Exchanging Your Dollars for the Local Currency
Each country has its own currency, so when you travel in Spanish-speaking countries, you need to use the local currency to make your transactions. Don’t use your dollars to buy Spanish goods or services because the exchange won’t be advantageous.
When you want to exchange your dollars for the local currency, take a look at the signs telling you how much you’ll get for your dollar. At stores, restaurants, and such, the amount of local money you get for your dollar is less than what exchange bureaus or banks give you. So your purchase may be more expensive than if you pay in local money.
Banks and exchange bureaus charge a fee for their services; the fee is reflected in the way they chart their prices. Check those charts first. In some areas, the banks might be more expensive than the exchange bureaus because they charge some extra amount or commission; in other areas, this situation might be reversed. In any case you will see signs stating, for example:
Dollar USA — Buy 9.70 — Sell 9.80
What this means is that the company or bank buys your U.S. Dollars for 9.70 of the local currency. And if you want to buy dollars, they’ll charge you 9.80. So they are making ten cents of their currency on every dollar they handle.
The exchange bureaus give you formal receipts, just as banks do; these receipts are the proofs of purchase that you need when you discover that something is amiss with your money. So instead of exchanging your money on the street, look for the sign that says cambio (kahm-bveeoh) (exchange).
These phrases come in handy when exchanging money:
¿Dónde puedo cambiar dólares? (dohn-deh pooeh-doh kahm-bveeahr doh-lah-rehs) (Where can I exchange dollars?)
Una cuadra a la derecha hay una agencia. (oo-nah kooah-drah ah lah deh-reh-chah ahy oo-nah ah-Hehn-seeah) (One block to the right, there’s an exchange bureau.)
Dónde encuentro una casa de cambio? (dohn-deh ehn-kooehn-troh oo-nah kah-sah deh kahm-bveeoh) (Where can I find a place to exchange money?)
In this conversation, José Manuel exchanges some currency:
José Manuel:
¿A cuánto está el dólar americano?
ah kooahn-toh ehs-tah ehl doh-lahr ah-meh-ree-kah-noh
What’s the exchange for the U.S. dollar?
Bureau attendant:
¿A la compra o a la venta?
ah lah kohm-prah oh ah lah bvehn-tah
Buying or selling?
José Manuel:
A la venta.
ah lah bvehn-tah
Selling.
Bureau attendant:
A nueve ochenta.
ah nooeh-bveh oh-chehn-tah
At nine eighty.
José Manuel:
¿Y a la compra?
ee ah lah kohm-prah
And buying?
Bureau attendant:
A nueve setenta.
ah nooeh-bveh seh-tehn-tah
At nine seventy.
José Manuel:
¿Me cambia cien, por favor?
meh kahm-bveeah seeehn poh fah-bvohr
Will you exchange me one hundred, please?
Bureau attendant:
Cómo no, aquí tiene el recibo, aquí el dinero.
koh-moh noh, ah-kee-teeeh-neh ehl reh-see-bvoh ah-kee ehl dee-neh-roh
Sure, here’s the receipt, here’s the money.

Spanish Glossary
adjective
A word that describes a noun or pronoun, giving it specific attributes or characteristics.

Spanish Glossary
adverb
A word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb by expressing time, place, degree, and so on. Many Spanish adverbs end in -mente.

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bartering
Giving goods or services in return for other goods and services, as opposed to the exchange of money.

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cardinal number
Any number used in counting or showing how many.

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comparative
A form of an adjective or adverb which indicates that one thing has some feature to a greater or lesser extent than the thing it is being compared to. Example: slower, more believable.

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conditional
A verb tense that expresses an action that should have, could have, or would have happened if the conditions were right.

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conjugate
To give different forms of a verb according to voice, mood, tense, number, and person. A conjugated verb is a verb that has been changed from its infinitive form to a form that agrees with the subject.

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consonant
Any of the letters b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z; the double letters ch, ll, and rr may also be considered consonants in Spanish.

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customs
1. The government agency in charge of collecting taxes or duties imposed on imported and/or exported goods. 2. The common social acts and conventions of a particular area.

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declare
To inform customs officials of any goods you’re carrying that may be taxable.

