Learn Spanish (Spain): La chica pidió un descuento y compró la falda por poco dinero. - The girl asked for a discount and bought the skirt for little money.

In Spanish, por is used to express price, exchange, or substitution. Because the girl is exchanging her money for the skirt, we use por to show the price or the trade being made, which fits the rule you are learning in this lesson.

Why is it pidió instead of preguntó for the word 'asked'?

There are two common verbs for 'to ask' in Spanish. Pedir means to ask for something, like requesting a discount, an object, or a favor. Preguntar means to ask a question to get information. Since she is requesting a discount, we must use pedir.

The verb is pedir, so why is it spelled pidió with an 'i' instead of an 'e'?

Pedir is a stem-changing verb in the preterite tense, which is used for completed past actions. For verbs ending in '-ir' that have a stem change, the 'e' changes to an 'i' in the third-person forms (he, she, it, they). Therefore, 'she asked' becomes pidió.

Why is it poco dinero and not pocos dineros?

Here, poco acts as an adjective describing dinero. In Spanish, dinero (money) is an uncountable, singular masculine noun, so poco must also be singular and masculine. You would only use the plural pocos for countable nouns, such as pocos euros (few euros).