culturealley.com/spanish : Learn Spanish for free using self-paced audio-visual lessons and interactive practice exercises - CultureAlley - master conversations, grammar, vocabulary and more! This lesson will teach you some delightful greetings and pleasantries in Spanish such as please, thank you, welcome, nice to meet you, sorry, excuse me , you're weclome, bye etc. in Spanish.To study this at your own pace, take quizzes and explore more lessons go to www.culturealley.com. See you at the Alley!

1. Thank you!
Gracias
Lesson 2 | Greetings

3. ¡Hola!
Lesson 2 on Basic Spanish!

4. English Spanish
Hello/ Hi! ¡Hola!
Good morning! ¡Buenos días!
Good afternoon!/evening! ¡Buenas tardes!
Good night! ¡Buenas noches!
Do you remember?

5. Good morning = ¡Buenos días!
(masculine)
But
Good afternoon = ¡Buenas tardes!
(feminine)
Adjectives take male and female forms
depending on the gender of the subject
Since días is masculine we used Buenos and tardes is
feminine hence we use Buenas
Do you remember?

6. We always use plural forms for greetings like
Good morning = ¡Buenos días!
Good afternoon = ¡Buenas tardes!
Both días and tardes are
plural hence an 's' is added
Do you remember?

7. 1 Greetings and pleasantries
Lesson objectives

8. The first greeting we will look at is 'Welcome' - used
when welcoming someone to your house
The Spanish word for 'welcome' is a combination of
two words
Welcome = Well + coming / arrival
Well = Bien
coming / arrival = venido (for males)/
venida (for females)
Greetings

9. Welcome
(welcoming someone
to your house)
Bienvenido
(welcoming a male)
Bienvenida
(welcoming a
female)
Greetings

10. When welcoming a female, use Bienvenida
When welcoming a male, use Bienvenido
Remember, we end with 'a' for feminine
forms and 'o' for masculine!
So remember!

11. Let's look at the forms of 'Welcome' if we
were to welcome a group of people
Moving on...

12. Welcome
(welcoming someone
to your house)
Bienvenidos
(group of males/
mixed group)
Bienvenidas
(group of females)
Greetings

13. Remember, we add an 's' at the end for
plural forms!
When welcoming a group of men / mixed
group use Bienvenidos
When welcoming a group of women
use Bienvenidas
So remember!

14. Let's now look at : Nice to meet you
Moving on...

15. The common phrase for 'Nice to meet you'
literally translates to 'Much pleasure'
in Spanish
Greetings

16. Much = Mucho
Pleasure = Gusto
Greetings

17. Did you notice the pronunciation
of 'mucho'?
We earlier learnt that 'h' is always silent
in Spanish...
However when combined with c it is
pronounced as 'ch' as in 'church'
Pronunciation tip

18. Nice to meet you Mucho gusto
As we saw...
Literally : Much pleasure
Mucho = Much
Gusto = Pleasure

19. Let's now look at how we will say 'sorry'
in Spanish...
Moving on...

20. Sorry Lo siento
Greetings

21. Do you remember?
English Spanish
Welcome Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s)
Nice to meet you Mucho gusto
Sorry Lo siento

22. Let’s move forward and look at how we say
‘excuse me’ in Spanish…
Just like in English, excuse me may be used
for two purposes – either to beg pardon or
to seek someone’s attention…
Let’s look at both these forms...
Moving on...

23. Excuse me
(begging pardon)
Perdón
Greetings

24. Excuse me!
(seeking attention)
¡Discúlpeme!
Greetings

25. ¡Discúlpeme! is pronounced as
Dee-skool-pe-me
With the sound of 'pe' like in 'pet'
and 'me' like in 'met'
Grammar tip

26. Let's now look at 'please'
Moving on...

27. Please Por favor
Greetings
Por = For
Favor = Favour
Literally : Asking for favor

28. Let's revise!
English Spanish
Welcome Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s)
Nice to meet you Mucho gusto
Sorry Lo siento
Excuse me (begging pardon) Perdón
Excuse me! (seeking attention) ¡Discúlpeme!
Please Por favor

