- In this video, we're going to learn how to ask
for the bill in Spanish.
Let's go!
(upbeat music)
- Hello everyone and welcome to Coffee Break Spanish
I'm Mark.
- And I'm Marina.
- And we're back!
We're back with another video and we are going to
be answering a question that comes from Xavier.
Xavier says:
I know "la cuenta, por favor,"
but are there other ways to ask for the check
or the bill in Spanish?
So, Marina, there are, indeed, many ways
to ask for the bill when you're finished your meal
or finished your snack at the restaurant or cafe.
- Yes, there are.
And this is a very useful question, I think. Yes.
So we can say "la cuenta, por favor"
which is a great one.
- So, "la cuenta, por favor".
So you're just saying, "the bill please"
or "the check, please".
- You can also ask for it and you can say
"¿me trae la cuenta?"
- So literally, "will you bring me"
or "can you bring me the bill?".
"Me trae la cuenta".
And you could add in a "por favor" if you want to be polite.
- We could use the conditional and you can say,
"¿podría traerme la cuenta?"
- ¿Podría traerme la cuenta?
Okay, so "could you bring me the bill?"
"¿Podría traerme la cuenta?"
- You could ask,
"¿qué le debo?"
- Ah, okay.
So, "what do I owe you?"
"¿Qué le debo?"
That's from the verb "deber",
which literally means "to owe".
"¿Qué le debo?"
- Or you could ask,
"¿qué se debe?"
- Interesting. "What is owed?"
Making it kind of impersonal, yeah?
- We don't know who is going to pay, just asking.
- Okay. "¿Qué se debe?"
"¿Qué se debe?": "what is owed?"
- Mm hmm. "¿Me cobra?"
- That's a very common one.
I've heard that many, many times.
So, literally, "will you cover me?", kind of thing.
"Will you round things up and give me the price?"
So, "¿me cobra?"
- Or yes, you could say "¿se cobra?"
- So, "¿se cobra?"
So again, the kind of impersonal version of that.
"¿Me cobra?", "¿se cobra?".
- And of course, you always can use either "tú"
or "usted" depending maybe on the age
of the person who is going to bring you the bill
or that's up to the situation.
And you could also ask, "¿cuánto es?"
- Okay. So just "how much is it?"
That's a useful phrase for many situations.
So "¿cuánto es?", "how much is it?"
"¿Cuánto es?"
- Because we can use this when we are asking for the bill
or also if you wanted to know the price of something,
you could also ask, "¿cuánto es?"
- Okay. While we're on that,
will we do some other phrases for "how much is it" as well?
- Yeah, we could say,
"¿cuánto cuesta?"
- Okay. So "how much does it cost?"
"¿Cuánto cuesta?"
"How much does it cost?"
- Or "¿cuánto vale?"
- Right. Literally "how much is it worth?"
"¿Cuánto vale?".
"How much is it worth?"
Could we also say, "¿qué vale?"
- Yes. In this case,
instead of using "cuánto" we could use "qué"
and say, "¿qué vale?"
"¿Qué vale?". Very good.
- And using "qué", we could also ask,
"¿Qué precio tiene?"
- "¿Qué precio tiene?"
So "what price does it have" literally.
"¿Qué precio tiene?"
Very good.
Okay. So, what I'm going to do here
is just draw a little line here.
Because these ones, this one works for both.
So "¿cuánto es?", you can use that for the bill.
But these ones below are more about "how much does it cost"
if you're in a shop, that kind of idea.
But all the ones above this line are,
"can you bring me the bill please", the check please,
something like that.
Let's go through all of these now
just to practice the pronunciation
so that you've got lots of different ways
of asking for the bill in a restaurant.
So, beginning with "the bill, please".
- "La cuenta, por favor."
- Okay. "Can you bring me the bill?"
- "¿Me trae la cuenta?"
- "Could you bring me the bill?"
- "¿Podría traerme la cuenta?"
- Okay. "What do I owe you?"
- "¿Qué le debo?"
- And the impersonal way of asking that:
"what is owed?"
- "¿Qué se debe?"
- The other way of, "what do I owe you?"
or something like that.
- "¿Me cobra?"
- "¿Me cobra?": "Will you charge me?"
And the impersonal form?
- "¿Se cobra?"
- "¿Se cobra?". Okay.
And then the general statement that means
"how much is it?"
- "¿Cuánto es?"
- "¿Cuánto es?"
And then some other versions:
"how much does it cost?"
- "¿Cuánto cuesta?"
- "¿Cuánto cuesta?"
How much is it worth?
- "¿Cuánto vale?"
- Literally, but of course you can use it
for "how much does it cost?".
And another version of that?
- "¿Qué vale?"
- And our last one, "what price is it?"
- "¿Qué precio tiene?"
- There we have it.
So lots of different ways
of asking for the price, or indeed, asking for the bill.
Xavier, I hope that answers your question.
And if you have a question like Xavier,
then make sure you get in touch.
Simply go to coffeebreakquestions.com
where you'll be able to leave your question.
And we'll hopefully be able to include that
in a future episode of our show.
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That's it!
- Remember to practice. Yes?
You can post your comment
with your sentence asking for a bill,
or maybe if you go somewhere and ask for the bill in Spanish
just let us know and share it with us in a comment below.
- Exactly. We'd love to hear your stories
of asking for the bill.
And also if things have gone wrong
it's always good to hear those kinds of stories too.
So we're looking forward to your comments.
Thank you very much as always, and see you next time!
- See you soon!
(upbeat music)