🛒 Grocery Stores - Supermercados

Aa ⏱ ≈ 15 minutes

Beginner Spanish · Grocery shopping

At the Supermarket in Spanish

Supermarket Spanish becomes much easier when you can follow a shopping list, find the right aisle, ask where a product is, and talk about the groceries you still need.

Your next small win: name common supermarket areas, say what you need to buy, ask where products are, understand aisle directions, and finish your grocery-shopping trip.

Start inside the supermarket

Core Grocery Store Vocabulary

These words help you navigate the store before you start looking for individual groceries.

supermercado
Supermarket
carrito
Shopping cart
lista de compras
Shopping list
pasillo
Aisle
cajero / cajera
Cashier
caja
Checkout / register

Name four supermarket words

Say “supermarket, shopping cart, shopping list, and aisle” in Spanish.

Basket vocabulary
cesta
Shopping basket
canasta
Shopping basket

Regional note: both cesta and canasta can be used for a shopping basket, depending on the region.

Know what you need

Shopping Lists and Necesitar

Use necesitar to talk about groceries you need to buy.

Necesito comprar huevos y leche.
I need to buy eggs and milk.
Necesitamos arroz y pasta.
We need rice and pasta.
Necesitamos algunas cosas para la cena.
We need a few things for dinner.
Tenemos todo lo de la lista.
We have everything on the list.

Simple pattern: use necesito + infinitive for something you need to do: Necesito comprar leche. You can also put the groceries directly after necesitamos: Necesitamos arroz y pasta.

Make a short grocery list

Say that you need to buy eggs and milk, and that you also need rice.

Find what is on your list

Buscar and Estar for Product Location

Use buscar for what you are looking for and estar for where a specific product is located.

Estoy buscando la leche.
I'm looking for the milk.
Busco arroz integral.
I'm looking for brown rice.
¿Dónde está la leche?
Where is the milk?
¿En qué pasillo está el arroz?
Which aisle is the rice in?
Está en el pasillo cinco.
It's in aisle five.
Está cerca del arroz y la pasta.
It's near the rice and pasta.

Finding olive oil

A
Disculpe, ¿en qué pasillo está el aceite de oliva?
Excuse me, which aisle is the olive oil in?
B
Está en el pasillo cinco, cerca del arroz y la pasta.
It's in aisle five, near the rice and pasta.

Find two groceries

Ask where the milk is and which aisle has the rice.

Understand supermarket sections

Food Sections and Finishing the Trip

Knowing a few section names makes aisle directions much easier to understand.

productos lácteos
Dairy products
carne
Meat
frutas y verduras
Produce / fruit and vegetables
alimentos enlatados
Canned food
alimentos congelados
Frozen food
Los productos lácteos están al final de este pasillo.
The dairy products are at the end of this aisle.
Pon la leche en el carrito.
Put the milk in the cart.
Ya tenemos todo lo de la lista.
We already have everything on the list.
Podemos ir a la caja.
We can go to the checkout.
¿Dónde están las cajas?
Where are the checkout registers?

Lesson boundary: this lesson takes you through finding the groceries and reaching the checkout. Card, cash, mobile payment, receipts, and splitting bills belong in the separate payments lesson.

Ready to check out

A
¿Tenemos todo lo de la lista?
Do we have everything on the list?
B
Sí. Ya podemos ir a la caja.
Yes. We can go to the checkout now.

Finish your grocery trip

Say that you have everything on the list and can go to the checkout.

Your turn · 8 quick questions

Practice: At the Supermarket

Choose the answer that best fits each situation. Focus on grocery lists, aisles, supermarket sections, finding products, and completing the shopping trip.

Audio uses your device's Spanish text-to-speech voice. Listen to each phrase, then practice making a grocery list, finding products, and navigating the supermarket.