12 Essential Spanish Questions Every Expat Should Know 🇪🇸
You're in Spain. Everything is going well... until suddenly you need a taxi, you don't understand a word, you need help, you want to know the precio, or somebody starts speaking Spanish at approximately 300 kilometres per hour.
This is when ExpatFriend comes to the rescue. You don't need 5,000 Spanish words. Sometimes you need one good question at exactly the right moment.
Here are twelve questions and expressions that can help you survive dozens of everyday situations in Spain.
🎯 Your mission: 12 phrases, dozens of situations
Today we're going to build a small but powerful Spanish emergency toolkit.
After this lesson you should be able to:
- ask for help;
- ask someone to repeat something;
- ask people to speak more slowly;
- ask about prices;
- ask where something is;
- ask what a word means;
- find transport;
- introduce yourself and ask basic personal questions.
Level: A1–A2 · Goal: independence · Rule: communication before perfection.
👀 ExpatFriend's visual survival card
Start with the infographic. Don't study it like an exam. Look at the situations and ask yourself: “Which of these sentences could I genuinely need tomorrow?”
ExpatFriend Survival Card · Neuro-Spanish for You!
🎥 Say it with Manuel
This lesson is perfect for pronunciation practice. When the video is added, don't just watch it: pause it and repeat every sentence aloud.
12 questions in under 3 minutes
Teacher video coming soon: Manuel pronounces each survival phrase slowly, then at natural speed, leaving time for you to repeat it.
🎧 Listen → pause → repeat → use it in real life.
🛟 The ExpatFriend 12
Press the audio button, listen and repeat. Try to learn the whole expression, not isolated words.
👨🏫 Manuel's Spanish Tip: don't learn 12 sentences — learn the patterns
Here is the trick. These aren't really only twelve phrases. Several of them are language machines. Change one word and you can create dozens of new questions.
Pattern 1: ¿Dónde está...?
¿Dónde está el hotel?
Where is the hotel?
Now replace hotel:
- ¿Dónde está el supermercado?
- ¿Dónde está la farmacia?
- ¿Dónde está el centro de salud?
- ¿Dónde está la estación?
- ¿Dónde está el baño?
Pattern 2: ¿Cuánto cuesta...?
- ¿Cuánto cuesta esto?
- ¿Cuánto cuesta el billete?
- ¿Cuánto cuesta la habitación?
- ¿Cuánto cuesta por noche?
Pattern 3: ¿Puede...?
- ¿Puede ayudarme?
- ¿Puede repetirlo?
- ¿Puede hablar más despacio?
- ¿Puede escribirlo?
Now twelve phrases have suddenly become dozens of possible conversations.
☀️ One morning in Spain: six mini-emergencies
Let's see what happens when ExpatFriend leaves home with very little Spanish and a suspicious amount of confidence.
The waiter says something at lightning speed. ExpatFriend smiles bravely: “¿Puede hablar más despacio, por favor?”
Something looks delicious. Nobody knows what it is. “¿Cuánto cuesta eso?” Problem solved.
Google Maps has apparently decided to take the morning off. “Perdone, ¿dónde está la farmacia?”
A friendly neighbour gives a beautiful thirty-second explanation. ExpatFriend understands approximately four seconds. “¿Puede repetirlo?”
“¿Dónde puedo encontrar un taxi?”
The taxi arrives, but now comes another problem: “¿Dónde está el hotel?”
☀️ Six problems · Six questions · Zero panic.
🚨 If you only learn FOUR today, learn these
Twelve is great. But if you're starting Spanish today, I would put these four in your emergency kit first:
These phrases don't require advanced grammar. They simply help you keep the conversation alive.
🙂 Add two tiny words and sound much better
Spanish survival becomes friendlier with:
Perdone... + por favor.
Compare:
¿Dónde está la farmacia?
with:
Perdone, ¿dónde está la farmacia, por favor?
You haven't learned a new grammar chapter. You've simply made your Spanish more socially useful.
🧠 NeuroTip: The 3 × 3 × 3 Challenge
Don't repeat all twelve phrases twenty times. Try this instead.
- Choose 3 phrases you genuinely need.
- Say each phrase 3 times aloud.
- Use or recall them at 3 different moments today.
Tomorrow choose another three. You're building retrieval pathways instead of simply staring at vocabulary.
🧠 Challenge accepted: +30 NeuroXP
🎮 ExpatFriend Emergency Game
Real life gives you a problem. You choose the Spanish rescue phrase.
⭐ XP: 0 · 🔥 Streak: 0
🏆 The 60-Second Survival Test
No notes. No translator. Just you and your Spanish.
🛂 Your ExpatFriend Survival Passport
These twelve expressions open the door to much bigger real-life lessons. Think of them as your basic Spanish passport.
As this series grows, we'll use these same language patterns inside complete real-life situations.
🚀 Close this page and try this
Can you say these without looking?
- Can you help me?
- Can you repeat that?
- Can you speak more slowly?
- How much does it cost?
- Where is the pharmacy?
If you can produce the Spanish before checking the answers above, you've done something much more useful than simply reading this page.
🏆 EXPATFRIEND SURVIVAL MISSION COMPLETE · +50 XP
🧭 From 12 questions to real Spanish
This is your starting point. Now take these expressions into real situations.
On Neuro-Spanish for You! we're building practical lessons for international residents and visitors: booking a hotel, enrolling children at school, visiting a health centre, shopping, dealing with local administration, travelling and solving the little problems of everyday life in Spain.
Spanish isn't only something you study. It's something you use.
❤️ Join the Neuro-Spanish journey
If these twelve questions made Spanish feel a little easier, follow Neuro-Spanish for You!
We'll keep turning real life in Spain into practical Spanish lessons.
☀️ Spain · 🧠 Neurolearning · 🗣️ Communication · 🎮 Learning by doing
