"May I... please..."

Question

If I were to say "May I have an application please?" would I say, "¿Podría tener una aplicación, por favor?" Is there a more polite/better way of saying this? I appreciate any input! Thank you!

What a lovely question. It is both polite and asking about how to be polite in other situations. You get my vote. - MacFadden, Aug 17, 2010

Agreed, courtesy wins a vote from me, too - and it's a good question as well. - revmaf, Aug 17, 2010

Answer 1

¿Pudieras darme una solicitud, por favor? No creo que el uso del verbo tener sea correcto en este contexto.

You're right. This sounds much more natural. - MacFadden, Aug 17, 2010

Thanks. I learned this because at my job i speak to native speakers all the time and they corrected me when i used to ask for things using tener. - pescador1, Aug 17, 2010

Gracias por tu comentario! - EggmanS, Aug 17, 2010

Answer 2

The best word for 'application' in this sense is probably la solicitud. You can use the imperfect subjunctive to add an extra degree of politeness to a request. In this case, to do this, you would use pudiera instead of podría. In other words, I would say, "¿Pudiera tener una solicitud, por favor?"

Update: Pescador makes a good point. Switching the sentence around to not use tener that way sounds much more natural.

Thank you very much! - EggmanS, Aug 16, 2010

You are most welcome. - MacFadden, Aug 16, 2010