Learn Hardcore Spanish (Spain): La clienta guarda la factura en su cartera y hace cola para pagar. - The female customer keeps the invoice in her wallet and queues to pay.

In many contexts, el cliente can be used generically (when you don’t care about the gender), but if the speaker wants to make it clear the customer is a woman, la clienta is natural and common in Spain.

la cliente is generally considered incorrect or at least non‑standard; the usual feminine form is clienta.

What does guardar mean here? Is it like English “to guard”?

Guardar is a classic false friend.

Here it means to put away / to keep / to store, not “to guard” in the sense of “to protect” (though that meaning exists in some contexts).

So La clienta guarda la factura en su cartera =
“The customer puts the invoice/receipt away in her wallet/purse.”

Common uses of guardar:

guardar la factura – keep/keep hold of the receipt
guardar la ropa – put the clothes away
guardar un secreto – keep a secret
guardar sitio – save a seat/spot

Why is it la factura and not something like el recibo?

Both factura and recibo exist, but they’re not identical:

factura: an invoice or itemised bill, often for tax/official purposes (with company details, VAT number, etc.). In shops in Spain, if you need a document for your business or for tax deduction, you ask for una factura.
recibo: a receipt, a document that proves you paid.

In everyday shop talk in Spain, people may also say el ticket (from English “ticket”) for the little printed receipt you get.

In this sentence, the choice of factura suggests it’s that more formal, invoice‑type document, or the author is just using it as a generic “bill/receipt”.

Does cartera mean “wallet” or “handbag” or “purse”?

It depends on the country, but the sentence is in Spanish from Spain, so:

In Spain, cartera usually means wallet (for money and cards) or briefcase.
- For a woman’s handbag, people usually say bolso.
In many Latin American countries, cartera can mean a woman’s handbag/purse.

So in Spain, la clienta guarda la factura en su cartera is most naturally:
“The customer puts the receipt in her wallet.”

If the writer had wanted to make it clearly a handbag in Spain, they would typically say en su bolso.

Why is it en su cartera and not dentro de su cartera?

Spanish en covers both English in and on, so:

en su cartera = in her wallet/purse (or “on” where context requires).

dentro de su cartera also means “inside her wallet”, but:

en su cartera is shorter and completely natural.
dentro de su cartera adds a little emphasis that it’s inside (not, for example, on top of it), or is used when you want to be very explicit.

In most everyday contexts, en su cartera is preferred; dentro de is not wrong, just more explicit.

How do we know su means “her” and not “his” or “your”?

Su is ambiguous by itself. It can mean:

his
her
its
your (formal, singular or plural)
their

Here it’s understood as her because the only possible owner mentioned is la clienta (a female person).

If you ever need to avoid ambiguity, Spanish can use de + pronoun:

la cartera de ella – her purse/wallet
la cartera de él – his purse/wallet

But in a simple sentence like this, context makes su cartera = her purse/wallet.

Why is it hace cola? Why use hacer (“to do/make”) with cola?

In Spain, hacer cola is a fixed expression meaning to queue / to stand in line / to line up. Literally: to make a line/queue.

hacer cola (Spain) – stand in line, queue
hacer fila (many Latin American countries) – same idea, with fila instead of cola

You’ll also hear:

ponerse a la cola – to join the queue
estar en la cola – to be in the queue

But hacer cola is very common in Spain for “to queue”.

Why is there no article: why hace cola, not hace la cola?

Because hacer cola functions like an idiom: hace cola essentially means “(she) queues”. In this expression, cola is used without an article.

Compare:

hace cola para pagar – she queues to pay (general action)
está en la cola para pagar – she is in the (specific) queue to pay

When you refer to a specific, identified queue, you often use la cola. In the idiomatic expression hacer cola, you normally omit the article.

Could it be está haciendo cola instead of hace cola?

Yes, está haciendo cola is also correct and means she is (currently) queuing.

Difference in nuance:

hace cola (simple present): in Spanish, this can describe what she is doing right now in a narrative, or a habitual action. Spanish simple present is broader than English simple present.
está haciendo cola (present progressive): emphasizes that the action is in progress right now.

In many narrative contexts (especially written Spanish), hace cola is perfectly natural where English uses “is queuing”.

Why is it para pagar and not a pagar?

Para + infinitive often expresses purpose: “in order to … / to … (for the purpose of).”

hace cola para pagar = she queues (in order) to pay

After hacer cola, para is the normal choice when you want to say what the line is for.

a pagar can appear in other structures (e.g. vamos a pagar – “we’re going to pay”), but hacer cola a pagar is not idiomatic. For purpose, use para pagar.

All the nouns here are feminine: la clienta, la factura, su cartera. Is that just because they end in -a?

In this sentence, it happens that all three nouns are feminine and all do end in -a:

la clienta – feminine person (female customer)
la factura – feminine noun
la cartera – feminine noun

However, not all nouns ending in -a are feminine (e.g. el día, el mapa), and not all feminine nouns end in -a (e.g. la mano).

So you can’t rely only on the ending; you have to learn each noun’s gender. Here, the sentence is also made deliberately consistent by talking about a clearly female character (la clienta) who has la cartera, la factura, etc.

Could the word order be La clienta guarda en su cartera la factura? Is that still correct?

Yes, that word order is grammatically correct:

La clienta guarda la factura en su cartera.
La clienta guarda en su cartera la factura.

Both are possible. The second version slightly emphasizes en su cartera (where she puts it), while the first is the most neutral, standard order (direct object then prepositional phrase).

Spanish word order is flexible, especially for emphasis, but the basic S–V–O order (subject–verb–object) is the default. Here, the original is the most common-sounding option.