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definite article
Any one of the words el, la, los, or las used as adjectives to point out a specific noun.

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demonstrative adjective
An adjective that indicates or points out this, that, these, or those people, places, or things to which a speaker is referring.

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demonstrative pronoun
Replaces a demonstrative adjective and its noun.

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diminutive
1. Small. 2. A word that has been altered with a suffix to indicate a degree of smallness, often ending with -ito or -ita.

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diphthong
A complex vowel sound made by gliding from one vowel sound to the next within the same syllable.

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direct object noun
A sentence element that answers the question, Whom or what is the subject acting upon? and may refer to people, places, things, or ideas.

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direct object pronoun
Replaces a direct object noun and agrees with it in number and gender.

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duty
A tax imposed on imports, exports, or manufactured goods.

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future
Verb tense indicating an action to come.

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gerund
A verb form that ends in -ing and works like a noun. Spanish gerunds are also derived from verbs.

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haggling
Negotiations between a seller and a buyer to come to an agreement upon the price of an item for sale. The vendor typically proposes a high price while the buyer suggests a significantly lower price, and, through bartering, the two typically meet somewhere in the middle.

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imperative
A verb mood that indicates a command or request.

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imperfect
Verb tense indicating a continuing, uncompleted, customary, or simultaneous past action.

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indefinite article
Any one of the words un, una, unos, or unas used as adjectives to point out some person, place, thing, or idea, but not a specific one.

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indirect object noun
Answers the question To or for whom is the subject doing something? and refers only to people or beloved pets.

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indirect object pronoun
Replaces an indirect object noun, but is also used when the indirect object noun is mentioned.

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infinitive
The unconjugated form of a verb — dormir (to sleep), for example.

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interrogative adverb
An adverb used to ask a question.

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interrogative pronoun
A word that replaces a noun and is used to ask a question.

Spanish Glossary
market
1. (noun) In Spanish cultures, a traditional market is where vendors gather to sell their goods. Markets may be open or under a roof, and they offer a less formal shopping environment than typical supermarkets or grocery stores. Prices are usually negotiable. 2. (verb) To advertise and sell an item.

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mood
1. A characteristic of a verb that indicates the manner in which the action occurs. 2. A characteristic of a person that indicates the overall emotional state of that person.

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ordinal number
A number used to indicate order in a particular series.

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past participle
A form of a verb that expresses a completed action or a time gone by.

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possessive adjective
A word that goes before the noun that’s possessed in order to express my, your, his, her, its, our, or their.

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possessive pronoun
A word that replaces a noun and its possessive adjective and indicates ownership.

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preposition
A word that connects nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, or verbs to nouns/pronouns and shows their relationship to one another.

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prepositional pronoun
A pronoun that serves as the object of a preposition and always follows the preposition.

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preterit
Verb tense expressing a past action or state.

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pronoun
A word that takes the place of a noun in a sentence.

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reflexive pronoun
A pronoun used in conjunction with a reflexive verb to express that an action is performed by a subject on itself.

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reflexive verb
A verb that indicates that the sentence's subject is acting upon itself. Reflexive verbs require reflexive pronouns.

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stem-changing verb
A verb that requires an internal change in the vowel before the -ar, -er, or -ir infinitive ending in all the singular and third-person plural forms of certain tenses.

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subject pronoun
A pronoun used as a subject.

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subjunctive
A grammatical mood indicating uncertainty, desire, supposition, hypothetical and theoretical situations, or impersonal opinions.

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subordinate clause
A part of a sentence containing a subject and verb that can’t stand on its own but describes something in the larger sentence.

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suffix
Letters added to the end of a word that change its meaning, give it a different grammatical function, or form a new word.

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superlative
A form of an adjective or adverb which indicates that one thing has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to. Example: greatest, most honorable

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syllable
A word or part of a word pronounced with a single sound, usually consisting of a vowel and one or more consonants.

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tilde
A mark (~) used in Spanish over an n to indicate the ny sound.

Spanish Glossary
vowel
Any of the letters a, e, i, o, and u. The letter y is never a vowel in the Spanish language, unlike its use in English.