Water in Spanish
After this free audio lesson on water in Spanish you’ll know the right words and phrases to complain that your shower is cold, order a sparkling mineral water and a few other things in between!
Listen to the audio and join our Spanish speakers on their journey around Latin America – you’ll practice speaking Spanish and pick up lots of tips along the way!
Talking About Water in Spanish
Are you ready to see what Carlos and Carmona are up to? They are ready to venture out into the streets… not before finding out that their hotel room doesn’t have all the amenities they expected.
Carlos joins Carmona in the bathroom and examines the water taps. They are marked with an ‘F’ and a ‘C.’ Carmona turns on the water tap marked ‘F’ and shows Carlos that there’s no hot water.
It is very important to know the difference between agua caliente (hot water) and agua fría (cold water) when you’re taking a bath! Hot water is a commodity in many Latin American countries. Always ask if your room has hot water, if you don’t see it advertised (¿Tiene agua caliente?). Sometimes the only hot water in the room will be in the shower, where an electric showerhead attachment will heat the water as it flows from the tap. Other times, there will be a gas hot water heater for every room or group of rooms (called a calefón in South America).
A few hours later, Carlos and Carmona are refreshed and ready to explore the city. Carlos packs a small backpack with his camera, maps, and guidebook. He is filling his water bottle with water from the tap when Carmona stops him.
Water in most Latin American countries isn’t safe to drink from the tap. If you are traveling, you should only drink bottled water (agua embotellada) or boiled water (agua hervida). That is why hot beverages like tea are safer than juice, since freshly made juices may be made with unsafe water.
Here is Carlos and Carmona’s conversation in English:
Carlos and Carmona take to the streets. The Avenida Amazonas, where their hotel is located, is a beautiful street full of many shops for tourists, offering eco-tours of the Amazonía, biking around Baños, bathing in the hot springs of Papallacta, even mountaineering to the top of the great Chimborazo, the closest point on Earth to the sun.
They stop at a stand along the street to buy a bottle of water.
Carbonated mineral water, or water with gas (con gas), is a popular beverage in many Latin American countries. In Ecuador, the most popular brand is Guitig. The plant where the water is bottled from natural mountain springs is a tourist attraction.
Here is Carlos’s conversation in English.
Hand in hand, Carlos and Carmona head off to the Casa de la Cultura museum for an afternoon of culture.
Let’s take a look at that conversation again, this time in English. Remember to play back the conversation in Spanish so that you can associate the sounds with their English meanings.
Until later! ¡Hasta luego!
Mauricio Evlampieff
Rocket Spanish
P.S. Here’s a quick grammatical note. Have you ever wondered why you often see el or la, los or las in front of Spanish words? All four words mean the same thing: the. For example, el museo = the museum. Las iglesias = the churches.
It’s one of the many quirks in Spanish that you can’t just always say el to mean the. For example, you could NEVER say el iglesias. The word iglesias gives you all the clues you need to choose which form of the to use. That’s because the word iglesias is feminine and plural, corresponding to the feminine plural form of the: las.
In Spanish, every noun has a gender. That means that everything is either masculine or feminine. Masculine nouns often end in –o while feminine nouns often end in –a. For example, el museo (the museum) is masculine while la iglesia (the church) is feminine.
Spanish also distinguishes whether a noun is singular or plural ... in other words, whether there’s just one thing or many things. For example, the word churches is plural while the word church is singular.
Once you know whether a noun is masculine or feminine AND whether it is singular or plural, you can choose the precise form of the to describe it.
P.P.S Take a moment to answer the exercises below.
Exercise 1 - Match the Spanish word with its English description.
Exercise 2 - ¿Qué quieres hacer? What do you want to do? Fill in the blanks in the following story.
Me gustaría ______ (see) la Amazonía y las montañas nevadas de los Andes.
También, quiero ____________ (go shoppping) y visitar algunas _________ (churches) y un _________ (museum).
¡De verdad, quiero hacer todo!
