Do you dread the thought of going to the hairdressers in a Spanish speaking country? Would you rather wait until you get home or take the scissors to your hair yourself than go and have to sit and struggle through a very painful hairdressing appointment? Well in today’s blogpost you’re going to learn some Spanish vocabulary and phrases that will make your hairdressing experience in a Spanish speaking country much more enjoyable.
Just like in the UK, hairdressers all over the world are social places. So when you walk into the Peluquería in a Spanish speaking country, you’re going to be greeted with the usual;
Hola, buenos días, buenas tardes, ¿como está? – Hi, good morning/good afternoon, how are you?
¿En que le puedo ayudar? – How can I help you?
¿Tienes reservar? ¿Tienes turno? ” – Do you have an appointment?
All of these different annotations and questions that you need to be ready for the second you walk through the door.
We all know that Buenos días means good morning and buenas tardes good afternoon. If you’re walking into a hairdresser that you’ve not been to before you’re going to be treated, and how you must treat them, formally. For example:
A) ¿Como esta?
B) Muy bien, gracias.
And then asking if you have an appointment. This word could be different in different countries, but the most common one for talking about a hair appointment is un turno or Una cita. You can use this for a trip to the doctors as well. And you might be asked:
¿Tiene turno/cita? – Have you got an appointment/ are you booked in?
So be prepared, before you walk in, for those kinds of questions.
So you might want to respond with:
Si tengo turno a las… Yes, I have an appointment at …
and then whatever time your appointment is. You’re going to need to read one of my other blogposts to be able to tell the time in Spanish. But for example maybe I have an appointment at 2:30 I would say:
Si, tengo turno a las dos y media or a las catorce y treinta. Yes, I have an appointment at 2.30pm
Remember a lot of Spanish speaking countries use a 24 hour clock when telling the time.
So maybe your appointment is on time, you might be lucky, so you might get asked to
Pasa por aquí – Come through here
Or you might just get asked to take a seat for a while: Toma asiento. Either way, being polite and saying gracias is what you’ll need to do.
So some key verbs to do with being at the hairdresser. The first thing you’re going to do because you’ve probably booked to have your hair washed, is their going to wash it: Llavar. And so you might be asked:
¿Llavamos? – Are we washing it?
Remember to make a sentence into a question we have an upside down question mark at the beginning and a normal question mark at the end. And vocally you need the rising intonation. So Llavamos becomes ¿Llavamos?
Llavamos – We are washing it.
¿Llavamos? – Are we washing it?
And you would say:
Si, llavamos, por favor. And you would get the lovely experience of having it washed and nice and clean.
While you’re having your hair washed you can be going over the vocab and preparing yourself for the next part of the conversation.
You will be asked to Pasa so ‘come over here’ then Toma asiento ‘take a seat’ and then ¿que hacemos? So ‘what are we going to do?’ That’s the hairdresser asking you how you want your hair.
So we’ve had the verb Llavar but are you going to have it coloured or cut. So to colour, as in colouring hair, the verb is teñir. And then you might want to talk about specific colores, you will have prepared these before you go to the hairdressers I’m sure.
Claro – Lighter
Oscuro – Darker
Cortar – To cut
So you might be asked, are we going to ¿cortar mucho? Or ¿poquito? or poco and then like we do in the UK you can show how much you want to cortar. Then you would tell them one of these:
Mucho – Lots
Poco – A little
Poquito – Not much
Depending on how much you want cutting.
But then what about having your hair dried at the end, so blow drying.
Secar – To dry
¿Secamos? – Are we drying it?
And so you might have the option like me because I have pelo largo to:
Liso – Straighten
Ondulado – Wavy
Rizado – Curl
Pelo/cabello – Hair
Not to be confused with:
Caballo – Horse
Cobayo – Hamster
Coybalo – Guinea Pig also known as:
Conejillo de indias – Guinea pig
And then towards the end of your fabulous experience of being in the hairdressers you might be feeling confident enough to make a little bit of general conversation.
You can read one of my other blogposts on how to ask questions, how to speak with a little bit more confidence when you want to have a go at speaking spanish because the experience in Una Peluqueria is a fabulous opportunity for you to practise and build that speaking confidence.
So coming toward the end of your hair experience, and you have your beautiful hair and it’s been cut lovely, and you wanna say Gracias, ¿cúanto cuesto/cuanto es? And normally we leave Una propina, a tip, that might be diez or veinte por ciento (percent) of the price of having your hair done. So just check or make sure that you mention Propina or Tengo propina para usted ‘I’ve got a tip for you.’
And of course Muchas gracias, adios.
There we go, so a bit of a whistle stop tour there with some Spanish vocab, some Spanish phrases and a little bit of the Spanish culture of what to expect when you go there. To help with pronunciation I recorded this YouTube lesson. I’d love to know how you get on so let me know.