No te hagas

The first time I heard this, it was actually directed at me.  Since then it's become one of my favorite phrases.

Essentially, it's a way of telling someone to "stop pretending", "stop acting like..." or "don't act like you don't know".

Let's take a look at how we might use this:

You loan your friend $20, the next day you see him with a pocket full of money, and you say "Great, you can pay me back that $20".  He says "What $20?".  Your response:

No te hagas (el tonto / el pato)
Don't act stupid/Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about

You may have noticed that you can tack on "el tonto" or "el pato"  to this expression.  While "el tonto"  actually makes sense, because it can mean "fool" or "silly", but I have no idea where "el pato" comes in.  Tha's just the way the expression works.

Here are some more examples:

No te hagas el enojado
Stop acting like you should be angry

No te hagas la victima
Don't act like you're the victim

There are other ways to use this phrase, but this will certainly get you started.

¡Hasta la próxima!

YO NO FUI !!!!!

¡Yo no fui!

You probably learned that that this translates to "I didn't go".  And that would be 100% correct.

¿Fuiste el super?
Did you go the supermakert?

No fui.
No, I didn't go.

But as always, phrases in Spanish typically have more than one meaning.

If someone is trying to blame you for something, the second definition of "yo no fui" is something you'll want to remember:

Quien dejó la puerta abierta? - Who left the door open?
Quien quemó el pollo? - Who Burned the chicken?
Quien hizo eso? - Who did that?

¡¡Yo no fui!!
It wasn't me

In fact, I recommend you blame you someone else...

Yo no fui, ¡ fue Anthony!
It wasn't me, it was Anthony

Of course if it’s something good like…

Quien limpio la cocina? - who cleaned the kitchen?

I would say “Fui yo!” - It was me!

¡Hasta Pronto!

Se me ponchó una llanta

If you don't know, a llanta is a tire.   And as we all know, tires often go flat.  I had a flat two weeks in a row, both at almost midnight.  Yeah, it sucked.  But I digress.

In Mexico, when you want to talk about getting a flat tire, the verb you're likely to hear is poncharse.    So if you want to say you got a flat tire, that's where our phrase comes in:

Se me ponchó una llanta
I got a flat tire

If you want to talk about other people who got flat tires, you can say:

Se te ponchó una llanta
You got a flat tire

Se le ponchó una llanta
He/She got a flat tire

Se nos ponchó una llanta
We got a flat tire

Se les ponchó una llanta
They got a flat tire

A flat tire, the tire itself that is, is called a ponchada.  And the plural version is ponchadas.  You may also hear the word ponchadura.

If you want your tire fixed, you  might want to go to a "taller para reperar llantas" - a workshop where they repair tires.   These places go by several names:

"ponchaduría", "desponchaduría", "desponchadora", "vulcanizadora"  or "vulka".

These workshops aren't your Sears or Wal-Mart tire centers, but instead might look something like this:

In fact, if you take a drive through a Mexican neighborhood, you may see a desponchadora that hopefully isn't as quite as untidy as the one in our photo. 

Like always, in the Spanish language there's more than one way to skin a cat.  Especially if you're talking about flat tires.  Other words to take a look at are pinchar, gomas, and desinfladas to name a few.  Wordreference.com is a great place to look if you're interested in alternatives.

Anyway, that's it for today.  Be careful not to ponchar any llantas in the near future!

Tengo cosas en el tintero

Until I heard this phrase, I didn't know what a tintero was.  So why don't we start there.

Here's a picture of a tintero...

So now we know what a tintero is.  The little bottle that holds your ink.  Lucky for us the the ball point pen came along.

As usual, a literal translation won't work.  There aren't to many things (cosas) you can put into a tintero.  So let's just make our translation:

Tengo cosas en el tintero

I have some things on my mind

I happen to like this expression, don't ask me why.  And I learned this from a Peruvian friend, so I really have no idea how universal this is, but don't let that stop you from using this phrase.  If the people you're speaking to aren't familar with it, explain it.  I bet in return they tell you their version of the expression and it's a win win situation for everybody.

That's it for today, ¡hasta pronto!