Con dinero baila el perro y sin dinero bailas como perro

With money the dog will dance and without money you'll dance like a dog.

I nearly fell out my chair laughing when I heard this one.  I love refranes (sayings).  This one equates to our "Money makes the world go round".  Or at least the first half of it does -- "Con dinero baila el perro".

The second half our refrán "sin dinero bailas como perro" doesn't directly translate to any expression in English that I know of, but I think you get it.  If you don't have any money, you're the one taking the orders!  Although I find the reference to a dancing dog much more fun and colorful.

There are a montón of refranes in Spanish, a lot which are hard to interpret, because we simply don't have corresponding sayings in English, and because you need a deep cultural understanding in  addition to the language aspect. 

I will be posting more refranes, but they will be the ones that have a corresponding saying in English, because those will be the ones we can understand and put to use right away.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Me caes bien - (Caer bien )

I was browsing over an older blog entry about the verb gustar, and realized that I needed to make good on a promise I made, and that promise was to talk about caer bien, which we could say is a close relative of gustar.  So today I'm making good on that promise.   So without further ado....

Caer by itself means to fall.   Caer bien literaly translated means "to fall well".  So when we translate our phrase:


Me caes bien
You fall well on me


 Great, that doesn't make much sense, does it? Now that we've gotten our literal translation out of the way, which isn't doing us much good, let's talk about what this really means.

In Spanish when you say someone "falls well on you", what you're really saying is that you like them.  So let's revisit our example:

Me caes bien
I like you

Great! Now things are starting to make sense.

Here's another example:

¿Te caigo bien?
Do I fall well on you?

Or as we would actually say in English, "Do you like me?"

Now let's move on to something not quite so trivial.

Tu amiga me cae muy bien
I really like your friend

Me caen bien tus amigos
I like your friends

Caer bien works just like gustar, so if you understand how to use gustar, you' re already an expert on caer bien.

And unlike it's cousin gustar, there's nothing tricky here, it just means "To like someone".  If you're not familar with gustar or want to know what makes gustar tricky, you can read my entry on gustar by clicking here. 

You know, it's sad, but we don't always get along with everyone.  And you'll need to know how to say that too.  Fortunately, it's pan comido (really easy).

Tu amiga no me cae muy bien
I really don't like your friend

In fact, you actually have a few options to talk about how much you don't like someone.


Tu amiga me cae gorda
I really don't like your friend

And it's gordo if you're talking about a man. This is option actually slang.  Something a little more standard would be...

Tu amiga me cae mal
I don't like your friend

And well, if you REALLY don't like someone you can just say "Te odio"  - I hate you.  Obviously this is rather strong.

Well, that;s it for now.  If you've read my entry on gustar as well, you'll be completely prepared to talk about who you find attractive, and who you like as a friend, which is a very important distinction.

¡Chao!

Qué onda güey

To be honest, I can't believe I haven't posted about this a long time ago.

If you spend any significant amount of time in México socializing with the people, or even here in the US, this is a phrase you can't escape from.  It's virtually a staple of Méxican spanish.

When I go to Mexico, I spend 3-5 days in las calles (the streets) and bares (bars) talking with anyone and everyone.  And talking to the taxistas (cab drivers) is just as fun, if not more so.  But most of the language they teach me belongs on my other blog.  But I digress.  Getting back to the subject at hand, walking up and down the streets of Tijuana, I can't walk two steps without hearing these words, especially "güey".

Let's start with  "Qué onda".  It means "what's up?".  "Güey" means dude, and you will likely see it written as buey as well.  The real definition of "güey" is Ox, as in the animal.  "Qué onda"  literally is "what wave?".  Best to just remember it as "what's up".  Both of these are very informal, but very common as well. 


 "Qué onda" is pretty straight-forward, I only have one other thing to add about the expression.   A few hand gestures and a change in the tone of your voice and "Qué onda güey" goes from "what's up" to "You got a problem dude?". 

OK, so now let's talk about "güey".  

So, who uses  the word "güey"?  This one's easy, everybody.  Guys say it to guys, girls say it to girls, and guys say it to girls. Literally everyone uses this term, regardless of age.

How else can we use the word "güey"?  Here's a couple of examples...

Qué pasa güey , qué haces güey, cómo estás güey, llamame güey.

I think you get the picture.  You can use it in the same manner as you would "dude"  in English.   

 Now, while it's true a montón (ton) of people use the word "güey", not everybody likes it.  My maestra is one of those people, and quite surprisingly, she's only 23.  So, like always, exercise a bit of caution.

Well, that's it.  Use the words "Qué onda güey", and you are going to sound "muy Méxicano".

¡Hasta la próxima!

Me cuesta un ojo de la cara

When something is expensive in English, we say it costs an arm and a leg.  In Spanish it will cost you an eye "from the face" .  I'm not sure where else an eye would come from, but hey, we're not here to criticize.

"Cuesta" is the verb costar, meaning to cost.  Aside from costing you money or an arm and leg (or an eye) costar has another use.

If you say "me cuesta"  it can mean that something is hard for you.  Let's look at it in context:

A:  Hola, ¿cómo estás?
B: Muy bien, ¿y tu?

A:  ¡Que sorpresa!  ¿Hablas español?
B: Si, hablo mucho, pero todavía estoy aprendiendo.

A:  ¿Te cuesta?
B: Si, a veces me cuesta mucho, pero vale la pena.

Let's take a quick look our key phrases...

¿Te cuesta?
Is it hard for you?

Me cuesta mucho.
It's really hard for me.

Ya!  That's it.  After I heard this the first time, I started hearing it everywhere.  This is something you'll want to have in your Spanish toolbox.

¡Hasta la próxima!