spanish slang Archives - Learn Spanish with Andrew

Learn Spanish for Real #9: Four Ways to Say Somebody Is Naked!

Andrew — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 22:46:02 +0000

1. En pelotas

This literally means “in balls” (hence the photo) per the modern definition of “pelota”, but that’s not what it refers to at all (it’s not using the modern definition of “pelota”). Contrary to what many people think, “pelota” here doesn’t mean “ball” at all.

Its origin actually stretches back to at least the 14th century, possibly earlier. It started with the phrase “en pellote”, which meant “naked”; the word “pellote” is an antiquated word that means “skin”.

The problem is, that I alluded to above, is that in modern times it has come to be associated with “balls”, that is a man’s testicles. This results in people incorrectly assuming it only applies to men, or only originally applied to men and has since been expanded to refer to women as well. This is completely incorrect, “pelota” refers to an outdated Spanish word for “skin”, and the phrase isn’t the least bit sexist.

Source (and if you’d like to read more, be warned that it’s in Spanish and contains a photo of naked people, though): https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_pelota

Some contextual, real-life examples from Reverso Contexto:

Tengo que poner la piel de gallina a una dama en pelotas.

(I have to give a naked lady goosebumps.)

Que no te pillen en pelotas.

(Don’t let them catch you with your pants down. Lit. “Don’t let them catch you naked”)

Te he visto mil veces en pelotas.

(I’ve seen you naked a thousand times.)

2. En Cueros

This is almost certainly a spin-off of the first one. “Cuero” means “leather” or “hide” and is being used as a slang term here for a person’s skin.

Some contextual, real-life examples from Reverso Contexto:

Dónde todo el mundo me ataco mientras soy en cueros.

(Where everyone attacks me while I’m naked.)

Cálmate. Nadie quiere verte en cueros.

(Chill. Nobody wants to see you naked.)

¿Por qué estás leyendo un libro de cocina en cueros?

(Why are you reading a cookbook naked?)

3. En Bolas

This is another spin on the original “en pelotas”, but unlike “en cueros”, it’s a bad one. “En cueros” uses the original representation of “in the skin”, this one just literally means “in balls” and obviously refers to “en pelotas” but using the modern definition of “pelota” which is not the one used by the expression “en pelota”. So it’s really kind of nonsensical, only retaining meaning in referring to a misinterpretation of the original idiom. The language nerd in me hates this phrase for this reason.

This is like if it became popular to say “my throat of the woods” to refer to the area that you’re in. It’s only understandable because of the original idiom it refers to (“my neck of the woods”) and they’ve used a completely different (and wrong) definition of “neck” here, so now it just really doesn’t make sense anymore.

Some contextual examples from Reverso Contexto:

Así que al quitarme los pantalones me quedé en bolas.

(So that when I took my trousers off I was naked.)

Que cuando está en bolas parece un oso.

(When he’s naked he looks like a bear.)

No estoy acostumbrado a las tías en bolas.

(I’m not used to naked girls.)

4. Como Dios me/te/le trajo al mundo

This one’s very similar to “birthday suit” or “naked as when I was born” in English. It literally means “like when God brought me into the world”.

No clue as to the origin though honestly I doubt there really is one, it’s just one of those phrases where it was immediately obvious what it meant and, not surprisingly, became a very common way of saying that someone was naked in many different languages.

Some contextual examples from Reverso Contexto (I’m not advertising for them, I’m just linking to the specific page I used so you can see more examples if you like):

Y algunas de ti como Dios te trajo al mundo, con 6 meses.

(And some [photos] of you naked, when you were six months old.)

Estás como Dios te trajo al mundo.

(You’re naked as the day you were born.)

No hay nada como quedarte como Dios te trajo al mundo y tomar un buen baño caliente.

(There’s nothing like stripping naked and having a nice, hot bath.)

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It's available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #9: Four Ways to Say Somebody Is Naked! appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #7: “Pain in the neck/ass”

Andrew — Mon, 19 Sep 2016 03:41:55 +0000

I remember talking with a language exchange partner years ago and I wanted to say that something was, as we colloquially say in English, a “pain in the neck”, so I made the mistake most inexperienced language learners make in such situations and just translated the English literally by saying “dolor en el cuello” – it didn’t work. I got a funny look and a complete lack of comprehension from my partner.

Spanish speakers don’t say “pain in the neck” to mean pain in the neck, they say that something is a pain in the molars, they say: “dolor de muelas” (well, Spanish speakers from Spain do, I’ll get to an alternative in a minute). “Dolor” means “pain”, “de” means “of” (in this case it’s giving possession of the pain to the molars), and “muela” means “molar”.

Additionally, and I suspect this is more common in Latin America, you can also say “dolor de cabeza”, which just literally means “pain of head”, or “headache“.

And the one you’ve all been waiting for…

“Pain in the ass”.

Is there something…a bit stronger in Spanish than “dolor de muelas”, but which means basically the same thing? Do they have an equivalent to “pain in the ass”, in other words?

Yes…and I like it, it’s rather graphic and self-explanatory.

“Grano en el culo” means, literally, “pimple on the ass”.

“Grano” properly means “grain”, as in a grain of sand, but it’s also slang for a pimple. “Culo” is the direct equivalent of “ass” – it’s not the polite term for that area of the body, it’s slang and profane slang at that (I’m telling you to be a bit careful about when you use it).

Ok, that’s it. Sorry I don’t have any cool history or stories about these for you but there’s just nothing like that I could find for these two.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #7: “Pain in the neck/ass” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #6: “Estar en el quinto pino” / “Donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla”

Andrew — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 03:27:26 +0000

It’s two-for-one day here on How to Learn Spanish!

