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Phone and internet

From asking for the wifi password to buying a prepaid SIM, these are the phrases you will use in your first hour in a new Spanish city.

Quick answer

¿Cuál es la contraseña del wifi?

What is the wifi password? Spaniards pronounce wifi roughly as "wee-fee", so listen for that rather than the English sound.

The words

SpanishEnglish
el móvilthe mobile phone
la tarjeta SIMthe SIM card
los datosthe data
la coberturathe coverage
la contraseñathe password
la redthe network
el cargadorthe charger
la llamadathe call
el mensajethe message
la bateríathe battery
la pantallathe screen
el saldothe credit
la facturathe bill
la tarifathe tariff
el enlacethe link

The phrases you will actually say

¿Cuál es la contraseña del wifi?What is the wifi password?
Aquí no tengo cobertura.I have no signal here.
Quiero una tarjeta SIM de prepago.I would like a prepaid SIM card.
¿Cuántos gigas incluye la tarifa?How many gigabytes does the tariff include?
Se me está acabando la batería.My battery is running out.

Worth knowing

Buying a prepaid SIM in Spain is quick but not anonymous: shops are legally required to register the card to an identity document, so take your passport or you will be turned away. The bigger cultural surprise is how much runs on WhatsApp. Plumbers, hairdressers, driving schools, physiotherapists and even some health centres expect you to message them rather than call, and a business card will often show a WhatsApp number instead of an email address. Vocabulary also splits by region: in Spain a mobile is el móvil, while most of Latin America says el celular, and a Spaniard will understand celular but immediately mark you as someone who learned Spanish on the other side of the Atlantic.

Practice

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What do people in Spain usually call a mobile phone?

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