Day 2
El piso
The flat. Lucía shows Marta her room, a family photograph and the laundromat downstairs.
Read the whole lesson
The conversation: El piso (The flat)
Lucía shows Marta her room, a family photograph and the laundromat downstairs.
- Lucía
- Esta es tu habitación.This is your room.
- Marta
- ¡Qué bonita! ¿Y esa foto?It’s so pretty! And that photo?
- Lucía
- Es mi abuela Fina.That’s my grandmother, Fina.
- Marta
- Ah… ¿Y la cocina?Ah… And the kitchen?
- Lucía
- Aquí. El baño también.Here. The bathroom too.
- Marta
- Vale. ¿Hay lavadora?OK. Is there a washing machine?
- Lucía
- No, pero abajo hay una lavandería: Lavandería Fina.No, but downstairs there’s a laundromat: Lavandería Fina.
- Marta
- Fina… como tu abuela.Fina… like your grandmother.
Notes
1. El piso
El piso means “the flat.” Piso is masculine, so it takes el. Picture Piso as Pisa’s masculine cousin: a different word from the Italian city, but an easy way to remember el piso.
2. Esta es tu habitación
Esta es tu habitación means “This is your room.” Use esta with a feminine thing and este with a masculine one: este es un coche (“this is a car”). Learn esta es… and este es… as small introduction formulas.
3. Tu and mi
Tu means “your” and mi means “my”; neither changes for gender. The accent distinguishes tú (“you”) from tu (“your”).
4. ¡Qué bonita!
¡Qué bonita! means “It’s so pretty!” Use ¡qué…! with a describing word to form an exclamation; bonita ends in -a because it describes habitación.
5. ¿Y esa foto?
Esa points to a feminine thing a little farther away: esa foto, “that photo”. It is not es: es is the verb in Es mi abuela Fina (“It is my grandmother Fina”). La foto is feminine despite ending in -o.
6. Aquí and también
Aquí means “here” and también means “too” or “also.” Both will appear constantly from now on.
7. La cocina and el baño
La cocina means “the kitchen” and el baño means “the bathroom.” Spanish uses la with feminine nouns and el with masculine nouns.
8. El baño también
After aquí (“here”), el baño también literally says “the bathroom too.” Natural English adds what Spanish leaves understood: “And the bathroom is here too.” Both translations help here because Spanish is answering with a short fragment.
9. Vale
Vale means “OK” in Spain. You will hear it constantly, often doubled as vale, vale.
10. ¿Hay lavadora?
¿Hay lavadora? means “Is there a washing machine?” Hay means “there is” or “there are” and never changes; put no directly before it to say something is absent.
11. Lavadora and lavandería
Lavandería means “laundromat,” while lavadora means “washing machine.” Both come from lavar (“to wash”): one is the place and the other is the machine.
A flat tells you its age
During Spain’s rapid urban growth from the 1960s onward, enormous numbers of new flats had to be finished quickly and affordably. Details left from that period can still make an older home instantly recognizable.
One of them is el gotelé: thick paint sprayed in fine droplets. A smooth wall needs careful plastering because light reveals every bump; gotelé hides small imperfections, so builders could finish walls faster and spend less on making them perfectly even.
Today many people remove it for a smoother look, but quitar el gotelé can be slow and messy because the wall underneath may need levelling again. The texture is a small piece of Spain’s housing history still visible inside an ordinary home.