Getting through the Oficina de Extranjería: Asking which documents are missing and when to come back

🇪🇸 The polite way to get a clerk's attention at the counter. Expect to use it a lot at Extranjería, where staff are busy and queues are long.

💬 In Spain, la residencia on its own is everyday shorthand for the residence permit. The full official name is la autorización de residencia.

💬 por lo de "about the matter of" lets you name your business without a full explanation. Swap in anything: Vengo por lo de la cita "I'm here about the appointment".

🇪🇸 Officials often murmur this while looking through your papers. It's just a thinking pause, not a problem.

💬 su is the polite "your" that goes with usted, the formal "you". It looks the same as "his/her", so context tells you it means "your" here.

💬 Literally "here you have", using the polite usted verb form. To a friend you'd say aquí tienes.

💬 algún drops the final -o of alguno when it comes right before a masculine noun. With a feminine noun it's alguna: alguna fotocopia.

💬 faltar works backwards from English: the missing thing is what "does" the verb, and me marks who's affected. With more than one thing it becomes faltan: ¿Me faltan documentos?

🇪🇸 Usually just called el padrón. You get it from your local ayuntamiento "town hall", and Extranjería often wants a recent one, so check its date.