29. Thank you Gracias
Greetings

30. Pronunciation tip
There's a key difference in how 'Gracias' is pronounced in Europen Spanish vs. Latin American
Spanish
'C' when followed by e/i is pronounced as 'the/thi' in European Spanish and 'se/si' in Latin
American Spanish

31. Pronunciation tip
Hence we will say 'Gra-thee-as' in European Spanish and 'Gra-see-as' in Latin American Spanish

32. Moving on...
Let's now look at 'Fine, thank you'
'Fine' translates to 'Bien' in Spanish

33. Fine, thank you Bien, gracias
Greetings
Bien = Fine/ Well

34. Pronunciation tip
Again, we say 'Bien, gra-thee-as' in Europe and 'Bien, gra-see-as' in
Latin America

35. Moving on...
Now that you know how to say 'thank you' let's also look at how we reply to 'thank you'

36. Moving on...
In Spanish, 'You're welcome' or the reply to 'Thank you' literally translates to 'It's nothing' or 'Of
nothing' loosely meaning 'Don't thank me for anything'
Of = De
Nothing = Nada

37. You’re welcome
(reply to thank you)
De nada
Greetings
De = Of, Nada = Nothing
Literally : 'it's nothing' / 'of nothing'
meaning 'don't thank me for anything'

38. Moving on...
Let's now look at the final greeting for
the day : Bye!

39. Bye! ¡Adiós!
Greetings
Also translated as ‘¡Hasta
luego!’ which means 'Until then!'

40. Did you notice the accent on the 'ó' in ¡Adiós!
If a word is marked with an accent, then
that syllable receives the stress
Pronunciation tip

41. An informal alternative to ¡Adiós! in
some areas is ¡Chao!
Culturally Speaking

42. Excuse me!
(seeking attention)
Do you remember?

43. Excuse me! ¡Discúlpeme!
Solution

44. Bye!
Try yourself

45. Bye! !Adiós!
Solution

46. Sorry
Try yourself

47. Sorry Lo siento
Solution

48. Please
Do you remember?

49. Please Por favor
Solution

50. You're welcome
(in reply to Thank you)
Do you remember?

51. You're welcome De nada
Solution

52. Nice to meet you
Do you remember?

53. Nice to meet you Mucho gusto
Solution

54. Excuse me
(begging pardon)
Do you remember?

55. Excuse me
(begging pardon)
Perdón
Greetings

56. English Spanish
Welcome Bienvenido(s)/Bienvenida(s)
Nice to meet you Mucho gusto
Sorry Lo siento
Excuse me (begging pardon) Perdón
Excuse me! (seeking attention) ¡Discúlpeme!
Please Por favor
Bye! ¡Adiós!
Thank you Gracias
Fine, thank you Bien, gracias
You're welcome De nada
As we saw!

57. Some English subtleties / polite words are
not as widely used in Spanish
This may make the language
sound brash at first – but that’s
not really true...
Culture leaf

58. Eg: You may notice that ‘por favor’ isn’t as widely
used as ‘please’ in English
Instead of adding extra words (like por favor), we
just turn a request into a question and it’s considered
just as polite
Eg: ¿Abres la ventana?
(Can) you (please) open the window?
Although we don’t really translate the ‘please’
Culture leaf

59. As we saw with ¡!, did you notice the ¿ ? in
¿Abres la ventana?
In Spanish all questions start with a '¿' and
end with a '?'
The '¿' is used to communicate the tone of the
statement (question tone) in the beginning itself
Did you notice?

60. Very well! Now that you know how to meet
and greet, the next lesson will cover some
essential topics needed for moving on to
conversational modules
Next lesson will focus on personal pronouns
and their usage with examples
What’s next?

61. Content
Team CultureAlley, Okairy Zuñiga,
Tomasa Merino Martin
Voice over
Jorge Garcia Rey
Credits

62. See you at the Alley!

63. Lesson 3 | Personal pronouns