We’re going to cover two phrases in one Learn Spanish for Real post, primarily because they both mean the same thing: something is really far away.

For the curious, this is from the Sochi Winter Olympics, a photo made famous by BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg. One stall, two toilets, great success!

“Estar en el quinto pino”

This phrase originates from the 18th century in Spain when Felipe V ordered the five pine trees be planted along what was then Madrid’s largest and grandest boulevard: el Paseo del Prado (“paseo” means promenade in this context and “prado” means “meadow”, for the curious). They were spaced very far apart with the first one at the very center of Madrid, at the start of the Paseo del Prado near Atocha, and the fifth one ending up at the very outskirts of the city.

By the 19th century the pines had fully grown to great size and, being on the main boulevard, were frequently used as reference points and meeting places. Additionally, in this time period public affection or even unchaperoned meetings between young lovers was frowned upon, and so the fifth pine became a popular meeting spot for lovers who wanted to be able to hold and kiss each other away from the disapproving eyes of the public. If I had to guess, I’d also bet it was popular as a meeting spot for adulterous couples and others who, for various reasons, couldn’t afford to be seen together.

So yes, it was basically a popular necking spot for the kids of 1800’s Madrid (I’m linking to the UD definition for that as it’s an American term, and an old-fashioned one at that, I know some of you won’t be familiar with).

It was known for being a place that was very far away from just about everything else of any interest, and so the expression “estar en el quinto pino” came to simply mean “far away”. “Estar” means “to be” in the sense of location, “en” means “at” in this case (it can also mean “in”), “quinto” is “fifth”, and “pino” is a pine tree.

Thanks to Secretos de Madrid and Expresiones Españolas para Erasmus en Apuros for their writings on this subject (go there and read those to get a bit more detail and some Spanish practice).

“Donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla”

This one’s a lot tougher to explain. I really did some digging around to try to find the origin and came up with nearly nothing. The best I could find was this page saying that it alluded to Christ’s constant treks across the desert of Judea and that if he lost a shoe there at some point then it must have been God knows (literally!) where out in the middle of the desert.

It just means that something is very far away or out in the middle of nowhere, that’s it. “Donde” means “where”, “Cristo” is Christ, “perdió” is the 3rd person preterite of “perder“, and “zapatilla” is “slipper/shoe”.

There are many variations of this expression, including but not limited to: “donde Cristo perdió la sandalia”, “donde Cristo perdió el mechero”, “donde Cristo perdió la chancla”, and “donde el diablo perdió el poncho”. An exhaustive list can be found in the following amusing discussion on the WordReference Forums entitled “Qué más perdió Cristo?” (“What else did Christ lose?”).

Well that was fun. Did you have fun? I had fun. Tell me about how much fun you had in the comments (and would like me to write about in the future), also… If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below! Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #6: “Estar en el quinto pino” / “Donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #5: “¡Es un atraco a mano armada!”

Andrew — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 22:13:16 +0000

Literally, it means “this is an armed robbery”, or more colloquially, “this is a stick-up”. An “atraco” is a robbery or hold-up, “mano” as you likely know means “hand” (but note that it’s feminine, so it’s “la mano” not “el mano”, that’s why it’s “a mano armada” and not “a mano armado”), and “armada” means “armed”.

However, this is a common colloquial expression used to mean “this is a rip-off!”, implying either that something is severely overpriced or, worse, that it’s an actual scam. It’s very akin to the expressions “this is highway robbery” (more common in British English) or “this is daylight robbery” (I’ve heard Americans use this but I’d say it’s a bit old-fashioned, it’s not very common).

Another common way of saying this is, more simply, “¡Es un robo!”, which again I would just translate to “It’s a rip-off!”, though obviously it literally means “it’s a robbery”.

Are these expressions only used in this colloquial sense or are they also used to literally mean that something is an actual robbery / armed robbery?

They’re used to mean both, so yes they can (and frequently do) refer to an actual robbery (“robo”) or armed robbery (“atraco a mano armada”).

A search of Reverso Contexto for this phrase shows it being used primarily in the literal sense with a handful of examples of the colloquial meaning “rip-off”. Reverso Contexto is a very useful tool, by the way, it gives you real-life examples of any word or phrase you search for being used in-context; they primarily draw from news stories and movie/TV scripts.

Scam/Con/Fraud

She’s very clearly saying that the recent financial crisis isn’t a crisis at all, but a fraud.

Estafa. The word you’re looking for is “estafa“. In this case, however, it doesn’t have any colloquial or slang meaning, it just plainly means “scam” or “fraud”. Here are a few examples of it on Reverso Contexto.

And “timo”, too!

Quick addition thanks to my friend (and Spanish tutor from Spain), Bea, who mentioned this one in the comments below after I initially published this post: the word “timo” is also a common slang term in Spain for “scam” or “swindle”, though it should be noted that it also has the literal meaning of “thymus” (a small organ in front of the heart responsible for producing T-cells for the immune system). If you do a search on Reverso Contexto you’ll get examples of both, though the slang meaning of “scam” or “con” is more common.

Additionally, I found a great example of it being used by a Spanish newspaper, El País (click the image to go to the article):

Ok, that’s all (I’m trying to keep these short, for you as well as me). On an additional, slightly related, note, I’m going to start doing another similar, short series of blog posts on the Spanish subjunctive since I know a lot of people have trouble with that (hell, I still occasionally have trouble with that). What I’m going to do is just provide a single example or two of it being used a certain way and then dissect the sentence, explain why the subjunctive was used here and why it was used in that particular manner, and then perhaps come up with a few additional examples as well as maybe ask you guys to do a few of your own.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #5: “¡Es un atraco a mano armada!” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #4: “Cogerse un cabreo de cojones” | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

Andrew — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 00:42:13 +0000

Have you ever heard the expression “throw a shit-fit”?

