Do you say a glass of wine and a pint of beer in Spanish?

Question

una copa de vino or un vaso de vino? In the Canary Island of Lanzarote on the bill it said copa but my Spanish teacher said a copa is like a brandy glass also a large beer was called una jarra, can I just say una jarra por favor and the camarero will understand or is it best to say una cerveza grande por favor, and is a caña a small beer. Thank you

Pints are only availabe in England. The rest of Europe is mainly metric. - annierats, Mar 21, 2012

Quite the brash statement! - afowen, Mar 21, 2012

I know I am English - robd, Mar 22, 2012

Answer 1

Copa - Wine glass.

Una Cerveza - A beer

The waitress or waiter will likely then ask you what size. Or it will be listed on the menu. You can always try "jarra" but some people in every language just aren't very familiar with terms. I would imagine that they would understand though.

Answer 2

I imagine that it would vary by region...

In Colombia wine is sold by the copa, when refering to a glass. A jarra is indeed a large beer, being a jug, normally 1.5 litres. A jarra would always be accompanied by the relevant number of smaller glasses into which one would decant the beer. A pinta is not a standard measure and if you want to know how much you are going to get then ask, a number of times, until you are convinced that the person you are talking to actually knows what they are talking about and is not just making it up. Pintas might be small weedy American pints (473ml), biiiiig maaanly British pints like what I serve in my pub (568ml), or a glass of roughly half a litre. You don´t get cañas here.

If you want a big beer, go for a jirafa:

Answer 3

Una caña = A small beer.