Friday, January 29, 2010

¿Cómo amaneciste?

Today I thought I might share some humorous responses to some common questions.  There's nothing like being able to add a little humor into your Spanish conversations.  So let's get started...

¿Cómo dormiste?
How did you sleep?

Well, you could just reply "bien", but where's the fun in that?  Instead try:

Boca abajo
On my stomach

Boca arriba
On my back

¿Cómo amaneciste?   


You may not be familiar with this one.  Colloquially it's a way of asking "how are you feeling this morning?".  Perhaps you went to bed sick the night before, or maybe even a bit tipsy after a long night of partying. 

But more literally it means something to the effect of "How did you wake up this morning?". And it's because of this meaning we can have a little fun with our response:

Acostado.
Lying down.

En mi cama.
In my bed.

Crudo.
Hung over

¿A qué hora te despertaste?
What time did you wake up?

No estoy despierto todavía.
I'm still not awake.

¿Quién te dijo que ya estaba despierto?
Who told you I was awake?


Well, that's it.  Have fun with these and see if you can get a few laughs.

Hasta la próxima

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Habla quedito

This is a nifty little phrase I picked up.  Let me give you a few examples and see if you can figure out what it means:

Habla quedito porque va a empezar la matiné

Habla quedito nos van a escuchar

Pon la musica, pero quedito

You've probably picked up the meaning of our phrase, habla quedito, but let's translate our sentences anyway.

Talk quietly because the show is going to start.

Talk quietly or they're going to hear us.

Put on the music, but not too loud

That's it!  Pan comido, right?  Don't you wish everything in Spanish was this easy?

¡Cuidense!

Tu y tus peros

We all know someone who has an excuse for everything...

"I was going to but..."

"I started to do that but..."

"I was going to pay you back but..."

And I'm sure the list goes on.  Luckily for us, you can tell them what's on your mind with some very simple Spanish:

Tu y tus peros, siempre con tus peros.
You and your buts, always with your buts.

No me des peros, mejor dime que no quiere salir, y ya.
Stop giving me your buts, it's better for you to tell me you don't want to go out, and that's that.

There's certainly no ground breaking discoveries of the Spanish language here, but it would never have occured to me I could use "pero" in this fashion. 

I hope you find this bit of Spanish useful, so until the next time, adios!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

No seas pelangoche

Some people like to use language that's a little more "colorful"  to spice up everyday speech.  If you haven't guessed, I'm refering  to malas palabras (bad words) and Spanish has no shortage of them.  Especially Mexican Spanish.

Pelangoche is the word you use to describe someone who swears a lot.  Pelangocha if you're talking about a woman.

So our phrase, No seas pelangoche, translates to something like "Don't swear so much" or "Don't be so foul mouthed".   There's no exact translation, or at least not one that's coming to me right now, but I think you get the picture.

With that out of the way, I can move on to the next matter at hand.  "No seas pelangoche" is also the name of my new blog. 

My new blog is completely dedicated to the malas palabras of Mexican Spanish.  I take a very close up and personal look at the racier side of Spanish, and share everything I learn with you in a straight-foward,  matter-of -fact kind of way.  I'm not pulling any punches, so you can expect to see very explicit language in both English and Spanish. 

Now that I've gotten the disclaimer out of the way, here's the link to my new blog:

http://pelangoche.blogspot.com/

For those of you interested in that aspect of Spanish, enjoy!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Andar de volada

I talked about de volada in another post, which you can find here. However, when you combine de volada with andar, you get a completely different meaning.

Speaking of andar, if you're not familiar with that verb, you can read about it here.

But let's move on and start talking about andar de volada.

Esta chava anda de volada conmigo pero no le gusta.
This girl is flirting with me but I'm not attracted to her.

¿Quien es esa chica que anda de volada contigo?
Who is that girl flirting with you?

Another way to talk about flirting is using the verb coquetear, which also means to flirt. I wrote a little about coquetear here in a previous post. That post is a little long, so if you're short on time, just jump to the end of the post to get directly to the stuff on coquetear.


That's it for now. Sooner or later you're bound to overhear someone talking about flirting, or perhaps you'll anda de volada con alguien yourself.



¡Hasta luego!

de volada

Well, the holidays are over and it's time for me to stop being flojo (lazy) and get back to my obsession with Spanish.

Today we're going to talk about de volada, and luckily for us, it's pretty straight forward.

Pensé que iba a llegar de volada, pero me tarde mucho.
I thought I was going to get there right away, but it took me a long time.

Vente de volada a casa.
Come home right away.

Ya voy para alla de volada.
I'm headed over there right away.


As you can see from the examples, de volada implies a sense of urgency...right away or immediately.

This will definitely make your Spanish sound more natural, so start using it right away and have some fun while you're at it!