This role play asks you to do three things in Spanish: explain a problem, say what happened in the past, and negotiate politely with a shop assistant. The same three skills come up across all shop, service, or complaint situations, whatever the specific item is. In the Leaving Certificate Higher Level examination, the oral component accounts for 25% of your total marks and lasts approximately fifteen minutes, consisting of a general conversation (with the option of discussing a literary work) followed by a role-play situation. In this scenario, set in a computer repair shop in Ávila, you play an exchange student who dropped their laptop while rushing for a bus. Your urgent crisis is an essay saved on the hard drive and due tomorrow morning. To do well, you need the accidental se structure, a clean mix of imperfect and preterite, consistent polite usted forms for commercial negotiation, and a full-sentence answer to whatever unexpected question the examiner asks at the end.
Role-Play Framework and the Five-Step Skeleton
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) sets the role-play cards each year and they rotate. Do not attempt to memorise this dialogue word for word. Instead, master the conversational moves. Structures such as se me cayó el portátil, imperfect-plus-preterite narration, la pantalla está rota, lo compraré si..., and asking for a discount will serve you equally well if your card involves a delayed bus, a lost suitcase, a phone that will not charge, or a hotel room with no hot water.
When your general conversation ends, you are handed the role-play card in English and given a short period to read it before beginning. Use this time to fix your key verbs and structures in your mind rather than attempting to draft full sentences. The examiner always opens the dialogue in Spanish with a greeting such as ¡Hola! ¿En qué puedo ayudarte? Wait for them to speak before you respond.
To keep your response structured under exam conditions, memorise this five-step conversational skeleton:
- Greeting and the core problem: Buenas tardes. Tengo un problema: se me ha caído el portátil y la pantalla está rota.
- Past narrative: Llegaba tarde para coger el autobús, resbalé y se me cayó al suelo.
- Reaction to the repair quote: Es bastante caro, pero he visto uno en el escaparate en oferta por trescientos euros.
- Conditional agreement: Lo compraré si me pasan los archivos y me regalan una funda.
- Polite closing: Muchísimas gracias por su ayuda, es usted muy amable. Hasta luego.
Explaining the Accident: Accidental 'Se' and Past Tenses
English speakers often say 'I dropped my laptop', but translating this literally as Yo caí mi portátil is impossible in Spanish because caer is an intransitive verb. Spanish expresses unintended mishaps using the accidental se construction: se + indirect object pronoun + verb + subject. The object dropped is the grammatical subject, and you are the person affected:
- se me cayó el portátil (I dropped the laptop / The laptop fell on me)
- Se me ha roto la pantalla (My screen broke on me)
The verb agrees strictly with the item that fell or broke. If you drop plural items, the verb changes to the plural: Se me cayeron las llaves (I dropped my keys), but Se me cayó el portátil (singular).
When narrating how the mishap occurred, blend the imperfect and preterite tenses. Use the imperfect to describe the ongoing background conditions and the preterite for the sudden actions that interrupted them:
- Imperfect, for the background: Llegaba tarde y llovía mucho. (I was running late and it was raining heavily.)
- Preterite, for the interruption: Tuve que correr para coger el autobús. (I had to run to catch the bus.)
- Preterite, for the accident: Resbalé en la acera y se me cayó el portátil al suelo. (I slipped on the pavement and I dropped the laptop on the ground.)
- Preterite, for the discovery: No me di cuenta del daño hasta que llegué a casa. (I didn't realise the damage until I got home.)
To describe the broken state of the computer, use estar, never ser: la pantalla está rota (the screen is broken). Remember that the participle agrees in gender: el portátil está roto, but la pantalla está rota.
Commercial Negotiation: Price Comparisons, 'Si' Clauses, and Consumer Rights
When the shop assistant quotes an expensive repair price, acknowledge that the computer has a remedy, point out a cheaper alternative, and set clear purchase conditions. Contrasting the repair cost with a new machine in the shop display shows practical communicative competence:
- Me alegra saber que tiene arreglo, pero doscientos euros me parece un poco caro. (I'm glad to know it can be fixed, but two hundred euros seems a bit dear to me.)