Well, regardless, you do now know how to say that in Spanish!

…and apparently it’s available in t-shirt format, as you can see there on the left (that’s what “cabreo de cojones” yielded on Google Images).

This expression comes from Spain, as will most in the foreseeable future since that’s the dialect I’m learning because I’m going there on September 1st for a stay of two months, and the Spanish have a strange preference for slang terms utilizing the word “cojón/cojones” (that’s a superb article on the subject, by the way), which literally means testicle/balls.

The Story

So this one comes, again, from my Spanish tutor, Silvia (highly recommended if you’re interested) while we were having one of our usual sessions the other day…

What happened was that Silvia was telling me a story of how when she was taking English and French classes back-to-back somebody else doing the same was in the English class with her, mispronounced an English word by pronouncing it would be in French, and the professor “se cogía unos cabreos de cojones”- they threw a shit-fit, that is they became very (irrationally) angry.

What does it mean and what’s the difference between it and “tener un cabreo de cojones”?

“Cogerse un cabreo de cojones” simply means to become very angry. To break it down for you, “coger” means “to take”, making it pronomial (adding that “se” to the end) results in it meaning something like “to catch” as in “to catch a cold”, a “cabreo” is a fit or rage, and the “de cojones” part is where it gets interesting since “cojones” literally means “balls” [as in testicles].

Now, as you hopefully learned by reading the recommended article from above on the many uses of “cojón/cojones” in Spanish, that word can have many different meanings and is probably one of the most commonly used slang/curse words in all of Iberian Spanish (Spanish from Spain, Iberia is the peninsula where Spain is located). In this case it simply amplifies the intended meaning, that is it says that the “fit” (cabreo) this person is having is really bad, they’re very angry.

“Tener un cabreo de cojones”, on the other hand, means to maintain said fit of anger for some period of time. The becoming angry part was described by “cogerse un cabreo de cojones”, but to describe that someone is currently (still) angry you would need to use “tener un cabreo de cojones”, e.g. “Silvia tiene un cabreo de cojones porque su perra, Violeta, acaba de comerse el bocadillo que dejó en la mesa.”, which means “Silvia is very angry because her dog, Violeta, just ate her sandwich that she left on the table.” Yes, she does actually have a dog named Violeta, by the way (who I’m sure would eat her sandwich, given the opportunity, though I’m unaware of this ever happening, to be fair and avoid slandering Violeta).

Edit: Silvia has been kind enough to send me a photo of Violeta to post here for you all (she’s a mutt, rescue dog I believe):

Violeta

Ok, that’s it for this edition of Learn Spanish for Real, I hope you found it educational and I look forward to doing many more (I’ve no lack of material), also… If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below! Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The previous edition of Learn Spanish for Real was (if you’re interested)…

Learn Spanish for Real #3: “Llorar como una magdalena” – from Spain! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

The post Learn Spanish for Real #4: “Cogerse un cabreo de cojones” | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #3: “Llorar como una magdalena” – from Spain! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

Andrew — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 01:33:29 +0000

Mary Magdalene weeps over the body of Christ.

Real quick I just thought I’d share with you an interesting new expression I learned today from one of my Spanish tutors, Silvia (she’s very good, check her out if you’re in the market!), when I realized it would make a great 3rd installment in our Learn Spanish for Real series! What did Silvia say to me that inspired this post?

Vas a llorar como una Magdalena

The context of this was gas prices (petrol prices, for our British friends 😉 ). We were talking about the possibility of me renting a car while in Spain (probably not), which then led to comparing gas prices between the U.S. and Spain, which led to her saying “Cuando llegas a la gasolinera, vas a llorar como una Magdalena.” I had never heard this expression before so she explained. It’s very interesting.

Spain, previously having been a very Catholic country (not so much now, only on paper but not in practice really), has a lot of expressions based in Catholicism and the bible – this is one of them. “Vas a llorar” means “you’re going to cry” (“vas” is the informal way of saying “you are” with the verb “ir“, “llorar” is the infinitive of the verb meaning “to cry”), whereas “Magdalena” means Maria Magdalena, or Mary Magdalene as we know her in English. So what the expression is saying is “You’re going to cry like Mary Magdalene.”

Why was Mary Magdalene chosen to express this? Because she’s known for crying. In the Bible it makes a point of stating that she cries when her brother dies, when Christ is crucified, and on several different occasions when she repents for her sins.

Interestingly, there’s even a song called “Llorando como una Magdalena”, though regrettably I can’t find the origin of it so I can’t tell you where or when it got started, but there are several performances of it on YouTube if you’re interested:

Thanks to Significado y Origen de Expresiones Famosas for the background information.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The previous edition of Learn Spanish for Real was (if you’re interested)…

Learn Spanish for Real #2: “Carajo” | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

The post Learn Spanish for Real #3: “Llorar como una magdalena” – from Spain! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #2: “Carajo”

Andrew — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:10:05 +0000

Welcome to the second installment of a category of posts I do called Learn Spanish for Real: Spanish Slang, Colloquialisms, and Curse Words! This post will be a sort of continuation on the first one in that we’ll be examining the same sentence from the same video, but a different word. The words in question, “carajo”, is a light Spanish curseword currently in use in most parts of the Spanish-speaking world.

