Spanish short stories: En el avión

Today’s story: En el avión

Have you ever had that weird feeling of being in danger every time you get on an airplane?

In today’s story, you will experience that!

But don’t worry it’s not a real story, just make sure to learn the key phrases of the story.

Let’s start!

Story: En el avión, here’s how it works!

Don’t focus on individual words, if you see a new word in the story then memorize the complete phrase that contains the word.

Here’s how I want you to go through the story:

  1. Check out the phrases that I want you to learn in this lesson.
  2. Play the video and identify the phrases.
  3. Say all the phrases out loud
  4. Answer the questions at the end of this post, do it in Spanish.
  5. Listen to the story several times and practice the phrases during the week.

The key phrases of the story ‘El avión’

Casi se me sale el corazón cuando perdí mi documentación: First, we have the expression ‘Casi seme sale el corazón’which basically means that someone feels a very intense emotion, most of the times this expression refers to fear or surprise.

So with the phrase ‘Casi se me sale el corazón cuando perdí mi documentación’, a person expresses that he or she felt fear or surprise when losing his or her personal documents.

De repente: This just means that something came or happened unexpectedly, it literally means something like ‘all of a sudden’. You could use it just as you would use ‘de un momento a otro‘ (we saw this phrase in the story ‘el desayuno’.)

El avión se sacude bruscamente: This phrase is saying that the airplane shakes very hard. Just imagine an airplane experiencing a strong turbulence in the air and you’ll have a context to practice this sentence.

Solo fue una pesadilla: The word ‘pesadilla’refers to a bad dream, or in other words a nightmare, so the complete phrase is saying something like, ‘it was just a nightmare’. You can use this phrase right after you wake up from a bad dream and you realize that it was just a nightmare.

El avión empieza a caer precipitadamente: This phrase is expressing that an ariplane starts to fall very quickly, it suddenly loses hight and it’s going down really bad.


Ok cool! You know the meaning of the key phrases of the story, it is time to for you to play the video, identify these expressions and then internalizing them by repeating the story several times.

Short story: En el avión

If you haven’t completely understood the story, don’t hesitate to use a dictionary or google translateto find out the meaning of the words you don’t know.

Questions for the stroy: En el avión

Did you understand the story? Answer the following questions in the comments below, do it in Spanish.

  1. ¿Para dónde van Sandra y Ernesto?
  2. ¿Dónde fueron las vacaciones de Sandra y Ernesto?
  3. ¿Qué le pasa al avión?
  4. ¿Qué le tiene que confesar Sandra a Ernesto?
  5. ¿Todos mueren en la historia?

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Diego Cuadros is a blogger and a Spanish online teacher. He uses stories to help Spanish lovers understand fast-speaking native speakers, so they don't freeze and panic in conversations.

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