Quería, Quisiera or Me Pones? How to Ask Politely in Spanish

Which request fits the bar, the shop, the phone and the email — and why a bare ¿me pones una caña? at a Spanish counter lands perfectly well.

Saturday morning, a bar in Valencia, the coffee machine hissing. The barman looks up, and the sentence you rehearsed on the way in splits in two: quería un café, or quisiera un café?

Neither, at a Spanish bar counter. The customer next to you says ¿me pones un café? — literally "will you put me a coffee?" — in the plain present tense, to a stranger, and the barman reaches for a cup without a second look.

Quería and quisiera come in once you step away from the counter — into a shop, or into a letter to an office.

Five ways to ask, by level

Levels: Plan Curricular of the Instituto Cervantes. It files ¿Me pones…? among the ways of asking for things de forma atenuada — "in a softened way".

¿Me pones una caña? Politeness in the present tense

In a Spanish bar the verb for serving is poner. The camarero (waiter) asks ¿Qué te pongo? (what shall I put you?), and you answer with the same verb: ¿Me pones una caña? A caña is the small draught beer, around 200 ml; our guide to ordering in a Spanish bar covers the other sizes. The Cervantes Plan Curricular even lists Camarero, póngame un cortado as a perfectly normal way to order. That is a bare imperative to a waiter; a cortado is an espresso with a dash of milk.

What softens the sentence is the tone rising at the end and, on a packed Friday evening, cuando puedas (when you get a moment) tacked on after it. ¿Me pones…? also gets you una barra (a baguette) at the panadería and un cuarto de jamón at the market — a quarter of a kilo, 250 g.

One letter still matters: pones or pone. ¿Me pones? is tú, ¿me pone? is usted. Paying at the counter, the split repeats: ¿me cobras? or ¿me cobra? (can you charge me?). Behind most counters in Spain tú is the default, and even when the waiter opens with ¿Qué le pongo? in usted, the customer can answer in tú. Our breakdown of tú and usted covers the exceptions.

Quería at the shop counter and on the entryphone

The stallholder at the market asks ¿Qué le pongo?; in a mercería (haberdashery) or at the pharmacy counter you are more likely to hear ¿Qué quería? or ¿Qué deseaba?, both roughly "what can I get you?" — imperfect tense, present meaning. Textbooks call it the imperfecto de cortesía, the courtesy imperfect: a wish you have right now, placed in the tense that normally paints the background of a past scene (more on that in indefinido vs imperfecto).

Reply in the imperfect too: Quería ver el abrigo verde del escaparate, the green coat in the window. On the phone to your centro de salud (public health centre): Hola, buenos días, quería pedir cita con mi médico de cabecera — an appointment with your GP.

Flat hunting brings it to the entryphone. You found a flat on Idealista, you press the button on the portero automático, a voice says ¿Sí?, and the whole introduction is five words: Venía por lo del anuncio — "I've come about the advert".

In writing, the most useful version is Solo quería saber si… (I just wanted to know whether…), which opens a message to your landlord or to the comunidad de vecinos, the residents' association that runs your building.

Quisiera and querría in official writing

Quisiera is the imperfect subjunctive of querer, the same form that follows ojalá ("if only") — if the subjunctive is still new, start with our first steps with the subjunctive. Courses bring the polite quisiera in at B2 with sentences like Buenas tardes, quisiera saber si ha llegado el avión de Santander (good afternoon, I'd like to know whether the flight from Santander has landed), and at the top levels it moves on to condolences: Quisiera expresarle mi más sentido pésame (please accept my deepest condolences).

In practice it opens an email to your gestoría (the agency that handles your paperwork) or a formal complaint to the Ayuntamiento, the town hall. Order quisiera una caña and you will get your beer, although at the counter it comes across as noticeably more formal than anyone else's order.

Quisiera or querría? Both are correct, and both sit on the formal side. By ear querría is hard to tell from quería — one trilled r against one tap — so in fast speech the conditional tends to pass unnoticed.

When you need someone to do something: ¿podrías…?

Quería and quisiera ask for a thing. When you need a person to act, Spanish reaches for the conditional of poder or importar. Handing in a form at the Registro (registry office) of your Ayuntamiento, you are most likely to need two sentences: ¿Podría repetirlo más despacio? (could you say that again more slowly?) and ¿Me podría sellar también la copia?, so that you leave with a stamped copy as proof of submission. With a neighbour, in tú: ¿Te importaría bajar un poco la música? (would you mind turning the music down a bit?)

A short reason introduced with es que… (it's just that…, you see…) softens the request further. Over a menú del día, the set lunch: ¿Podría traerme otro vaso? Es que este está un poco sucio — could you bring me another glass? This one is a bit dirty, you see.

What about quiero?

Among friends quiero is fine. Someone at the table asks ¿Qué queréis? — vosotros, the plural "you" that Spain keeps and most of Latin America replaces with ustedes — and yo quiero una caña is the natural answer. To a stranger behind a counter it sounds flat: it announces what you want rather than asking for it, much as "I want a coffee" does in English.

Short version: out loud, it's ¿me pones…? at the counter and quería in shops and on the phone; in a letter to an office, quisiera.

Check yourself: which request fits?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)