The use of "llamar"

Question

I came across the following sentence in a book. "La foto del volcán en su libro y los reflejos (highlights) rojos en el cabello me llamaron la attención"

Which I read as "The photo of the volcano in his book and the red highlights in his hair caught my attention"

This was the first time I'd come across the use of llamar in this way so I looked in dictionaries for other examples of it's use and found the following.

El chocolate no me llama demasiado = I'm not all that keen on chocolate

Me llamó con la mano para que me acercara = he beckoned me over

(España) (costar) ¿cómo se llama esto? how much is this? = what's the damage? (muy_familiar)

Are these uses of llamar fairly common in spoken Spanish? I'm particularly interested in European Spanish. Thanks.

Good question. - JoyceM, Mar 4, 2012

Good question...welcome to the forum. - --Mariana--, Mar 4, 2012

Answer 1

Yes, Handy, I frequently use all of them (in Spain)

Thanks Cordobesa. - handy, Mar 4, 2012

ps. it's "frequently" :) - handy, Mar 4, 2012

Thanks, Handy! :) - Cordobesa, Mar 4, 2012

Answer 2

''Yo me llamo X'', it's ''my name is..'', and also ''ultima llamada''..''last announcement..of flight. X at the airport, ''ultima llamada del vuelo X en el aeropuerto'', ''se llaman chromosomos'' ''they are called chromosomes''..

"Ultima llamada" is new to me, thanks. - handy, Mar 4, 2012

Answer 3

I am most familiar with South/Central American Spanish, so like Smsmith, I have heard all of those uses of "llamar" except the last regarding the price of something. In that case we say, "¿Cuánto vale?"

Thanks for that, "¿cuánto vale?" is new to me. - handy, Mar 4, 2012

Answer 4

I´ve never heard it used in the context of the last example you gave, but the other two are quite common. "llamar la atención" is something you will hear a lot and when it is just the verb, like in the second example, I would think that it is because the part "la atención" is understood but left out.