- He visto en el escaparate un portátil de la misma marca por trescientos euros. (I have seen a laptop of the same brand in the shop window for three hundred euros.)
Notice that a shop display window is always el escaparate. Using la ventana refers only to a domestic room window.
Setting conditions requires a grammatically consistent conditional sentence. You have two reliable patterns:
- Realistic condition (Present Indicative + Future Indicative):
- Lo compraré si me pasan todos los archivos al portátil nuevo y si me regalan una funda. (I will buy it if you transfer all my files to the new laptop and give me a free case.)
- Hypothetical condition (Imperfect Subjunctive + Conditional):
- Lo compraría si me pudieran pasar los archivos ahora mismo. (I would buy it if you could transfer the files right now.)
If you feel under pressure, stick to the present-plus-future pattern: Lo compraré si me pasan los archivos is entirely correct, natural, and safe. Never mix patterns by saying Lo compraré si pudiera.
When asking for complimentary items, remember that gratis cannot be used as a verb. Use the verb regalar (¿Me podría regalar una funda?) or the phrase dar gratis (¿Me la puede dar gratis?).
Useful consumer phrases for transactions and repairs:
- ¿Me podría hacer un descuento / una rebaja? (Could you give me a discount?)
- ¿Me devuelven el dinero si no funciona? (Will you give me my money back if it doesn't work?)
- ¿Me lo pueden cambiar por otro modelo? (Can you exchange it for another model?)
- ¿El portátil nuevo tiene garantía? ¿De cuántos años? (Does the new laptop have a warranty? For how many years?)
- ¿Pueden darme una factura, por favor? (Can you give me an invoice/receipt, please?)
Managing Conversation: Register, Questions, and Recovery Strategies
In a Spanish shop, addressing the assistant with the polite usted form is always safe, even if the assistant addresses you with tú. What costs marks is switching between tú and usted mid-sentence. Choose one register and maintain it consistently.
| Informal (tú) | Formal (usted) | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ¿Puedes...? | ¿Puede...? | Can you...? |
| ¿Podrías...? | ¿Podría...? | Could you...? |
| ¿Me lo pasas? | ¿Me lo pasa? | Will you transfer it for me? |
| Perdona | Perdone | Excuse me |
| Gracias, eres muy amable | Gracias, es usted muy amable | Thank you, you are very kind |
| Dime | Dígame | Tell me |
Role-play prompts frequently instruct you to pose a question to the assistant. Keep interrogative words at the front, remember the upside-down question mark, and put accents on question words:
- ¿Cuánto tiempo tardarían en arreglarlo? (How long would it take you to fix it?)
- ¿Para cuándo estaría listo? (When would it be ready for?)
- ¿Cuánto costaría pasar todos los archivos? (How much would it cost to transfer all the files?)
- ¿A qué hora cierran hoy? (What time do you close today?)
If you mishear the examiner or get lost, never stay silent. Silence scores nothing, but asking for clarification in Spanish demonstrates active communicative competence:
- Perdone, ¿podría repetirlo, por favor? (Excuse me, could you repeat that, please?)
- ¿Cómo dice? No le he entendido bien. (Pardon? I didn't quite understand you.)
- ¿Podría hablar un poco más despacio, por favor? (Could you speak a little more slowly, please?)
- Entonces, si le entiendo bien, ¿la reparación cuesta doscientos euros? (So, if I understand you correctly, the repair costs two hundred euros?)
If an exact technological word escapes you, talk around it rather than freezing:
- Es una cosa que sirve para proteger el portátil. (It's a thing that serves to protect the laptop — when you forget la funda.)
- No sé cómo se dice en español, pero es la parte donde se ve la imagen. (I don't know how to say it in Spanish, but it's the part where you see the picture — when you forget la pantalla.)
- Use genuine Spanish fillers to buy thinking time: Pues..., A ver..., Bueno..., La verdad es que...
