It is not that we are encouraging you to go out and enjoy the vibrant and lively Spanish nightlife, but we know that you will! Above everything else, if you meet Spaniards, you will see that any excuse is a good one for having a drink on a terrace, for eating outside, for going to some kind of show or for going shopping. It is all about the social life here in Spain, and the native speakers here will be all the more talkative if you start to chat with them while they are out and about having fun than they would be just on the street in a normal situation.
We are going to give you a couple of pieces of advice to ensure that you have the best possible time: firstly, make sure that you trust your Spanish friends as they will always know where the best places to eat are, where the cheapest beers are sold and where the best places to listen to the latest music are and secondly, make sure you take note of the following terms. This is a list of vocabulary which we have assembled for you with both Spanish and English translations so that you can see what you need to talk about while you are out, including lots of useful words which will help you to organise the night out in the first place or plan the next one once you have met your new friends and decided that you want to meet up again later on. We have gathered the terms that you might need in several places – if you go out for a bite to eat at a restaurant in order to sample some traditional Spanish cuisine; if you go around town and sample the nightlife there; if you go out shopping during the day to pick up some things which you can take home; and if you go out to the beach, which is always a favourite hotspot amongst those who are visiting Spain or taking a language course in one of the coastal cities.
There are a lot of things that you might need to say in these different places, even if you are not really as interested in socialising as others are. You might need to discuss items on the menu with your waiter, to take certain things off the item that you want to eat or add certain things to it, and of course you also want to be able to understand the menu in the first place. You might need to ask someone if you can borrow some sunscreen, or go into a shop and find out whether you can buy it there – and if you are shopping for clothes or shoes you might need to ask the shop assistant if they can find something in your size. When you are out and about around the town you might need directions to a certain place, so you need to know what it is called in Spanish.