Level A2 · Chapter 31
What you pay for at an inn
Sancho leaves the inn battered and without his saddlebags. On the road they argue about what gets paid for in the world, and what never gets paid in books.
What you will learn
- Say what people do in general, without naming anybody.
- Use se with the verb in the singular or the plural, depending on the thing.
- Read and understand the signs that begin with se.
Before you read
This whole conversation is about what people do in general, not about what one named person did. Spanish has a very neat way of saying that, and it is one small word: se. Watch it arrive again and again. Aquí se cobra. No se sale sin pagar. Se venden vino y pan. Nobody is named, and nobody needs to be.The story in easy Spanish
Sancho salió por fin de la venta, molido y sin ganas de hablar.
Sancho finally came out of the inn, aching all over and in no mood to talk.
Don Quijote lo esperaba en el camino, encima de Rocinante.
Don Quixote was waiting for him on the road, up on Rocinante.
Caminaron un buen rato en silencio, entre dos campos secos.
They rode on for a good while in silence, between two dry fields.
«Señor, en las ventas de Castilla se paga la cena», dijo Sancho.
"Sir, in the inns of Castile you pay for your supper," said Sancho.
«Se paga la cama, y también se paga la paja de los animales.»
"You pay for the bed, and you pay for the animals’ straw as well."
«En los castillos de mis libros no se paga nunca nada», contestó el caballero.
"In the castles of my books nothing is ever paid for," the knight replied.
«Aquello no era un castillo. Era una venta con establo y cocina.»
"That was no castle. It was an inn with a stable and a kitchen."
«Allí se venden vino, pan y cebada, y allí se cobra a todo el mundo.»
"Wine, bread and barley are sold there, and everybody there gets charged."
«De aquella puerta no se sale sin pagar. Yo lo aprendí en una manta.»
"Nobody gets out of that gate without paying. I learned that in a blanket."
Luego buscó sus alforjas y no las encontró por ninguna parte.
Then he looked for his saddlebags and could not find them anywhere.
El ventero se quedó con ellas en pago de la cena.
The innkeeper had kept them as payment for the supper.
Dentro iban el pan, el queso y una cebolla de tres días.
Inside were the bread, the cheese and a three-day-old onion.
«Se dice que un escudero come poco. Pues hoy no se come nada.»
"They say a squire eats little. Well, today nobody eats anything."
También se acordó del bálsamo y le dio un escalofrío.
He also remembered the balm, and a shiver went through him.
«Ese licor se hace con vino, aceite, sal y romero», explicó don Quijote.
"That liquor is made with wine, oil, salt and rosemary," Don Quixote explained.
«Se toma un trago y se cura cualquier herida del cuerpo.»
"You take one swig and any wound in the body is cured."
«A vos os sirve, señor. A mí se me revuelven las tripas.»
"It works for you, sir. It turns my insides upside down."
Sancho prometió no probar aquel licor nunca más en su vida.
Sancho swore never to try that liquor again as long as he lived.
El camino subía despacio. Los dos iban callados y con hambre.
The road climbed slowly. The two of them rode in silence, and hungry.
Aquella manta se le quedó a Sancho en la memoria para siempre.
That blanket stayed in Sancho’s memory for the rest of his life.
Vocabulary
The bill
- la cuenta
- the bill
- pagar
- to pay
- cobrar
- to charge
- deber
- to owe
- el pago
- the payment
- vender
- to sell
What there is at an inn
- la paja
- the straw
- la cebada
- the barley
- las alforjas
- the saddlebags
- la cebolla
- the onion
- el establo
- the stable
The body after the blanket
- molido / molida
- aching all over
- el escalofrío
- the shiver
- las tripas
- the guts, the insides
- el trago
- the gulp, the swig
- curar
- to cure, to treat
Impersonal se and the reflexive passive
Aquí se cobra a todo el mundo.
De aquella puerta no se sale sin pagar.
Allí se venden vino, pan y cebada.
