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Abdominal Pain in Spanish

By Doc Molly on January 17, 2022 2

This lesson introduces our course Spanish for Abdominal Pain based on a clinical dialogue I wrote and recorded with a friend from the Dominican Republic, who plays the patient, and another friend from the states who learned Spanish while living in Latin America.  

In this lesson, 

  1. Listen to an excerpt from the clinical dialogue.
  2. Practice different ways to refer to the stomach in Spanish.
  3. Practice questions and phrases regarding the location of a patient’s abdominal pain.
  4. Finally, learn a common construction in Spanish to ask how long the patient has had abdominal pain.  

LEVEL - INTERMEDIATE

Man clutching his stomach.

Clinical Dialogue – Excerpt

1:35

P: Pues…. me duele la barriga.

D: ¿Dónde le duele la barriga? Señáleme.

P: Me duele aquí bajo la costilla. (El paciente señala donde está el hígado.)

D: ¿Hace cuánto tiempo que le duele la barriga?

P: Hace unas semanas, doctora.

D:¿Cómo es el dolor? ¿Es punzante o sordo? ¿Es constante o va y viene?

P: Es punzante y me va y me viene, como cólicos.

D: ¿Cada cuánto le viene el dolor? ¿O sea cuántas veces al día?

P: No sé, doctora. Lo tengo casi todo los días.

D: ¿Me puede decir cuando le viene el dolor? Por ejemplo, ¿Viene después de comer?

P: Sí, me da dolor después de comer. No puedo comer alimentos grasosos. Me hace sentir muy mal.

D: ¿Tiene algún otro síntoma? ¿Tiene náuseas o vómitos?

P: Sí anoche tuve vómitos y mucho dolor después de cenar.

Stomach in Spanish

2:32

El estómago 
La barriga / La panza (colloquial) 

El abdomen
Abdomen

Common phrases 

3:01

¿Tiene dolor de estómago?
Do you have stomach pain / a stomachache?

¿Le duele el estómago?
Does you stomach hurt?

Señale / Indique dónde le duele. 
Point to where it hurts.

From the Dialogue

3:43

Pues, me duele la barriga. 
Well, my stomach hurts.

Where? 

4:05

¿Dónde le duele la barriga? Señáleme. 
Where does your stomach hurt? Show me. 

I discussed the above question with my Spanish teacher, Elizabeth Cortez, and we decided we both prefered the following question. It is clearer in both English and Spanish. 

¿En qué parte del abdomen le duele?
Where in your abdomen does it hurt?

How long?

4:52

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que le duele la barriga?
How long has your stomach hurt? 

Hace unas semanas, doctora.
About a few weeks, doctor. 

¿HACE CUÁNTO (TIEMPO QUE) + VERBO EN PRESENTE?

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que le duele el estómago?
¿Hace cuánto le duele el estómago? 

¿CUÁNTO TIEMPO HACE QUE + VERBO EN PRESENTE?

¿Cuánto tiempo hace que le duele el estómago? 

Two other common constructions for asking about the duration of an ongoing action are the following:

¿DESDE CUÁNDO + VERBO EN PRESENTE?
¿CUÁNTO TIEMPO + LLEVAR (conjugado) + GERUNDIO?

We practice all the above expressions of time in our FREE grammar lesson. 


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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Steve Araiza says

    December 8, 2021 at 8:46 am

    Good morning Dr Martin. Could you tell me where you have the information regarding la diferencia entre sentir y sentirse, porfis? Muchas gracias!

    Reply
    • Doc Molly says

      December 9, 2021 at 9:08 pm

      Good question, Steve. The difference between SENTIRSE y SENTIR comes up in many of our lessons but I have not dedicated one lesson to the topic.
      We cover it in this lesson BB12 Review of Systems – Neurological, and many others.
      Main point: We use SENTIR when we talk about WHAT we feel, and we use SENTIRSE when we talk about HOW we feel.

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