Learning Spanish from Taxi Drivers!
One of the biggest Spanish learning tips I can give anyone who is likely to be spending some time in a Spanish speaking country, is:
Talk to taxi drivers! Despite the fact that a few of them are unscrupulous and grumpy, most are incredibly friendly, and delighted to have an interesting chat with the foreigner (you and I) in the back seat.
I’ve learned so many interesting Spanish phrases from taxi drivers, and this weekend I got another, real classic.
I was chatting away to the driver about how well you can eat ‘on the cheap’ in Spain with a good old lunchtime ‘menu del dia’ (3 course set lunch).
But, he said (getting suddenly worked up), it wan’t the same in London, oh no, just about everywhere you eat lunch in London:
“¡Te fusilan! ¡Te fusilan!”
Fusilar = To shoot, execute by firing squad!
What a great way to say you get charged way too much!
He went on to describe all the ways in which you can also get fusilado, overcharged, here in Spain….
Eat ‘a la carte’ instead of a menu del dia? ¡Te fusilan!
Add an expensive bottle of wine to your meal? ¡Te fusilan!
So there we have it. Talk to taxi drivers! They have all the best words and phrases!
If you don’t think you’ll be traveling in a Spanish taxi soon, don’t worry! Just about every great Spanish expression I’ve every learned in the back of a Madrid cab is included (with full pronunciations from Marina) in our sound-super-authentic ‘Real Spanish Phrase Book and Audio Guide’: Click here to check it out and get more fluent now!
Posted in: Learn Spanish Phrases | Comments: 20
Comments:
Comment from David Cross
It’s great but if I had been involved in such a conversation I should not have known whatever he was saying. I can usually only pick out words that I know.
Comment from Brian
“Talk to taxi drivers! Despite the fact that a few of them are unscrupulous and grumpy, most are incredibly friendly, and delighted to have an interesting chat with the foreigner (you and I) in the back seat.”
You and ME!!!! not I. Chat with ME not chat with I. as in US not WE (us= you and me; we = you and I)
Comment from Laurie
I agree that taxi drivers are great to talk to….HOWEVER…..females – be careful….one time I was so enthusiastic talking to the cab driver that he tried to ask me out on a date, and then I was a bit afraid that I might not be arriving at my destination (he could have taken me anywhere)…..I also accidentally got in his cab AGAIN (he worked the shopping mall taxi stand) and it was super tense since I was not sure if he recognized me or not.
Comment from Marketta
I agree with “females beware of being too friendly with strangers in a strange land. And yes, cabbie is a stranger.” Many men can’t tell the difference between being friendly and sending a signal that you may be interested in him. Besides, I would want him to keep his eye on the road while I watch the scenery. I’m unable to multitask and most people I observe don’t multitask as efficiently as if they were concentrating on the business at hand.
Comment from Marcy Webb
This is so true! During a visit to Puerto Rico in 1989, I conversed with taxi drivers, hotel workers, servers in restaurants – anybody who was a native speaker and who was inclined to chat.
Comment from Sasha
Great phrase! Can you also use it for just generally getting hosed, or is it specific to hosed-by-overcharging?
Comment from Holly
In defense of Ben and the “you and I” comment. I took it to mean “You and I are the foreigners” Not that he was chatting with “you and I”.
Comment from Michael Gordon
I, too, would like to comment on the me vs I controversy. Perhaps it is “you and I” that are sitting in the back seat. “I” would be in the back seat with you, “me” would be somewhere else.
Comment from Kathy
Ben used “you and I” to take the place of t”he foreigner.” “…delighted to have an interesting chat with the foreigner (you and I) in the back seat.” Since this is in the objective case (object of the preposition “with”), the pronoun “you” should be used instead of “I.”
Ben, I think you are awesome!
Comment from Elizabeth Davies
Ben – regardless of the ‘me/I’ controversy – [ I am reminded of 'glasshouses] I, too, think you are fabulous so in conjunction with the previous comment’s author, that makes at least two of us!! If anyone feels like having a grammatical ‘poke’ at that sentence, please feel free. Greetings to all from New Zealand. Elizabeth
Comment from Ben
@Thanks Kathy, and Elizabeth! And everyone else of course! I knew as soon as I wrote ‘you and I’ there would be trouble, but seeing as the post was about learning Spanish, not English, I didn’t worry too much about it!!
Comment from Brian
Why are some people writing ‘you and I’ and others writing “you and I”. I thought the latter was only used with direct speech.
Anyway Ben, what I would like to know is how would you have written this in Spanish ?
Comment from Britta (sífide)
Thanks, Brian, for explaining “you and I / you and me”.
Because of my being German I didn’t know there are two possibilities and always thought one form had to be wrong. I couldn’t look it up anywhere and here I’ve just bumped into the answer after so many years.
So there’s nominative (subject case) or dative/accusative (object case) and it’s easy and logical. One must only know.
Thanks a lot!
Comment from Ben
@Sasha – both!
Comment from Sarah
I agree with this great advice. On a trip to Peru two years ago, I always sat in front while my husband and daughter sat in back. Most of the drivers were very friendly and interested in learning English. I had many mini-intercambios. My husband and daughter, who both spoke much less Spanish, also picked up on a lot from listening and having me translate interesting portions of the conversations. I definitely would have felt differently about these exchanges had I been single though.
Comment from Jason
Controversy??? Who comes to this site to debate English grammar?? Who cares…no one is here to learn the finer points of English. Brian, get out of your little world and come to Spain….no pasa nada tio, tranquilo, todo esta bien. Nobody here really cares about I vs me…I’m more concerned about mixing up pollo and well, you know… and things like that. Jason – Zaragoza.
Comment from sandy
Dear Ben and Marina,
I adore you! I love the podcasts more than any Spanish learning tools I have used in my quest to learn the language that I hear spoken more and more in my home state of Florida. (One-third of the schoolchildren speak Spanish at home in the county where I live, which is the Orlando area.)
My only worry about the slang I’m learning from you two, though, is that it may not be used or even understood correctly in Latin American Spanish. Any thoughts on how to deal with this?
Sandy
PS Thank you so much for the free stuff you provide! I’m buying the non-free stuff as soon as our recession-blasted business starts making money again!
Comment from Ben
@Sandy, some of our slang might not translate to Latin America, but the wonderful thing is that people from other Spanish speaking countries will love to hear the Spanish from Spain version, then they’ll teach you all their slang too! All our other Spanish is totally translatable to all countries in South America.
Comment from Vero
Yo diría que más usual es decir: “te clavan”, “te sablan”, o “te pegan un sablazo”, por lo menos entre los jóvenes, así que ya teneis nuevas expresiones para quejaros!! jeje ^^
Comment from Daisy
This is a great expression! Although in the costal resort where I live you are just as likely to get ‘fusilado’ by a cabbie at this time of year, if mistaken for a tourist.
The more colloquial Spanish you have up your sleeve at such times the better so will certainly hang on to this phrase!