérgica a, matching your own gender.
Gives the sentence you would actually have to say, not only the label on the menu.
Cortado
cortado
espresso with a little milk
Un cortado is a café solo cut with a small amount of milk, halfway between un café solo and un café con leche. The name comes from cortar, to cut.
You cannot guess it from English, and it is one of the three coffees you order in Spain.
La carta, the menu
cartas
the menu
La carta is the list of everything the place serves. In Spain el menú usually means el menú del día, a complete fixed-price meal, so asking for el menú may get you the set lunch.
A false friend: the English word menu is la carta, not el menú.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Present tense: regular -ar verbs
Pedro llega al café a las siete de la mañana
Pedro arrives at the café at seven in the morning
Llegar is a regular -ar verb. Drop the -ar and add the endings: llego, llegas, llega, llegamos, llegáis, llegan.
The -ar group is the largest in Spanish, so these six endings unlock most verbs you meet.
Tener que + infinitive
Tiene que recordar qué cliente pide qué plato
He has to remember which customer orders which dish
Tener que + infinitive expresses obligation: tiene que recordar. Deber + infinitive means the same and appears in the very next sentence: debe sumar. In speech tener que is the everyday choice.
Both constructions sit in the same paragraph, doing the same job.
Indirect questions with cuántas
Les pregunta cuántas personas son
He asks them how many people there are
The question sits inside a statement, so it loses the ¿ ? marks: les pregunta cuántas personas son. Asked directly it is ¿Cuántas personas son? Two things stay the same in both: the word order, and the written accent on cuántas, which is what marks it as a question word.
English reorders the words when it reports a question and Spanish does not, so the accent on cuántas is the signal that a question word is still a question word.
Servir, pedir: e becomes i
Pedro sirve más de cien cafés cada día
Pedro serves more than a hundred coffees a day
Servir and pedir change the stem e to i in the present: sirvo, sirves, sirve and pido, pides, pide. Nosotros and vosotros keep the e: servimos, servís, pedimos, pedís. The infinitive shows no trace of the change.
These are the two verbs the whole job runs on, and you can learn servir and still not recognise sirve.
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