Lesson 07: Orientándose, getting our bearings straight

Hey! que tal? - Free spanish lessons

Hola y bienvenidos a un nuevo capitulo de Hey Que tal? Lecciones de español gratuitas, mi nombre es Pablo Apiolazza y como veniamos hablando de viajar hoy vamos a hablar de orientación.
Hi and welcome to a new chapter of Hey Que tal? Free spanish lessons. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and since we´ve been talking about travelling today we´re going to talk about bearings.
When we get to a new place one of the first things we do is grab a map. Spanish for map is very easy: Mapa.
The map has cardinal points, puntos cardinales.
North is Norte
South is Sur
East is Este
and West is Oeste
When we navigate on a map, the places are either north, south, east or west of other places. For instance, in Buenos Aires, the airport is out of town, south west from the city. The way to say this is the following
En Buenos Aires, el aeropuerto está en las afueras, al sudeste de la ciudad.
In other words, the city is placed at north of the airport.
La ciudad esta al norte del aeropuerto.
If we are on the city, you wouldn´t be lying if you say "I´m in the middle of the city" Estoy en el medio de la ciudad.
Today with GPS and the internet maps getting some bearings is much easier, but nevertheless sometimes we need to ask people for directions. And when we do, they don´t express themselves in terms of north or south, but in terms of position.
The four basic are
Ahead or front, which is adelante
Back or behind, which is atrás
Left, that is Izquierda
and Right, Derecha
So let´s say we are at the obelisco in Buenos Aires, and we want to know how to go to the lakes in Palermo district. If we face north our nice helper would tell us to go straight ahead for 16 blocks, then turn left where the street ends, then straight and we´ll see the lakes on our right.
Sounds hard, right? Let´s see how to say this in spanish.
First the question.
Excuse me, how do I get to the lakes in Palermo?
Disculpá, cómo llego a los lagos de Palermo?
The answer would be
You have to go straight ahead for 16 blocks
Tenés que ir derecho unas 16 cuadras
then turn left where the street ends
después doblar a la izquierda donde termina la calle
then straight and you´ll see the lakes on your right.
después derecho y vas a ver a los lagos a tu derecha.
There are two more ways we can go besides those, and they are up, and down.
Up is Arriba
Down is Abajo
To go up is subir
and to go down is bajar
Since Buenos Aires is a rather flat city, we cannot subir or bajar that much, but if you go to a place with mountains, like Mendoza, then it makes more sense.
However, one way to give a direction is to say go up street. We use that too, saying "subí por esa calle" (go up street) or "baja por esa calle" (walk down that street).
Well, this is pretty much it for today, on the upcoming episodes we´ll learn more about specific places of Argentina, to start to learn some other things too. Don´t forget to comment, rate and share the podcasts on the website heyquetal.blogspot.com, on our facebook fansite hey que tal, or thru our tweeter
account, heyquetal. My name is Pablo Apiolazza and this is Hey que tal? Free spanish lessons.
Stay tuned, and goodbye!