Friday, September 19, 2008

T-Shirts are complicated

Yet again, I went out for some of those tacos I love so much. While I was there, a guy came by wearing a t-shirt that said:


Tú sabrás Karate, pero yo sé putazos

I knew what it all meant, except for one word. Wanna try and guess which one?

Yeah, you guessed it. Putazos is the word I just could not figure out.

So, aside from that, we have...

You might know Karate, but I know ???

That was enough to get the gist of things, but of course I just had to know what putazos meant.

I started off with WordReference.com (WR). I figured, hey, do a quick search, ba-da-bing, da-da-boom, and I'm done and moving on to the conquest of the next mysterious Spanish word.

Well, it almost worked out that way.

Here's the link to my thread in WR where I asked about putazos . It explains a lot, and points out that the word means different things to different people.

I still needed a bit of clarification, so I asked my Colombian friend. He told me that this is a bad word, an insult. Shame on me, because I forgot exactly what the corresponding English word is. Anyway, his definition didn't fit the context of the sentence. So I asked my Mexican friend.

My Mexican amigo told me that putazo(s) has a couple of meanings for him. The first one is puto, as in gay. Well, the exact sentiment of puto is probably closer to fag or faggot. To say someone is putazo is to say they are not only gay, but extremely gay. I believe the word we use in English is flaming.

The other meaning of putazos is golpes. Golpes means something to the effect of hitting someone, or giving them a good beating. This seems to be right in line with the context our t-shirt slogan.

So, after a whole bunch of long-winded explanations, I think we can safely translate our sentence as something like...

You might know karate, but I'm good at giving out ass whoopings.

Or maybe...

You might know karate, but I'm good at knocking people out.

I'm probably taking a few liberties with my translations, but I think in the spirit of things it's pretty darn close.

Oh! One more thing about the word puto. If you change it to puta, it also means whore. No matter how you say it, it should be obvious you need to be careful with this word, or else you might be the recipient of a putazo.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Pizza tastes so much better with a side of Spanish

With Mexican Independence day around the corner, it became the topic of discussion at my most recent Spanish meetup group. Our discussion centered around a few articles about the war for independence and some of its heroes. Here's a link to one of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niños_Héroes


But that conversation took place after a few rebanadas (slices) of pizza. And lucky for us, pizza is the same word in both English and Spanish.

You can also use the word rebanadas to talk about a slice of anything, cake, bread, etc. It can also be used colloquially to talk about slicing your finger open too. Ouch! And the word rebanar is the verb meaning "to slice".

I overheard someone asking for a straw, which is a popote. At least in Mexican Spanish it is. The other term that came up was pajilla. But wait, it's not that simple. As was I double checking the spelling of these wonderful Spanish words, I discovered that the word for a drinking straw is quite regional. You can learn more words here:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=6897

Now, back to the pizza. I decided to share a pizza with una amiga. We ordered a pizza with peperoni, brócoli, and pimiento verde. I'm guessing you won't need much help translating the first two. Pimiento verde is a green pepper. Other types of peppers - pimiento rojo and pimiento amarillo. But ¡cuidado! You don't want to confuse these with good old-fashioned black pepper, which is pimienta.

I asked the esposa of my newly married amigo how difficult it is to get a tourist visa from Mexico to the US. Well, it's not incredibly hard, if you have a trabajo fijo (permanent job) and/or own property in Mexico. And you have have to pay the application fee, of course. Apparently governments all over the world have caught on to the concept of charging people for services.

Some other random things that popped up....

MXP is the abbreviation for the Mexican Peso.

On the off chance you ever need to talk about the Chicken Pox, the Spanish word is varicela. My amiga refered to those nasty itchy little bumps as ronchas, although a quick search also revealed the word ampollitas.

A mechanical bull is a toro mecánico.

Remember the famous statue of the Thinker? Well, in Spanish you would refer to him as el pensador. To be slightly more exact it would be the "estatua de pensador".

And last but far from least, I learned what a coqueto is - a person who likes to coquetear. A flirt. And like most adjectives in Spanish, if you're talking about a woman she would be a coqueta. So the next time that cute Spanish guy or gal is giving you the eye, ask them...

