Ir de tiendas or ir de compras is to go shopping. Which basically means to go to a shopping centre or a shop and have a look, try something on and buy it or just have a look around. To be able to do this in a Spanish-speaking country or to talk about clothes, you will need the vocabulary we have seen in our previous post (Clothes, shoes and accessories in Spanish) and the vocabulary of materials, designs and some basic adjectives we’ll see in this post.
Wait a minute… Did you miss our post about the vocabulary of clothes, accessories and footwear in Spanish? That’s OK. Read it and practice by clicking on the link below.
To describe the material and design of a prenda (item of clothing) in Spanish you almost always need the preposition de. For example:
Quiero una camisa de rayas.
Me encantan las camisetas de algodón.
Although there are some exceptions as you can see in the following example:
No me gustan las camisas estampadas, prefiero llevar ropa lisa.
In order to be able to talk about clothes or describe a garment, the first thing you need is to have the vocabulary of basic designs and materials.
Here you have some flashcards in Spanish with the most common materials for clothing, footwear and accessories.
And here is the vocabulary you need to talk about design:
Attention! You need to know the colours in Spanish. To learn all about colours, read and practice with our most complete post: Colours in Spanish.
Finally, to finish up with the vocabulary part, you need to learn some adjectives that you can use to describe clothes and they are not the material or the design. Do you want to be able to give your opinion about that T-shirt you got for your birthday? Then, take a look at these adjectives:
It’s time to practise all those new words with a few fun and interactive exercises!
Now that you know all the necessary vocabulary, it’s time to see what structures and verbs we need to put it all into practice.
We use the verb LLEVAR to talk about clothes, shoes and accessories that people have. This verb is regular and is conjugated like this:
We normally use the verb LLEVAR + indefinite article + noun (+ adjective). Look at the examples:
Yo llevo una camiseta blanca.
Llevas unos zapatos muy bonitos.
Alicia lleva un bolso de piel.
Llevamos unas pulseras.
If we want to talk about a specific or special garment, we can use the definite article:
Yo llevo la camiseta blanca que compré en Cuba.
Llevas los zapatos bonitos que siempre llevas a las fiestas.
Alicia lleva el bolso de piel de su madre.
Llevamos las pulseras que le gustan a Marta.
Let’s practise with a few exercises. Let’s go!
Mi tía Isabel lleva una camisa violeta, una chaqueta naranja, unos pendientes, unas gafas de sol muy grandes y una boina.
La mujer se lleva la falda porque le gusta mucho.
Yo me visto muy rápido porque preparo la ropa el día anterior por la noche.
Primero me pongo el pantalón y después me pongo los calcetines.
VESTIRSE and PONERSE are both irregular and reflexive verbs, but they don’t mean the same. VESTIRSE is ‘to get dress’ and PONERSE means ‘to put something on yourself’.
Cuando me levanto, me desvisto / me desnudo y me ducho.
Juan se quita el traje de neopreno después de nadar.
DESVESTIRSE, DESNUDARSE and PONERSE are all reflexive verbs, but they don’t mean exactly the same. DESVESTIRSE and DESNUDARSE mean ‘to get undress’ and ‘to get naked’ respectively. QUITARSE means ‘to take something off yourself’.
Do you need to know more about reflexive verbs in Spanish? Then you need to read and practise with our posts! Just click on the links you have down bellow.
We use the verb QUEDAR with clothes and accessories with the same structure as the verb GUSTAR. Do you remember the GUSTAR? Look at these examples:
Me gusta tu vestido de flores. (singular)
Me gustan las pajaritas que venden en esta tienda. (plural)
Now have a look at this table to see how you can use the verb QUEDAR with clothes and accessories:
Here you have a few examples to see how to use this verb:
Marta, ese pantalón vaquero te queda pequeño. Necesitas una talla más grande.
(A mí) no me queda bien esta blusa verde.
And how do we ask with the verb QUEDAR?
To ask someone else’s opinion we normally use: ¿Me queda bien? (Does this suit me?) or ¿Cómo me queda(n)…? (How does it look?)
As you can see in the previous examples the verb QUEDAR is only used in the third person singular (queda) or plural (quedan) and it doesn’t depend on the person wearing the clothes or accessory, it depends on whether what they are wearing is singular or plural.
A nosotros nos queda muy bien el uniforme. (singular)
A vosotras os quedan muy bien esas camisetas de rayas. (plural)
In the first example the verb is in singular because el uniforme is singular, but in the second example it is in plural because esas camisetas de rayas is plural. However, in both cases we are talking about a group of people: a nosotros and a vosotras. So, as it happens with the verb GUSTAR, the verb has only 2 forms to conjugate and it should be singular or plural depending on what looks good, bad, great … and not on the person or people who wear it.
Let’s revised the verb QUEDAR.
Whether you’re a complete beginner or you’re an advanced student, with us you’ll reach the next level of Spanish quickly and easily. With 24 Levels to Spanish fluency, the next level is always close by, so you will never lose motivation.
You can choose between:
In both cases, you’ll learn Spanish using our successful 24 Level System to Spanish Fluency® and our unique Spanish teaching methods.
