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Say I have my hands full but need to grab something else. In English, I would say "here, take this" or "could you hold this" or "can you take this for a second".

How could I say this in Spanish? To a friend? More politely, to a superior?

"¿Darlo por favor?"
"¿Podría ayudarme para tomar eso?"

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  • I simply say 'Toma' when I'm in a bind like that. Typically though, you say 'Toma' right as you are handing something to someone. I suppose it's the English equivalent of "Here!"
    – dockeryZ
    Sep 26, 2014 at 3:21

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Not darlo nor tomar

¿Podría sujetar esto, por favor?

¿Podría cogerme esto, por favor? (as long as you are not talking to Argentinians)

¿Podría sostenerme esto, por favor?

or even

¿Podría guardarme esto un momento, por favor?

So my advice is to use the verbs sujetar, coger, sostener and guardar in that context.

Use darlo only to request it back:

¿Podrías darmelo de vuelta, por favor?

and instead of tomar think of coger o agarrar for "take" (Again, carefull with the double meaning of coger in certain countries).

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  • Gracias!! What is the double meaning of coger? Since you say to be careful, I'm assuming it is sexual/rude?
    – RossHamish
    Sep 25, 2014 at 16:07
  • @RossHamish, Yes, sexual. It stands for the F-word, at least in Argentina, but I'm not sure in which other south-american countries. Definitely, not in Spain. Also, I don't have access to accents with this keyboard. I'll edit my answer to include them later.
    – Diego
    Sep 25, 2014 at 16:17
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    In a place like Mexico, coger is exclusively understood as to fuck. In Cuba, like in Spain, it's entirely non-vulgar. In other countries, both meanings are prevalent with context distinguishing whether to interpret it as vulgar.
    – user0721090601
    Sep 25, 2014 at 17:30
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En México diríamos:

Agárrame esto por favor. Litteral translation for 'here take this'.

Agárrame esto tantito por favor. Here, hold this for a second.

In both cases you can say "porfa" instead of "por favor"

More polite:

Disculpe, ¿podría agarrarme ésto por favor? Talking to elder people

Disculpa, ¿podrías agarrarme ésto por favor? Talking to people of your same age, or less than 40

You can add "oye" in the beggining of these two "Oye disculpa". And you can also say "porfa".

There are other words than agarrar, like sostener but agarrar is the most common here.

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