¿Estás coqueteando comigo?

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Dinner conversation

Every Monday night I have dinner with my local Spanish MeetUp Group. We simply have dinner and chit chat in general. Well, this time I took notes.

I mainly spoke with the esposa of the group's organizer. They haven't been married long, only a few months. So I asked her how she was enjoying married life - "vida de casada".

Now, prior to getting married, she lived in Mexico City (Cuidad de México or simply México), so naturally my next question was how she liked living in the US. She said she likes it here, but like anything else, it has its pros y sus contras (pros and cons).

She told me a little about la Cuidad de México, and I asked her where people from Mexcio City go on vacation. Apparently lots of people go to Acapulco. Other top spots are Guadalajara, Ixtapa, and I believe Veracruz. There were a few other places, but I didn't write them down. But the people with lots of money to burn come to the US - Miami, Orlando, New York, and surprisingly (at least to me), Houston. I asked her about her favorite vacation spot, and she likes to go to Ixtapa, because her family has a tiempo compartido (time share) there.

On a completely different subject, I learned a few ways to describe a womans dress - it can be a vestido largo (long dress), a vestido corto (short dress) a vestido ancho (loose fitting), or muy apretado or pegado - tight. And a mini-skirt is a minifalda.

Somehow we got on the topic of snacks. What really got my attention was the fact that she was speaking in Spanish and actually used the word "snack". I said "isn't this Spanglish? " But much to my surprise, she told me "snack" is a very commonly used word in Mexico. Other words for "snack" - botana, but you'll only hear this one in Mexico, and colación.

We got into a discussion about the difficulties of learning certain things in Spanish. I said that one of the things I find muy cunfuso (very confusing) is when to use the preterite and imperfect tenses, which then led to another confusing subject, ser and estar. I then proceeded to tell her my meta (goal) was "estar bilingüe", and she promptly pointed out I that my goal is to "ser bilingüe". Further confirming her comment about ser and estar being confusing.

I also didn't realize I was going to be tested on my abecedarios. If that word doesn't sound familar, then you might recognize this one - el alfabeto. While I was able to recite my ABC's, I had to confess that I (still) can't trill my R's. I was also disappointed to learn that there's no alphabet song in Spanish.

Speaking of alphabets, in Spanish when you have two of the same letters that appear next to each other, you say "doble (letter)". E.g. to spell the word "letter", you would say " elle, e, doble te, e, ere". To say "...te, te..." is oh so wrong.


The last thing I have to share is about the cheesecake I ordered. Being a kind and gentle soul (and more importantly, not wanting to get fatter), I shared with my new amiga. And by sharing, I mean I attempted give her more than her fair share. But like any polite person, as the size of the cheescake dwindled, she wanted me to enjoy the last few bites. So, when I tried to insist that she take yet another bite, she told me an interesting dicho - the cheesecake "es probete, no llenete". Which means something like "you're just supposed to taste it, not fill up on it". Now, not being the type to give up (I was determined not to eat those extra calories), I told her a dicho I was familiar with "come uno, comen diaz". That means if there's food for one, there's food for ten. In other words, it may be a small portion, but we can still share it. While it was indeed a witty comeback, I still ended up eating the extra calories.

Friday, September 5, 2008

I'm leaving. Or am I?

A long time ago I learned two nifty ways to express the idea of "I'm leaving" in Spanish:

Tengo que irme (or Me tengo que ir) and Me voy.

The problem was I had no idea what the difference was between the two, so I asked a couple of my amigos (one from Argentina and one one from Colombia), and this is what I learned...

You know how you're at dinner or a party having a good time, and you realize it's time to go? So you start with "I've gotta get going".

Thirty minutes later, you say it one more time.

15 minutes after that, you say "OK, I'm leaving" and finally walk out the door.

Well, in Spanish to express the idea of "I've got to get going", you say "Tengo que irme". Maybe you get up and leave, maybe you don't.

When you finally reach the point where you're actually leaving, you wave goodbye, dole out a few besos and abrazos, say "Me voy", and head on out the door.

Well, there you have it. Y ahora, ¡me voy!