Compostela and mishaps

The Compostela at the end, and what to say when something is lost, stolen or refused.

This is the course you hope to use once, at a desk in Santiago, and the one you will be very glad of on the day something goes wrong.

It opens with the Compostela, the certificate at the end, and the questions asked at the desk before it is handed over. Then losing things, which is rare and completely derailing when it happens: the vocabulary for reporting it and for being understood while upset in a language you are not fluent in. It ends with official counters, consulates, town halls and tourist offices, and the words that get you seen rather than sent away.

The reason it is worth learning in advance is that official Spanish is a different register from the Spanish you pick up over dinner. It is more formal, it is spoken quickly by somebody who says the same sentences all day, and it arrives at the exact moment you are least able to improvise, because your bag has gone or your documents have not. Ordinary conversational fluency does not transfer to it. Knowing what will be asked, and having the words for the answer ready, is most of what makes the difference between being helped and being sent to another building.

It is the smallest course here and that is deliberate. Nobody needs a hundred words about bureaucracy. They need the thirty-odd that get the problem in front of the right person, and they need them cold.

36 words across 3 topics, each with example sentences and a map showing how the words connect.

What is in it

The first topic of Camino basics is free and needs no account, so you can see how the practice works before this course costs you anything.

This course is EUR 9.99. Get this course.

Open Caminantes to practise this course, or see all 10 courses.