Spanish has one small word for everything English does with you, they, one, people and the passive. That word is se, and once you own it your Spanish stops sounding translated.
1. Impersonal se: nobody in particular
Take a verb, put se in front of it, leave it in the third person singular, and name no one:
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Aquí se come bien. | The food is good here. / You eat well here. |
| En España se cena tarde. | People have supper late in Spain. |
| De aquí no se sale sin pagar. | Nobody gets out of here without paying. |
| Se dice que perdió las alforjas. | They say he lost his saddlebags. |
| ¿Cómo se dice esto en español? | How do you say this in Spanish? |
Note that English changes pronoun depending on the flavour of the sentence, and Spanish never does. You, they, one and people are all just se.
2. Reflexive passive: the thing becomes the subject
Now put a thing after the verb. The thing takes over as the subject, and the verb agrees with it:
| singular | plural | English |
|---|---|---|
| Se vende una casa. | Se venden libros. | House for sale. / Books sold here. |
| Se paga la cena. | Se pagan la cena y la cama. | The supper is paid for. |
| Se hace el bálsamo con vino. | Se hacen los bálsamos con vino. | The balm is made with wine. |
This is the single most useful pattern on any Spanish street. Every shop window in Spain is written in it: se vende, se alquila, se buscan camareros, se habla inglés. Read them as for sale, to let, waiters wanted, English spoken.
3. When the thing is a person
If what follows is people rather than objects, Spanish keeps the verb singular and puts the personal a in front: se cobra a todo el mundo, se ayuda a los pobres, se llamó a los pastores. The reason is practical: se curan los heridos could be read as the wounded men curing themselves, and se cura a los heridos cannot.
4. Any tense you already have
The pattern is not tied to the present. Antes se viajaba a caballo in the imperfect, aquella noche no se durmió en la venta in the preterite. Same se, same rule about agreement.
Not to be confused with the other two ses
You have met se twice before, and the three do not compete. In Sancho se levantó it is reflexive, and Sancho does it to himself. In se le cayó la espada it is the accidental se of the previous lessons, with a person marked by le. Here there is no me, te or le at all, and that absence is exactly what tells you the sentence is impersonal.
The bill at an inn, and the signs you still read today
The joke of this chapter runs on a piece of ordinary economics. At a venta nothing came free and nothing came bundled. The traveller paid for his supper, for his space on the floor or in the loft, and separately for the straw and the barley his animal ate. The bill was a list, and an animal often cost more than its owner.
Books of chivalry never mention any of this. In them a knight arrives at a castle, is bathed by maidens, is fed, sleeps and rides away, and no one presents an account. Don Quixote has read hundreds of these and has never once seen a knight pay. So when he rides out of the gate without looking at the innkeeper, he is not stealing. He is behaving correctly according to the only rulebook he trusts. Sancho, who has no rulebook, gets the blanket.
And then there is the detail that hurts most. The innkeeper keeps the saddlebags in payment. That is the bread, the cheese and the onion, which is to say Sancho’s lunch for the next three days, taken from a man who never agreed to any of this and has just been thrown in the air by strangers.
One last thing, and it is not literary. The grammar of this lesson is the grammar of modern Spain. Walk down any street and you will read it on the windows: se vende, se alquila, se traspasa, se necesita personal, se habla inglés, se ruega no fumar. Four hundred years later, this is still how Spanish addresses everybody and nobody at once.
Cervantes in the original
Verdad es que el ventero se quedó con sus alforjas, en pago de lo que se le debía.
The truth is that the innkeeper kept his saddlebags, in payment of what was owed to him.
The last line of the chapter, and it is built out of this lesson. Se le debía names nobody: the money was owed, and Cervantes does not bother to say by whom, because everyone can see it was Sancho who never agreed to the bill in the first place. English would need a passive here, what was owed to him, where Spanish needs one small se. Note also se quedó con, which is not the impersonal se but the ordinary verb quedarse con algo, to keep something. The same two letters, two different jobs, one sentence.