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!
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