Today’s Word: “Carajo”

This is a clip from one of my most-recommended movies for Spanish students to learn conversational Spanish from because not only does it have excellent subtitles in both Spanish and English (the Spanish ones are word-for-word and the English ones are a solid translation of the Spanish that you can use for reference when learning it) but it’s also a very good movie that gives you a great deal of insight into certain parts of Colombian culture and teaches you a ton of their colloquial Spanish with slang galore as well as quite a few Spanish curse words. It’s called Maria Full of Grace and is available very cheaply from Amazon on DVD. Additionally, I have a list of sites where you can watch Spanish videos with Spanish subtitles, including several such shows on Netflix (probably the best source of such videos now, them and YouTube). Also, if you’re particularly interested in learning Colombian Spanish, I strongly recommend you check out a podcast called Español en 3000 – it’s excellent and focuses mainly on Colombian Spanish.

Now, I would like to provide you some context so you can understand the scene, the conversation, how the word is being used, and why:

Shortly after this we come to the scene you see above where she’s at a party with her friends, drinking and dancing, and one of her friends is telling the rest what happened and that Maria got fed up with her boss and quit. Her boyfriend then proposes a toast (“brindis” means “toast”, from “Esto se merece un brindis” which means “This calls for a toast”) and says

“Porque es una berraca, carajo.”

Which could best be translated as, “Because she’s a badass, damnit.” (what does “berraca” mean? see my post on berraco/berraca here!)

Now, “carajo” is a fairly common curseword throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It’s in common use in all Spanish-speaking countries (including Spain) to the best of my knowledge, however the severity of it varies from one country/region to another and even from one social group or class to another. Generally it’s not thought of as being too strong anymore, particularly in Spain where it’s also a slang term for “penis”. It could usually be considered a rough equivalent to the English “damn”, “damnit”, or “hell” depending on how it’s used (see examples below).

Some common phrases you may hear using the word “carajo” and their rough English equivalent:

“¡Carajo!” – “Damnit!”
“¿Qué carajo?” – “What the hell?!”
“¡Vete al carajo!” – ” Go to hell!”
“¡[any statement], carajo!” “[any statement], damnit!” (this is how it’s being used in the example phrase above)
“¿Qué carajo es esto?” – “What the hell is this?”
“No veo/escucho un carajo.” – “I didn’t see/hear a damned thing.”
“¿En qué carajo estabas pensando…?” – “What the hell were you thinking…?”
“No me importa un carajo.” – “I don’t give a damn.”

What does “carajo” literally mean? What did it come from?

Well, originally it referred to the crow’s nest on a Spanish galleon. Now, this was one of the least desirable posts on the ship because sailors would tend to get very sea sick up there due to the ships movements being amplified at the top of the mast (basic physics: mast acts as a lever arm, any movement at its base translates into faster movement over a greater distance at its tip). Nobody wanted to go to the carajo.

Consequently it was frequently used as punishment: sailors would be “sent to the carajo”, they’d be told to “go to the carajo” (“¡Vete al carajo!”), hence the origin of the phrase “Vete al carajo” meaning something like “Go to hell”. This in combination with the fact that “carajo” (the place and the word) just took on a very negative connotation in general led to it evolving into a sort of general purpose curseword like our “damn” or “hell”.

I hope you found this interesting and useful, and remember, if you’d like to learn more everyday colloquial Spanish (not just curse words, I promise!), check out the links below to additional resources and related articles (on my site and others).

Additional Resources and Further Reading

A great way to learn to speak and understand modern, everyday Spanish is through Spanish-language popular media such as movies, TV shows, books, etc., but the problem is that people just don’t know how plus there are some tools that can help you do it much more effeciently, here are two things I strongly recommend that address both those problems:

1. Yabla. This is a service that collects popular media in various languages and then integrates it into their custom online software platform that’s specifically designed to help students learn the language being spoken in the videos. Spanish is their biggest language that they have the most videos and material for. The videos can be searched and sorted by topic, length, difficulty, and dialect, then once you select one you’ll have verbatim Spanish subtitles and an English translation, both of which you can selectively turn on and off. Clicking any Spanish word in the subtitles pulls up its definition in the dictionary to the right of the video and automatically adds it to your flash cards. Every video has quizzes of varying difficulty where certain Spanish words in the subtitles are blanked out and you have to fill them in while listening to the video. You can also pause and play the video back at ¼, ½, ¾ etc. speed. This is such an excellent service and it’s super cheap at only $9.99 per month, plus you get a free trial without even needing to sign up (just check out the “free videos” they offer as samples) and they do offer special discounts for teachers and organizations. Check out their site here, or go to my review of Yabla here for lots more information including many screenshots of the software in use so you can see how it works.

2. The Telenovela Method. This is a book I wrote which is currently in its second edition and teaches people how to do the method that I used to get conversationally fluent in Spanish in six months, which is to use popular Spanish-language media. There’s a method to doing this in that you can’t just sit there passively and somehow absorb the language (of course that doesn’t work) but instead you must study the material: I tell you how to do that. I’ll show you how to learn the vocabulary and grammar painlessly by using stuff that you find interesting and entertaining (pick anything you want, whatever show, series, movie, or book that interests you). It’s called the “Telenovela Method” not because telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) are preferred but because that’s what I started out with ten years ago and learned Spanish from myself. Please check it out here on Amazon, it’s currently got 19 reviews, of which 18 are 5-star and 1 is a 4-star rating.

As I mentioned, I have a whole category of blog posts, which this article is part of, that teach you general conversational Spanish, focusing on slang, expressions, colloquialisms, and profanity called: Learn Spanish for Real: Spanish Slang, Colloquialisms, and Curse Words.

