Love-Spanish.com: Shopping For Electrical Goods

Monday, 19 March 2012

Shopping For Electrical Goods

Introduction

This post deals with shopping in general, and more specifically with shopping for electrical goods.

SCENARIO

Imagine you walk into an electrical goods shop. After exchanging customary greetings, the shop assistant decides to say to you something like: "can I help you/ how can I help you?"

In Spanish, the other person could choose to be less formal and say:

¿Qué deseas?

Alternatively, he/ she could choose to be more formal and say:

¿Que desea (usted)?

OUR TIP

The question in Spanish is an invitation for you to say what you want/ what you are after. Answering that question should be quite straightforward and depends mainly on what you are looking for. In fact, naming the appliance you are looking for should be sufficient.

Here are some examples of answers:

Quería un frigorífico (I would like a fridge);
Quería una nevera (I would like a fridge);
Quería un congelador (I would like a freezer);
Quería un frigorífico-congelador (I would like a fridge freezer);
Quería una cocina de gas (I would like a gas cooker).
Quería una cocina eléctrica (I would like an electric cooker);
Quería una lavadora automática (I would like an automatic washing machine).
Quería un lava-vajillas (I would like a dishwasher).
Quería una aspiradora (I would like a vacuum cleaner).
Quería una cadena de musica (I would like a sound system);
Quería un televisor de alta definición (I would like a HDTV set);
Quería una cámara digital (I would like a digital camera);
Quería una cámara de vídeo digital (I would like a digital video camera);
Quería un ordenador* de sobremesa (I would like a desk top pc);
Quería un ordenador* de portátil (I would like a laptop);