In a Hotel
Six questions at the reception desk, and you are in your room. Learn the questions, learn to spell your name, learn to say your email — and the check-in stops being the scary part of the trip.
Warm-up
Short answers. Tap a card when you have answered it.
The hardest part of a hotel is the first two minutes. Six questions, always the same six, in every hotel in the world. Learn them today and you will never be nervous at a reception desk again.
Useful language
Things in the room
Click a word, then click its meaning. Correct pairs turn green. The audio button says the word.
Parts of a hotel
Click a word in the bank, then click a gap. Click a filled gap to clear it.
You give your name at the
_____ when you arrive.
I run for thirty minutes in the hotel
_____ every morning.
The children swim in the
_____ all afternoon.
Our car is in the hotel
_____, on level two.
We are in the
_____ — two coffees, please.
In the morning we have
_____ at the hotel: eggs, bread and coffee.
Excuse me, there are no
_____ in the bathroom.
The bed is nice but the
_____ are too hard for my head.
The check-in
Emily arrives at the Borcelle Hotel. Six questions, six answers. The audio button reads each part aloud.
The receptionist says: "Good afternoon! What's your first name?" The guest answers: "My first name is Emily." — "And what's your last name?" — "It's Johnson."
"How do you spell that?" — "J-O-H-N-S-O-N." — "Could you repeat that, please?" — "Sure. J-O-H-N-S-O-N." — "Thank you." — "You're welcome."
"Where are you from?" — "I'm from Canada." — "Where in Canada?" — "I'm from Toronto." Two questions, because the first answer is a country and the second is a city.
"What's your address?" — "It's 456 Maple Street, Toronto, Ontario." The number comes first in English, then the name of the street.
"What's your phone number?" — "My phone number is 416 555 7890." You say the numbers one by one, and in American English zero is often "oh".
"And what's your email?" — "It's emily.johnson@eol.com." You say it like this: emily dot johnson at e-o-l dot com. Then: "Enjoy your stay!"
Multiple choice
Click an answer and you get the result right away, with the reason.
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What is the guest's first name?
First name = the name your friends use. Johnson is the family name.
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And her last name?
Last name, family name and surname all mean the same thing.
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What does the receptionist ask after "It's Johnson"?
Names are hard to hear, so this question always comes next.
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What do you answer after "Thank you"?
Two words, and they are the most polite thing in the whole conversation.
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Where is Emily from?
And then the receptionist asks the second question, about the city.
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Where in Canada?
"Where in Canada?" is how you ask for the city after the country.
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What is her address?
In English the number comes before the street. In Portuguese it is the other way round.
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How do you say a phone number in English?
Four-one-six, five-five-five… slowly, one at a time.
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In American English, zero in a phone number is often…
It sounds like the letter O. You will hear it in room numbers too.
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How do you say the symbol @ ?
And the small point is dot: emily dot johnson at eol dot com.
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What is Emily's email?
Careful with the dot between the two names, and with the ending.
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How does the receptionist finish?
The fixed sentence at the end of every check-in in English.
The six questions
Learn these as blocks, not as grammar. Nobody builds them word by word at a reception desk. They come out whole, the same way bom dia comes out in Portuguese.
- What's your first name? — My first name is Emily.
- What's your last name? — It's Johnson. · How do you spell that? — J-O-H-N-S-O-N.
- Where are you from? — I'm from Canada. · Where in Canada? — I'm from Toronto.
- What's your address? — It's 456 Maple Street. Number first, then the street.
- What's your phone number? · What's your email? — It's …
- What's is short for what is. And the answer often starts with It's.
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___ your first name?
A name is a thing, not a place, so the question word is what.
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___ are you from?
Where asks about a place, and the little word from stays at the end.
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___ do you spell that?
How asks about the way you do something — here, letter by letter.
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What's your last name? — ___ Johnson.
The answer needs a subject, and for a name that subject is it.
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Which address is written the English way?
Number, then street. Every time.
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I'm from Canada. — ___ in Canada?
Two short words that get you the city after the country.
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Which question is correct?
Question word, verb, person. The same order as every to be question in Class 3.
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Could you ___ , please?
After could you, the verb has no to and no -ing.
Numbers, letters and emails
- 0 to 10: zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
- In room and phone numbers, zero is often "oh" in American English: room 205 is two oh five.
- Phone numbers go one by one: 416 555 7890 is four one six, five five five, seven eight nine oh.
- Emails: @ is at · . is dot · a name you cannot guess is spelled letter by letter.
- Hard letters for Brazilians: A sounds like "ei" · E like "i" · I like "ai" · H is "aitch" · W is "double u".
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Room 205 in American English is:
Room numbers go digit by digit, and the zero becomes "oh".
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How do you say @ in an email?
One small word. Nobody in English says arroba.
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And how do you say the point in ".com"?
Dot com. You have heard it a thousand times in movies.
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The letter H is:
One of the letters that Brazilian students almost always say the Portuguese way.
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The letter W is:
Two U letters, not two V letters. That is why the name is double u.
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Which letter sounds like "ai"?
And A sounds like "ei", and E sounds like "i". Those three cause most of the spelling mistakes.
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The phone number 555 7890 ends with:
Digit by digit to the end: seven, eight, nine, oh.
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Somebody says a name too fast. You say:
Or "How do you spell that?" Both work, and both are polite.
Write the number
Write the digit, not the word. Example: ten → 10
Say each one out loud as you type it. The eyes learn fast; the mouth is the slow part, and the mouth is the one you need at a reception desk.
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afour
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beight
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ctwo
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dzero
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ethree
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fseven
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gone
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hnine
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ifive
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jsix
Answer about Emily
Look at the check-in conversation again and answer with one or two words.
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aWhat's her first name?
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bWhat's her last name?
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cWhat country is she from?
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dWhat city is she from?
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eWhat street does she live on?
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fWhat's her email?
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gHow do you say the symbol @ ?
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hHow do you say the point in ".com"?
Role-play: the check-in
First I am the receptionist and you are the guest. Then we change. Give real answers.
Useful language
My check-in form
40–70 words. Write your own check-in, with the six questions and your real answers. Then add two sentences about the room you want.
My results
Check your score, then copy it and send it to your teacher on WhatsApp.
One job for this week. Spell your full name out loud in English once a day, and say your phone number after it. Thirty seconds. It is the single most useful thing you can automate this month.