01 · The verb you'll use in every room
Está en la cocina.
It's in the kitchen.
Estar for location, always — even for furniture that never moves. Es en la cocina is the slip that gives beginners away.
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Mi Casa
Name the rooms, place the furniture, and give a home tour — out loud.
Learn the rooms with their articles — la cocina, el baño, la sala, el dormitorio — because the gender is half the word. Then place things with estar plus one preposition: está en la cocina, sobre (on top of), debajo de (under), al lado de (next to). And know that homes are where Spanish gets most regional: a bedroom is la recámara in Mexico and el cuarto in Colombia, the living room becomes el living in Argentina, and the fridge is el refri, la heladera or la nevera depending on the country.
Below: the house words lesson by lesson, what Mexicans and Argentines actually call the furniture, the ser/estar slip that gives you away — and a way to practice it &Be's way: talking through your own home out loud, no flashcards, no drills.
The warm-up pack
Naming every room and knowing exactly where things are — the way you'd give a real tour.
01 · The verb you'll use in every room
Está en la cocina.
It's in the kitchen.
Estar for location, always — even for furniture that never moves. Es en la cocina is the slip that gives beginners away.
02 · Placing the biggest piece of furniture
El sofá está en la sala.
The sofa is in the living room.
Room + item + location, in that order — the whole structure in five words.
03 · Next to, exactly
La lámpara está al lado de la ventana.
The lamp is next to the window.
Al lado de is three words, always in that order, and it never changes — one of the easiest prepositions to keep straight.
04 · The casual swap for 'between'
El sofá está en medio de la sala.
The sofa is in the middle of the living room. (En medio de often stands in for entre in speech.)
Entre is the textbook word. En medio de is what actually comes out when people are talking, not writing.
05 · A compliment about someone's living room
La sala está bien acomodadita.
The living room's really nicely set up. (Colombia.)
The soft diminutive acomodadita turns a plain observation into a genuine compliment.
06 · Finding the mirror
El espejo está al lado de la puerta.
The mirror is next to the door.
Same al lado de pattern, new furniture — once you have the preposition, any object slots in.
07 · The loanword everyone actually uses
El clóset está al lado de la cama.
The closet is next to the bed. (Mexico borrows clóset straight from English.)
Armario is the word in the textbook. Clóset is the word in the actual house.
08 · Mexico's word for the room itself
El armario está en la recámara.
The closet is in the bedroom. (Mexico says recámara instead of dormitorio.)
Dormitorio is understood everywhere. Recámara is what you'll actually hear in Mexico.
09 · Argentina's word for the fridge
La heladera está en la cocina.
The fridge is in the kitchen. (Argentina and Uruguay say heladera — Mexico shortens it to refri, Colombia says nevera.)
Same appliance, three completely different words depending on where you land.
10 · Where the rug goes
La alfombra está en la sala.
The rug is in the living room.
Small vocabulary, same reliable pattern — this is how confidence with prepositions actually builds.
11 · Where your head actually lands
La almohada está en la cama.
The pillow is on the bed.
En, not sobre, is what people actually say here — sobre sounds a little more formal than the moment calls for.
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Ten-minute spoken lessons. A teacher who answers back — and gently fixes what you got wrong.
First 10 lessons freeandbefluent.com/spanish/mi-casaRegional Spanish
Textbooks teach one word. Locals use several — pick your region's and stay consistent.
| English | Mexico | Argentina |
|---|---|---|
| refrigerator | el refri | la heladera |
| living room | la sala | el living |
| closet | el clóset | el placard |
| shower | la regadera | la ducha |
Watch out
The part no drill site can do
Olivia
Your vocabulary teacher for this pack
Nothing to flip, match or fill in — in the Mi Casa lessons you learn house words by saying them where they live. Olivia asks you for a tour of your own home: you walk her through it room by room — la cocina, la sala, el dormitorio — naming what's in each one. Then she loses things on purpose: where's the phone? And you place it out loud — está en la cocina, al lado de la lámpara, debajo de la mesa — one preposition per sentence, until locating things in Spanish is a reflex. And she talks back.
Blank mid-sentence and nothing bad happens — she waits. That's the practice, without unnecessary judgement.
Finish the 5 lessons and Mi Casa is yours — earned, not given.
First 10 lessons free · 10-minute spoken lessons · your AI coaching team remembers you
Quick answers
La cocina (kitchen), el dormitorio (bedroom), el baño (bathroom), la sala (living room), el comedor (dining room). In real speech Mexico says la recámara for bedroom and Colombia says el cuarto.
La sala is the standard word. Argentina prefers the loanword el living, and in the Caribbean you'll hear la sala-comedor when living and dining share one space.
Estar + a preposition: está en la cocina (it's in the kitchen), sobre la mesa (on the table), debajo de la cama (under the bed), al lado de la ventana (next to the window). One preposition per sentence keeps it clear — and Mexicans add the friendly ahí nomás, 'right there'.
The fridge: el refrigerador, shortened to el refri in Mexico, but la heladera in Argentina and la nevera in Colombia. The stove is la estufa in Mexico — but careful: in Argentina and Spain la estufa often means a heater, so there the stove is la cocina.
Estar, always: está en la cocina, never es en la cocina. Location takes estar even for things that never move — it's the single most common slip with house vocabulary.