Telling doctor stomach hurts: Answering the doctor's questions about your symptoms

💬 Spanish says you "have" a fever, using tener and no "a". You'll hear the same pattern in ¿tiene tos? "do you have a cough?".

💬 ha is the polite "you have" form, the same one used for "he" or "she". The doctor uses it with you, and you answer with he: sí, he vomitado.

💬 Putting no after a noun is a quick, natural way to rule a symptom out: dolor de cabeza no "no headache". It's how people really answer a doctor's checklist.

🇪🇸 In Spain, people use the he form for things that happened earlier today or recently. You'd say he vomitado about this morning. Latin Americans more often say vomité.

💬 vez "time" becomes veces in the plural, with z switching to c before e. Both are said with a (th) sound in Spain: (DOS BEH-thes).

💬 cenar means "to have dinner" all in one verb, so you don't need a word for "have". The same works for desayunar "to have breakfast" and comer "to have lunch".

🇪🇸 Seafood is one of the first things a Spanish doctor will suspect with stomach trouble, especially in summer. Mention it straight away.

💬 On its own, puede ser also works as a reply meaning "maybe". Doctors use it a lot to soften a diagnosis.

💬 intoxicación means poisoning, not being drunk. The drunk sense is borracho.

💬 Polite instructions swap the verb's vowel: beber becomes beba, tomar becomes tome. Expect this shape whenever a doctor or pharmacist tells you what to do.

🇪🇸 Vale is everywhere in Spain, from doctors to waiters to friends. In Latin America it sounds distinctly Spanish, and people there say bueno or ok instead.

🇪🇸 Spaniards usually say medicamento or algo for medicine and get it at a farmacia "pharmacy". Pharmacists there will often advise on minor stomach problems without a prescription.

💬 le here means "to you" in the polite form. Spanish uses the present receto for something about to happen right now, where English says "I'll".

💬 vuelva is the polite instruction form of volver "to come back". empeora "it gets worse" comes from peor "worse", so you can guess mejora "it gets better".

🇪🇸 Patients in Spain commonly address doctors directly as doctor or doctora, with no surname needed. Use the -a ending for a woman.