how to learn spanish in 5 minutes

First you want to be able to greet someone, say hello. In Spanish you can simply say hola but you should use it only if you know the person you are greeting.

Otherwise you say buenos días for good morning and buenas tardes for good afternoon. Note that the afternoon in Spain starts after lunch, which can be as late as 2pm or 3pm and lasts until dinner which can be late as well.

When you leave, you say adiós.

Saying thank you is very important. You can use it when people do things for you, even if you don't understand what they say. In Spanish you say gracias.

Now if someone says thank you to you, you want to be able to say you are welcome. In Spanish it's de nada.

After 5 minutes of learning Spanish, you don't really expect to understand everything people will tell you. So a very useful sentence is I did not understand, in Spanish, no he entendido.

If you are asking a question of which you know the answer will be a number or a time, you can add could you write it down, in Spanish podría escribírmelo.

Just remember to take a paper and a pen at all times!

You are in the street and you want to ask someone something. In English we say excuse me to attract sb's attention. In Spanish you will say por favor.

Now that you have sb's attention, you want to ask her or him a question. But you want to ask a question of which you know you will understand the answer!

Possible 'understandable' answers are :

1. yes sí or no no,
   
2. numbers,
   
3. time,
   
4. date,
   
5. gestures.
   

OK, you don't know numbers, and you don't know how to tell the time or a date. The solution is to go back to the previous module 'not understanding' and just say could you write it down...

So here are some questions that fit the previous possible answers.

1. do you have ...? tienen ...?
   
2. how much is it? cuánto es?
   
3. what time? a qué hora?
   
4. when? cuándo?
   
5. where is ...? dónde está ...?
   where are ...? dónde están ...?