There are two excellent Spanish-slang references/dictionaries I can recommend you: Urban Dictionary (yes really – it’s a bit informal but I’ve found it’s more likely to have whatever Spanish slang word I’m trying to look up than any other single source) and Así Hablamos, a user-generated source of Latin American slang and colloquial speech.

Interested in Colombian Spanish, specifically?

Again, I really recommend you consider subscribing to the podcast Español en 3000 (this link goes to my review of them, or you can just go straight to their site here if you prefer).

Check out the series of posts I did on it based on the time I was in Colombia (3 months in total in 2018, split between Bogotá, Medellín, and Cartagena):

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The previous edition of Learn Spanish for Real was (if you’re interested)…

Learn Spanish for Real #1: “Berraco / Berraca”, from Colombia! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

The post Learn Spanish for Real #2: “Carajo” appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Learn Spanish for Real #1: “Berraco / Berraca”, from Colombia! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words

Andrew — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 03:35:47 +0000

This is the first in a new series of posts I’m going to be doing called “Learn Spanish for Real” where I’ll teach the sort of Spanish that’s commonly used, that you need to know in order to be able to speak like and with a native, but which isn’t typically taught in traditional courses, classes, and textbooks. That is, specifically, I’ll be focusing on slang, expressions, idioms, sayings, and curse words. In other words, just general colloquial spoken Spanish that you would hear spoken informally amongst native speakers in their normal day-to-day lives and which you’ll also encounter frequently in Spanish-language movies, TV shows, music, and other such media intended for native Spanish speakers.

Today’s Word: “Berraco/Berraca”

This is a clip from one of my most-recommended movies for Spanish students to learn Spanish from (would you like to know how to do that, learn Spanish from movies and TV shows and such? check out The Telenovela Method) because not only does it have excellent subtitles in both Spanish and English (the Spanish ones are word-for-word and the English ones are a solid translation of the Spanish that you can use for reference when learning it) but it’s also a very good movie that gives you a great deal of insight into certain parts of Colombian culture and teaches you a ton of their colloquial language with slang galore as well as quite a few curse words. It’s called Maria Full of Grace and is available very cheaply from Amazon on DVD.

Now, I would like to provide you some context so you can understand the scene, the conversation, how the word is being used, and why:

In this particular scene our protagonist, Maria, has just quit her job at the flower factory because her boss had repeatedly refused her requests to go to the bathroom because she was sick to her stomach (she’s pregnant but doesn’t know it yet) which then resulted in her throwing up all over the flowers which he made her clean up despite knowing that they were ruined and would have to be thrown out (he told her this then told her to clean them off anyway). Shortly after this we come to the scene you see above where she’s at a party with her friends, drinking and dancing, and one of her friends is telling the rest what happened and that Maria got fed up with her boss and quit. Her boyfriend then proposes a toast (“brindis” means “toast”, from “Esto se merece un brindis” which means “This calls for a toast”) and says

“Porque es una berraca, carajo.”

Which means, “Because she’s a badass, damnit.”

“Berraco”, or “berraca” if you’re referring to a female or feminine thing as in this case, is a slang word from the Andean (around the Andes) region of South/Central America, specifically Colombia, Panama, and Peru. Those regions tend to share accents and slang due to the fact that they share borders as well. Many regional dialects near the borders of two countries will spill over from one into the other, that is of course if you travel from Colombia over the border into Panama the dialect and accent don’t just suddenly change from Colombian to Panamanian – it’s gradual.

Anyway, point I wanted to get at was that all 3 of those countries (and possibly others) use this word, but…they have different meanings for them:

In Colombia, it’s generally a positive term for a person, a compliment, that means someone who’s brave, determined, gutsy, a team player, hard worker, someone who doesn’t give up and does dangerous but worthwhile things. The best overall translation I’ve heard of the word in American English, that we use in an almost identical way, is “badass”, as in “Wow, he’s a badass” [meant in a complementary way]. This is the manner in which you saw it used in the above video, the best possible way I would translate what he says about her is “Because she’s a badass, damnit!”.
In Peru it’s generally more of a negative term, a pejorative, to refer to someone that means they’re acting or dressing an garish, crude, or overly loud manner in a seeming attempt to attract attention.
Elsewhere (I’ve heard Spain, Panama, El Salvador and the surrounding region so far…) it can mean that: somebody is horny (this is a very common meaning of this word), or less commonly that they’re in a bad mood, or it can mean a “stud” in a literal sense because it’s used to refer to the male livestock that are used as actual studs for breeding purposes.

So…yeah, it can mean a lot of things and I know that’s quite confusing but it’s not surprising when you think about our own slang and the diversity of meaning it can have depending on context, region, and the dialect being used by the speaker. Take our own term “badass”: it can be a compliment to refer to someone who’s doing impressive and brave things, it can be an adjective to refer to something merely meaning that it’s “very good”, or it can be used in a sarcastic manner as in “Watch out, we got a badass over here!” or “Well you’re quite the Billy Badass, aren’t you?”.

Now…imagine trying to explain all that crap to a non-native speaker who, upon hearing the term for the first time while watching a movie or overhearing a conversation, turns to you and says “What’s ‘badass’ mean?”.

You realize their confusion: they’ve pulled up the definitions of “bad” (something negative, not good) and “ass” (the buttocks or rump of a person or animal, or a donkey) in their minds, put them together, and…gotten extremely confused.

“Badass”? Like…a very unattractive looking rear-end on someone? Would it be…misshapen or something? An ass, like a donkey, that’s misbehaving…what??? What is this?!

See what I mean?

