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The Spanish phrase ''¡Hola! Vas a... ?'' (Hello, are you going to... ?) with a wide smile is an excellent starting point. Remember most Spaniards actually meet the stereotype of being loud and friendly, but aren't used to see hitchhikers on the road. Therefore, you'd better be extra framiliar and polite by saying things like "¡Gracias, buen viaje!" (Thank you, have a nice trip!) after your driver drops you off or when they make excuses to not pick you up (this way they will think twice the next time they bump into a hitchhiker). Check the Spanish section in the [[Western Europe phrasebook|phrasebook]] for more basic words.
In Spanish there are only five vowel sounds and, conversely to French or English, you should pronounce all the letters that you read as an independent sound. So say phonetically with a clear distinction of each sound "autopista" [ aw to 'pis ta ] (motorway), not ''ottopista'', or ''otpist'' . Other difficulties that foreigners usually face:
The letter ''Ñ'' as in ''España'' and "mañana" (''morning'' or ''tomorrow''), which is the equivalent of the Portuguese digraph ''NH'' and Catalan ''NY''. If you struggle with it just pronounce it as an ''N'' and an ''I'' like when you say "Esto[[ni]]a" — it is not the actual sound, but it will work for a tourist. The digraph "LL" as in "calle" (¨street) and "valle" (valley) is pronounced in most places as a strong "y". Therfore, you would say "ka-yeh" and "ba-yeh". The digraph "CH" is always pronounced as in ''church'' in English.
There are other tricky sounds like the ''Z'' and ''C'', the double ''RR''... but you can get away with these brief tips pretty well. Spanish is easy!
== Spanish for the Hitchhiker ==
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=== Spanish for the Hitchhiker ===
The Spanish phrase ''¡Hola! Vas a... ?'' (Hello, are you going to... ?) with a wide smile is an excellent starting point. Remember most Spaniards actually meet the stereotype of being loud and friendly, but aren't used to see hitchhikers on the road. Therefore, you'd better be extra framiliar and polite by saying things like "¡Gracias, buen viaje!" (Thank you, have a nice trip!) after your driver drops you off or when they make excuses to not pick you up (this way they will think twice the next time they bump into a hitchhiker). Check the Spanish section in the [[Western Europe phrasebook|phrasebook]] for more basic words.
