At the Market in Spanish: Speaking Practice (A2)
Speaking practice you do out loud — read the situation, take each prompt, and SAY your answer before you open the model one. Nobody's listening; that's the point of the rehearsal.
The market is the best speaking gym in the Spanish-speaking world: short exchanges, patient vendors, and numbers everywhere. These six prompts walk you through a full stall visit — asking, choosing, haggling gently, paying. Say each answer out loud before opening the model one.
Notice prompt five: one past sentence ("ayer compré… y estaban…") turns a transaction into a relationship. Vendors remember the customer who came back and said the peaches were good — and that's your preterite and imperfect doing real social work, which is exactly what A2 adds.
Make it real
The same money-and-numbers muscles run the end of every dinner — rehearse that scene in splitting the bill, watch a bill travel a whole market day in El billete de veinte mil, and find the full stall-to-stall phrasebook in Spanish for shopping and markets.
Your turn — say it out loud
Ask for half a kilo of tomatoes and ask how much they cost. Say it out loud.
Hola, ¿me da medio kilo de tomates? ¿A cuánto están?
Ask if they have avocados and whether they're ripe.
¿Tiene aguacates? ¿Están maduros?
Say it's a bit expensive and ask for a discount if you take two kilos.
Uy, un poco caro. ¿Me hace un descuento si llevo dos kilos?
Order a quarter kilo of cheese and a dozen eggs.
¿Me da un cuarto de queso y una docena de huevos, por favor?
Say you bought peaches here yesterday and they were delicious.
Ayer compré duraznos aquí y estaban riquísimos.
Ask for the total, pay, and say goodbye warmly.
¿Cuánto es todo? … Aquí tiene. ¡Gracias, hasta el sábado!
Glossary
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| ¿A cuánto están? | How much are they? (price by weight/unit) |
| maduro / madura | ripe |
| el descuento | the discount |
| la docena | the dozen |
| ¿me da…? | could you give me… (ordering at a counter) |
| riquísimo / riquísima | delicious (superlative) |
You've rehearsed it. Now say it to a person.
Prompts build the reflex; conversation builds the speaker. Live classes with native teachers are where your answers meet real replies.
Practice It Live