In our next installment in this series I will cover another word used in this scene you’re probably wondering about, “carajo” – it’s a very common curse word and has some interesting history behind it, also… If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below! Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Learn Spanish for Real #1: “Berraco / Berraca”, from Colombia! | Slang, Expressions, and Curse Words appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Respond in Spanish Like a Native: Common Spanish Phrases, Expressions & Comebacks

Andrew — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:41:44 +0000

Every language has a short list (a few dozen or so) of standard “answers” or “responses” to indicate commonly expressed sentiments (e.g yes, no, maybe, I don’t know, good luck, etc.). Knowing these and being able to whip the correct one out immediately and automatically in response to someone goes a long way towards sounding like a native and making people feel comfortable speaking to you. Spanish is no different, so I decided to make a list of what I thought were the most common Spanish phrases and expressions.

Below is a list of the most common such responses and comebacks in Spanish with an explanation for each. This is one of the few circumstances where I’d actually recommend you just memorize the whole list as you’re guaranteed to use these with great frequency whenever you’re talking with native speakers. At the bottom of this list I’ll tell you how to learn more on your own.

Es Un Decir

This is a handy expression in Spanish you may find yourself frequently using when you’re misunderstood, particularly if you feel like you might have said something potentially offensive or weird. It means something like “it’s just a saying” or “it’s a way of speaking”. Example:

“‘No des papaya’ es un decir colombiano que quiere decir que no permitas a alguien aprovecharse de ti.” Which means…

“‘No des papaya’ is a Colombian saying that means don’t let someone take advantage of you”.

Para Que Conste

“Constar” means “to be clear, certain, or evident” and that’s a pretty good explanation of how this particular expression works, though it’s not used in quite the same way we would use one of those words. “Para que conste” means that something is obvious or evident, and is usually used with the same meaning as our expressions “for the record” (“que conste” means “let the record show”) and when used as a response to something it means “you promised and I’ll hold you to it” in the sense of “it’s on the record, I won’t forget about it”, e.g.

“Te llamo mañana.” = “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Conste.” = “You promised, I’ll hold you to it.”

“Para que conste, nunca dije eso.” = “For the record, I never said that.”

¿Y Qué?

This literally means “and what?” so you can probably guess how it’s typically used: it’s how they would say “so what?” in Spanish. Mind you, as in English with our expression “so what?” it can potentially have a rude connotation to it and is considered a bit brusque. Example:

“¡Tu grande vaca morada se cagó en mi césped!” = “Your giant purple cow shat on my lawn!”

“¿Y qué? Es fertilizante, así…de nada” = “So what? It’s fertilizer, so…you’re welcome.”

¿Y?

Used the same way that we would use “And??” in English, meaning something like “so what?”, as in “and…what??”. Example:

“¡Pero la mierda sólo es en una grande pila! ¡Mira!” = “But the shit is just in one big pile! Look!”

“¿Y? Sólo untala por.” = “And? Just spread it around.”

Da Igual / Da Lo Mismo

These two phrases mean the same thing and essentially amount to “it doesn’t matter” or “what’s the difference?”. “Da igual” means literally “it’s equal” and “da lo mismo” means literally “it’s the same thing” but they’re both used whenever one wants to say that something doesn’t matter or that it doesn’t make a difference. Example:

“¿Quieres el carro rojo o el blanco?” = “Do you want the red car or the white one?”

“Da igual.” = “Doesn’t matter.”

O Sea

This is one of the most common Spanish phrases. It means something like “you know” or “in other words”. You’ll notice the use of the subjunctive here (if you don’t understand that completely already, be sure to see my article called The Subjunctive Explained) so “sea” means something like “could be” or “would be” and “o”, or course, means “or”, so with “o sea” you get something literally like “or that could/would be” which we would say a bit easier with the expression “in other words”. Got it? Example:

“Pues, la respuesta pueda ser “sí”, pueda ser “no”, o sea…no sé.” = “Well, the answer could be yes, it could be no, that is to say…I don’t really know.”

Claro/Claro que Sí

Another very common Spanish expression, it literally means “clear” but is 100 times more commonly used to mean “sure”, “of course” or “naturally”. “Claro que sí” essentially means the same thing and translates to something like “Of course yes” as in “of course the answer is yes”. People will frequently use this particular expression in one-sided conversations, especially on the phone, to show that they’re still listening with the occasional “claro”. Examples:

“¿Vienes?” “Claro.” = “Are you coming?” “Of course.”

[On the phone]

Them: “Blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah…blah blah!”

You: “Claro.”

Them: “Así, blah blah!! blahblahblahblahblah.”

You: “Claro.”

Them: “¿Sabes?” (“You know?”)

You: “Claro.”

Them: “Blah blah es blah! ¿No pienses?” (“Don’t you think?”)

You: “Claro.”

Get it? 😀

Para Nada

It literally means “For nothing” but is the way that you would say “No way”, so it’s just another way of saying “no”, really. Example:

“¿Vas a comer tu vaca grande morada?” = “Are you going to eat your giant purple cow?”

“¡Para nada!” = “No way!”

En Absoluto

This one can sometimes be cause for confusion for some beginners because it’s actually a negative but doesn’t look like it because it doesn’t have the word “no” in it. It does not mean “absolutely” which is what it looks like, it actually means “absolutely not” (no, I don’t know why they did this, but they did). Example:

“Así, ¿no vas a comprar ese carro?” = “So, you’re not going to buy that car.”

“En absoluto, es demasiado caro.” = “Absolutely not, it’s too expensive.”

¡Imagínese!

The best equivalent of this would be “imagine that!” and would be used in similar circumstances, it’s a bit formal and would be used in situations where saying something like “holy shit!” would be inappropriate.

