The short version
- Learn the animal, the breed and where it came from, plus a few words for personality.
- Se pasa el día… and Le da miedo… let you describe habits, which is where the conversation gets interesting.
- Know the questions people ask about pets, and have an answer ready even if you don't have one.
Show someone a photo of your dog and the conversation more or less starts itself. That's why pets are one of the best topics to learn early. If you can talk about pets in Spanish, you've got something to say in the park, at work, with the neighbours and with pretty much anyone who has an animal.
It's also a topic that stays useful. The same structures you use for your cat work for describing people, talking about your family and telling short stories.
Pets was one of the themes I made flashcard decks for when I moved to Spain. Below are the words, structures and questions that make up the conversation.
The words you'll need
Start with your own animal and a few words around it. You don't need a full list of every animal in Spanish, just the ones you'll actually talk about.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| el perro / la perra | the dog (male / female) |
| el gato / la gata | the cat (male / female) |
| el conejo | the rabbit |
| el periquito | the budgie |
| la tortuga | the tortoise / turtle |
| el cachorro | the puppy |
| el gatito | the kitten |
| la raza | the breed |
| mestizo / mestiza | mixed breed |
| la protectora | the animal shelter |
In Spanish you usually say whether a dog or cat is male or female. Tengo una perra tells people straight away that she's a girl, and everything that follows (es muy buena, la adoptamos) matches.
When you talk about your pet, the little words change with it. For a male dog it's lo: Lo saco por la mañana. For a female dog it's la: La saco por la mañana. Le stays the same for both: Le encanta la playa. Get the gender right at the start and the rest follows.
Describing personality
Everyone says their pet is lovely. The fun part is the detail. These adjectives go further than bonito and bueno.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| mimoso / mimosa | cuddly, loves attention |
| miedoso / miedosa | nervous, easily scared |
| dormilón / dormilona | a sleepyhead |
| glotón / glotona | greedy (with food) |
| travieso / traviesa | naughty |
| pesado / pesada | a pain, annoying (said with affection) |
| independiente | independent |
Pesado is very common in Spain, and when people say it about their own pet it's usually affectionate. Es un pesado, no me deja en paz means something like "He's a pain, he won't leave me alone", said with a smile.
Describing habits
Habits are what make a pet conversation interesting. A few structures cover most of them:
| Structure | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Se pasa el día + -ando / -iendo | He / She spends all day… | Se pasa el día durmiendo. |
| Siempre está + -ando / -iendo | He's / She's always… | Siempre está pidiendo comida. |
| Le da miedo + singular | He's / She's scared of… | Le da miedo la aspiradora. |
| Le dan miedo + plural | He's / She's scared of… | Le dan miedo los petardos. |
| Odia… | He / She hates… | Odia el agua. |
| Cada vez que…, … | Every time…, … | Cada vez que llego a casa, se vuelve loco. |
Se vuelve loco (he goes mad) is a good one to have, because every dog owner has a story that ends with it. For a female dog it's se vuelve loca.
Where your pet came from
People often ask how you got your pet. It's a nice chance to tell a short story in the past, and it's easy to build up a piece at a time.
- La adoptamos.We adopted her.
- La adoptamos hace tres años.We adopted her three years ago.
- La adoptamos hace tres años en una protectora de Valencia.We adopted her three years ago from a shelter in Valencia.
- La adoptamos hace tres años en una protectora de Valencia, y ahora es la reina de la casa.We adopted her three years ago from a shelter in Valencia, and now she runs the house.
Other ways it might go: Me lo encontré en la calle (I found him on the street), Era de mi abuela (He was my grandmother's) or Lo compramos de cachorro (We got him as a puppy).
The questions people ask
If you're in a park in Spain with a dog, people will often stop to talk to you. These are the questions you'll hear, and the ones you can ask back.
¿Puedo acariciarlo? or ¿Puedo acariciarla? is worth learning on its own. It's polite, people appreciate being asked, and it often starts a longer chat.
If you don't have a pet
You'll still get asked ¿Tienes mascotas?, so have an answer that keeps the conversation going instead of stopping it with No.
- No, pero de pequeño tenía un perro. (No, but I had a dog when I was little.) Use de pequeña if you're a woman.
- Me encantaría tener un gato, pero mi casero no me deja. (I'd love a cat, but my landlord won't let me.)
- Soy más de perros. (I'm more of a dog person.)
- Me dan un poco de miedo los perros grandes. (Big dogs scare me a bit.)
Then ask about theirs. ¿Y tú? ¿Tienes alguna? (What about you? Have you got one?) hands the conversation back.
Practise it with a photo
Open a photo of your pet, or any pet you know. Set a timer for one minute and describe it out loud: what it's like, one habit, and where it came from. Then ask three questions you could ask its owner. Do the same photo every day this week. By day five you'll hear the difference in how smoothly it comes out.
If you want to go through a whole conversation step by step, from the first words to recording yourself, this post on why you go blank when you speak uses pets as its example. Once pets feels comfortable, hobbies is a good next topic, because a lot of the same structures carry over.
Recap
- Learn your pet's animal, gender, breed and where it came from.
- Use personality words like mimoso, miedoso and pesado to add detail.
- Describe habits with se pasa el día, siempre está and le da miedo.
- Know the questions people ask, including ¿Puedo acariciarlo?
- Have an answer ready even if you don't have a pet.
Pets is one of the themes in 100 Spanish Conversations, with flashcards, sentence building and a conversation to practise it out loud. When you've done your one-minute photo talk, post the recording in the Skool community. Bonus points if the pet makes an appearance.
Leeroy studied Spanish for years before moving to Spain and finding he couldn't hold a conversation. He built Basically Spanish around the method that fixed it. Questions? leeroy@basicallyspanish.com