The Unprepared Final Question and Pronunciation Rules
At the conclusion of the role play, the examiner will ask an unprepared question arising naturally from the scenario. You are judged on getting your meaning across and on the accuracy and range of the structures you use. A one-word answer like Sí or No abandons marks. To give a strong response:
- Answer the question directly without long hesitation.
- Include at least one correctly conjugated verb.
- Expand by giving a reason, a consequence, or an extra detail.
For instance, if asked ¿Cómo vas a pagar?, reply: Voy a pagar con tarjeta de crédito porque no llevo suficiente dinero en metálico encima. (I am going to pay by credit card because I don't carry enough cash on me.)
Pronunciation forms part of conveying meaning clearly. In Spanish, word stress follows two standard rules:
- Words ending in a vowel, -n, or -s take natural stress on the second-last syllable (hablan, lunes, pantalla).
- Words ending in any consonant other than -n or -s take natural stress on the last syllable (arreglar, reparar, ordenador).
Any word that breaks these rules must carry a written accent mark, which tells you exactly where to place the stress:
- el portátil (por-TÁ-til): Stressed on the middle syllable because of the written accent. Never stress the first syllable.
- coger (ko-HER): The letter 'g' before 'e' makes a rasping sound from the throat, like the Scottish 'ch' in loch.
- el escaparate (es-ca-pa-RA-te): Five syllables, stressed on the fourth.
Either pronunciation of 'c' (before e/i) and 'z' is fully accepted: Peninsular Spanish uses the 'th' sound (dos-THIEN-tos), while Latin American Spanish uses the 's' sound (dos-SIEN-tos). Choose whichever you are taught, stay consistent, and speak clearly.
Key terms
- el portátil
- Laptop computer (masculine noun; stressed on the middle syllable: por-TÁ-til).
- se accidental
- Involuntary reflexive structure (se + indirect object pronoun + verb agreeing with object) used for mishaps, such as 'se me cayó' (I dropped it / it fell on me).
- la pantalla
- Display screen or monitor; combined with estar: 'la pantalla está rota' (the screen is broken).
- el disco duro
- Hard drive (the physical internal storage hardware of a computer).
- la copia de seguridad
- Backup copy of computer files or documents.
- la redacción
- School essay or composition due for submission.
- el escaparate
- Shop display window facing the street; distinct from a domestic room window ('la ventana').
- regalar
- To give as a gift or provide free of charge during a purchase.
- la funda
- Protective sleeve, padded cover, or case for a laptop.
- la garantía
- Commercial warranty protecting purchased electronics against defects.
- en metálico / en efectivo
- In cash (physical coins and banknotes), as opposed to paying 'con tarjeta de crédito' (by credit card).
Check yourself
Which two components make up the Leaving Certificate Spanish oral examination, and what percentage of total Higher Level marks does the oral carry?
A general conversation (with the option of discussing a literary work) and a role-play situation; it carries 25% of the total Higher Level marks.
Translate into natural Spanish using the accidental construction: 'I dropped the laptop and the screen is broken.'
'Se me cayó el portátil y la pantalla está rota.'
In Spanish, ask the shop assistant politely how long the repair would take and when it would be ready.
'¿Cuánto tiempo tardarían en arreglarlo? ¿Para cuándo estaría listo?'
The examiner says something in the role play that you do not catch. Give two different polite phrases in the usted form to ask for repetition.
'Perdone, ¿podría repetirlo, por favor?' and '¿Cómo dice? No le he entendido bien.'
Why is 'Lo compraré si tuviera tiempo' incorrect, and what is the safest way to correct it under exam pressure?
It incorrectly mixes a future indicative verb with an imperfect subjunctive. Correct it safely using the present indicative: 'Lo compraré si tengo tiempo' (or 'Lo compraría si tuviera tiempo').
What is the difference between 'el escaparate' and 'la ventana'?
'El escaparate' is a commercial shop display window, whereas 'la ventana' is a domestic house or room window.