Something interesting about this one is that it’s reflexive (notice the “se” on the end) with the verb itself (“imaginar“) being in the formal singular 3rd person imperative form (“imagíne”). If you were speaking to someone that you would use the tú form with, then you’d say “imagínate” instead.

Example:

Grandma: “¡Tienen teléfonos ahora que pueden tomar fotos!”

You: “¡Imagínese!” = “Imagine that!”

En Tus Sueños

Literally and actually means “In your dreams”, yet one more way of saying “no”. Example:

“¿Quieres quitarte la ropa y bailar como Shakira para mí?” = “Do you want to take your clothes off and dance like Shakira for me?”

“En tus sueños.” = “In your dreams.”

Estás Loco

Means what it looks like: “you’re crazy”, used in precisely the same way that we would. Also used where we would say “you must be kidding!”. Example:

“Debes usar un carro en lugar de tu vaca morada.” = “You should use a car instead of your purple cow.”

“¡Estás loco!” = “You’re crazy!”

¿Verdad?

“Verdad” literally means “truth” but is frequently used to mean something like “Really?” or “Is that so?”. Examples:

“Manejo una vaca grande morada.” = “I am driving a large purple cow.”

“¿Verdad?” = “Really?”

“Sí, verdad.” = “Yes, really.”

Ni Loco

“Ni” literally means “nor” (unless uttered by The Knights Who Say ‘Ni’, in which case that’s an entirely different context) so you can see how in this case “ni loco” means “not even if I were crazy”, so one more way of saying “no” emphatically. Example:

“¿Alguna vez consideraría comer dos kilos de queso a la vez?” = “Would you ever consider eating two kilos of cheese at once?”

“¡Ni loco!” = “Not even if I were crazy!”

Ya Basta

A common Spanish phrase whenever someone is angry. As you probably already know, “ya” means “already”. And since “Basta” means “enough”, you can easily see how the expression “ya basta” would mean “enough already”. Example:

“¡Papa! ¿Ya llegamos? ¿Ya llegamos? ¿Ya llegamos? ¿Ya llegamos? ¿Ya llegamos? ¿Ya llegamos?” = “Dad! Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

“¡Ya basta!!!!” = “Enough already!!!!”

¿En Serio?

“Serio” means “serious” –> “en serio” means “seriously?”. Simple. Use it where we would use “seriously?” or “really?”. Example:

“Vine al trabajo por vaca morada.” = “I came to work on a purple cow.”

“¿En serio?” = “Seriously?”

“No.” = “No.” 😀

¡Qué Barbaridad!

“Barbaridad” means “barbarity”, that is “something barbaric”, a cruelty, some terrible event. So “qué barbaridad” means something like “what a barbarity!” and would be used when we would say “how terrible!” or “oh my god” in response to a bad event that has just taken place, such as a natural disaster. Example:

“¡Japón acaba de sufrir un terremoto terrible!” = “Japan has just suffered a terrible earthquake!”

“¡Qué barbaridad!”

¿Cómo no?

This just means “Why not?” and is used in exactly the same way we would use that expression, it’s just another way of saying “yes”. It can also be used to mean “Why not?” in the literal sense of a question asking someone why they’re not doing something. Examples:

“¿Quieres venir?” = “Do you want to come?”

“¿Cómo no?” = “Sure, why not.”

“No quiero venir.” = “I don’t want to come.”

“¿Cómo no?” = “Why not?”

Es El Colmo

“Colmo” means “height” as in “the height of stupidity”, meaning to the very greatest degree. The expression “es el colmo” or “eso es el colmo” means “that’s the last straw” or “that’s it [in the sense of it being the last thing you’re going to take, the final insult, etc.]”. Example:

“Tu vaca morada ha comido todos mis azaleas…eso es el colmo, ahora voy a comer tu vaca.” = “Your purple cow has eaten all my azaleas…that’s the last straw, now I’m going to eat your cow.”

“¡Mooooo!” = “Nooooo!”

Bonus! “Para el colmo” means “to top it off”, and the way you say “the last straw was” is “El colmo para…”, e.g. “The last straw for me was when he came to work naked” would be “El colmo para mi era cuando vino al trabajo desnudo.”

No Puede Ser

Very simple, “poder” means “can or to be able to” and “ser” means “to be”, so with “no puede ser” we end up with “it cannot be” or “that can’t be”. Example:

“He comido tu vaca morada. Jajaja.” = “I’ve eaten your purple cow. Hahaha.”

“¡No puede ser!” = “It cannot be!”

No Me Diga

It literally means “don’t tell me” and is frequently used in that sense to mean something like “don’t tell me that” but it’s usually not meant that you literally don’t want them to tell you something, but as an expression of exasperation in the same way that we would use the expression “don’t tell me that”. The tú form for use with people you’re familiar with would be “no me digas”. Example:

“Necesito una vaca morada nueva.” = “I need a new purple cow.”

“Lo siento, pero estamos agotados.” = “I’m sorry, but we’re all out of stock.”

“No me diga…” = “Don’t tell me that…”

Está Bien

This is how you say “ok” without saying “ok”, which is, by the way, a very common expression in the Spanish language and is probably the English expression that has the widest cross-language penetration in the world (meaning that it’s commonly used in more languages than any other English expression). It’s also what you would use to say “that’s good” (that’s the literal translation of the expression, by the way: “está” = “is” and “bien” = “good”) or “alright” or “fine with me” etc. You get the idea. Examples:

“Ya me voy.” = “I’m leaving now.”

“Está bien, hasta luego.”= “Alright, see you later.”

“Ya me voy, ¿está bien?” = “I’m leaving now, ok?”

“Está bien.” = “Ok.”

