Spanishintermediate19 sentences
Ahorita — Episodio 2: La Fonda
Diego's first shift at the fonda: a dawn trip to the tianguis, a kitchen ultimatum from Grandma Chela, a tortilla cooked under pressure — and a letter nobody wanted to receive.
Reinforces vocabulary from Talking About Food Like a Native.
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The Story So Far
Diego, a Madrid cook stranded jobless in Mexico City for love, reported for his first shift at Grandma Chela’s fonda in Narvarte. Episode 2 takes him to the tianguis at dawn, through a lunchtime rush of regulars, and into the trial by fire of cooking his Spanish tortilla for the toughest judge in the colonia — just before a letter from the landlord changes everything.
Language Highlights
- llevar + time + gerund — “llevaba treinta años comiendo ahí”: the standard way to say how long something has been going on.
- impersonal se — “a ver si se vende”, “se compraba por pieza”: Spanish hides the actor where English uses the passive.
- como si + pluperfect subjunctive — “como si México hubiera metido un gol”: unreal comparisons about finished events.
- ocurrírsele algo a alguien — “algo se nos ocurrirá”: ideas happen to people in Spanish; the dative pronoun owns the idea.
- kitchen Mexican — mandil, estufa, gis, jitomate, voltear, la renta, el mandado: a whole kitchen’s worth of words that differ from peninsular Spanish.
- fonda culture — the tianguis, the marchanta, the comida corrida and the chalkboard menu: the vocabulary of everyday eating in Mexico City.
This is Episode 2 of Ahorita, our serialized story for intermediate learners set in Mexico City — episode 1 is free.
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