Por favor, cállate.

English Translation

Please be quiet.

Does adding the “por favor” make it polite? If you just said “cállate” by itself does it become rude? In English “shut up” is considered very rude no matter the context, even if lead by “please, shut up”. “Be quiet” is considered mildly rude depending on tone it’s said. The only somewhat polite way in English is something like “Can you keep it(your volume) down, please”

It’s like ‘shut up’, it’s rude with or without the ‘por favor’. On that scale ‘be quiet’ may be like ‘silencio’? A polite turn of phrase would be ‘baja la voz’.

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