As I alluded to in my post about tollbooths in the Dulles Airport vicinity, I vacation in Mexico every year. So I work year-round on my Spanish. I would say I’m at the intermediate level–I can do everything I need to, I understand what is being said to me, and I’m now working on colloquial phrases.
So, the last time I was there I was at a restaurant and the waiter offered to refill my coffee. I just said, “No, gracias,” but then I got to thinking how, in English, I would have said, “No thanks, I’m good,” and how adding the I’m good softens the phrase a bit so it doesn’t sound abrupt and possibly rude.
I could say “Estoy bien,” but that’s a literal translation and in my experience literal translations, while they may be understood, are not the way a native speaker would say things. So I tried looking it up in my references and couldn’t find anything about it.
So, what is the Spanish equivalent of “I’m good” in a situation where you are turning down a refill?
Correcto. A simple, “no, gracias” or “no más, gracias” said with a friendly demeanor and tone, or just “gracias” plus the sign of shielding the cup, should be sufficient in most Spanish-speaking areas.
No mas (well, technically no más) would be ‘no more’. I’m sure you could say ‘no más, gracias’ and that would be fine. You’re gringo colored* skin and accent should make it plenty clear that you’re not a native speaker.
Besides, depending on where you are in Mexico they A)deal with tourists day in and day out so it’s not like they’re all that worried about it and B)likely know a little English to begin with so “No thanks” would probably work.
I could count on my thumbs the number of words I know in Spanish. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not much.) I’ve learned to be really careful using the word “no”. It seems to be used usually followed by a verb, meaning “do not ______”.
When I would go to a Mexican restaurant and order a burrito, I would write on the order “Favor, no guacamole, no salsa, no cebollas. ¡Gracias!” Okay, first of all, I don’t know if I spelled Favor right (Fabor?). Anyway, the cook would always stare at for about five minutes, but after that he would always manage to get it right.
I eventually learned that it went much better if I wrote: “Favor, sin guacamole, sin salsa, sin cebollas. ¡Gracias!” – They would always understand that immediately.
And eventually, I found out that the preferred way to write it was “Favor, ni guacamole ni salsa ni cebollas. ¡Gracias!”
“Favor” is correct. The ‘V’ is often pronounced as a ‘B’ in Spanish (as in veinte), but I don’t know as I’ve heard this particular word pronounced that way.
I’m not sure what ‘ni’ means, but if someone told you it was right, I’d assume it was. Sin means without (con means with). As for favor vs fabor. Favor is the correct spelling, but V’s are pronounced with a slight bee sound. Some people/dialects/areas of South America use a hard enough B that it sounds like it’s spelled that way. If you’re speaking to a Spanish speaker, you could say it either way, as long as you say it quickly and like you know what the hell you’re talking about. If you’re sounding out words and you say fabor, it’s probably going to sound funny.
I assume we have words in English that we pronounce slightly different than how their spelled (not counting silent letters) that if someone slowly sounded out each letter it might sound odd, but if they just ‘said them’ you wouldn’t notice or not thinking anything of it.
Again, like I said earlier, it’s going to be obvious that you’re speaking broken Spanish and I’m sure the person will work with you. I get Spanish speaking people in my store from time to time and do my best to converse with them. Usually, in the end, I find that I can understand more Spanish than I can speak and they understand more English than they speak so we both speak our native tongue and do a lot of pointing and manage to get through the conversation.
I took two years in high school, but my grades weren’t high enough so I had to redo it in college. I still knew enough to know right away that my Spanish teacher (native Spanish speaker) had an accent and I could tell it was throwing people. The biggest things were V’s pronounced like B’s and Ll’s pronounced with a J sound. Saying “The letter ll is pronounced eyya” and then later having her say “Como se jamas” or “me jamo sr hernandez” would really throw people.
At some point someone asked her about it and she said it was due to where she grew up…Argentina maybe? That doesn’t sound right, something tells me it was on the West Coast of South America.
ETA, ninja’d by chefguy because it apperntly took me a really long time to write this post. Also, I too don’t think I’ve ever heard favor said with a b.
Por favor. The rest is correct.
The distinction between /b/ and /v/ is pretty much lost in every dialect with occasional exceptions due to over-correction or to influence from another language; they’re both pronounced /b/. Barcelona, favor, bisabuelo, victoria, those “b” and “v” are all /b/. The sound /v/ does happen occasionally but it’s as a variant of /f/ and spelled f.