De Acuerdo

Just another way to say “ok”, essentially. “Acuerdo” means “agreement” and “de acuerdo” literally translates to something like “in agreement”, as in “I’m in agreement” or “I concur”, though it doesn’t quite have the same formality as those expressions and usually just means “ok”. It’s typically used in situations where some sort of accord or compromise is come to, as in agreeing to meet at a certain place at a certain time or how much to pay for something, etc. Examples:

“¿Te ve a las once, entonces?” = “I’ll see you at eleven, then?”

“De acuerdo.” = “Ok.”

“Cuesta veintiocho pesos.” = “It costs twenty-eight pesos.”

“De acuerdo.” = “Deal.”

Déjese De Cuentos

Means something like “cut the crap” or “shall we dispense with the bull?”. “Dejar” means “to leave” and is being used in the imperative here as a command, so you’re being told to leave something, and “cuento” means “story” but is also used to mean a lie like we might use “tale” in “a tall tale”, and you see it used like this in the expression “contar cuentos” which means “to tell tales” (“to lie”). You see it used the same way here with “déjese de cuentos” where you’re being told to dispense with the tall tales. Example:

“Puedo venderte ese carro por sólo cien mil pesos.”= “I can sell you this car for only a hundred thousand pesos.”

“Déjese el cuento, ¿cuanto puede bajar?” = “Cut the crap, how much can you come down?”

¿Cómo?

This means something like “What? How’s that?” and is used to express mild surprise at something you just heard. “cómo” literally translates to “how” so this isn’t just a statement of surprise but it’s also a question that should elicit a response, so you’re not only expressing your disbelief but you’re also asking how it is that this thing came to be. Example:

Dr. Evil: “Me abstengo de lanzar los misiles nucleares por…¡un trillón de dólares!!”

El Presidente: “¡¿Cómo?!”

Seguro

“Seguro” literally means “safe” or “secure” but in this context it means “sure” and is used the same way we would use “sure” as a response meaning “yes”. Example:

El Presidente: “¿Aceptas un cheque?”

Dr. Evil: “Seguro.”

No Me Importa

Literally means “it’s not important to me” and it’s the most common way of simply saying “I don’t care” in Spanish, it’s an expression that you’ll definitely hear a lot regardless of the regional dialect in question. Example:

“¿Quiere hielo en su trago, señor?” = “Do you want ice in your drink, sir?”

“Seguro, no me importa.” = “Sure, I don’t care.”

¡Qué Esperanzas!

This literally means “what hope!” and is another way of saying “no”, “no way!”, or “not a chance!” in an emphatic way. Example:

“Papa, ¿va a comprarme un carro para mi cumpleaños?” = “Dad, are you going to buy me a car?”

“¡Qué esperanzas!” = “Not a chance!”

Ni Modo

This is one more way of saying “oh well” or “oh well, what can you do?”, but keep in mind that it’s not a particularly sympathetic expression, so if the bad thing that happened, happened to someone else, you may not want to use this. Example:

“¡Tu vaca gorda morada comió mi pobre gato!” = “Your fat purple cow ate my poor cat!”

“Ni modo…” = “Oh well…”

“No me gustas tú.” = “I don’t like you.”

No Es Para Tanto

“Tanto” means “much” or “so much” or “that much”, so the literal meaning we get here is something like “it’s not for that much” and the way it’s really used to express the feeling of “it’s not a big deal” or “ok, that’s a bit much”. Example:

“Mi vecino me está molestando mucho ahora.” = “My neighbor is really irritating me lately.”

“Puedo atropellarle con mi vaca morada.” = “I can run over him with my purple cow.”

“No es para tanto.” = “Maybe that’s a bit much.”

If you’d like to learn more everyday, spoken Spanish…

What I recommend is using popular media by and for native Spanish speakers, that is movies, TV shows, music, comics, etc. of whatever type appeals to you (that is, if you like dramas, pick drama movies and shows in Spanish to watch, if you like pop music, pick some Spanish pop music). How do you learn Spanish from them? Well, I’ve got a couple of recommendations for you:

Yabla. They take popular media, like what I’m talking about, such as TV shows and YouTube videos, and put them into a special player for you that shows you subtitles in both Spanish and English (either/both can be turned on/off) where clicking any word you don’t know results in the video pausing and the definition coming up for you in the dictionary on the side of the player as well as automatically adding the word to your flashcards for later review. They also let you quiz yourself on the video by playing it with certain words blanked out of the subtitles and you have to fill in or select the correct choice (you can choose between fill-in-theblank or multiple choice). It’s a fantastic system for language students, for a lot more details (including screenshots) see my review of Yabla here.
My book! I wrote a whole book about how to learn Spanish from whatever popular media interests you. I personally started out with telenovelas and therefore called my method (and the book) The Telenovela Method (you don’t have to use telenovelas). It’s in its second edition and currently has nineteen reviews on Amazon with eighteen five-star reviews and one four-star review.

Spanish Transition Words (Muletillas) and Sentence Starters: The Grease of the Language Gears

How to Not Sound Like a Gringo – The 16 Most Common Spanish Errors and How to Avoid Them

Spanish Conversation Connectors: “it seems to me”, “all joking aside”, “I presume”, etc. – 4 Pages Worth!

Additional Resources and Further Reading

Common Phrases (with recordings by native speakers of each)

80+ Common Spanish Phrases to Help you Rock Any Social Situation [downloadable as a PDF at the bottom, very useful – Andrew]

71 Common Spanish Phrases to Survive Your First Conversation with a Native Speaker

That’s it! If you’ve got any more expressions you think ought to be on here, tell me in the comments and I’ll be glad to add them to the list and give you credit, also… If you thought the above was at all useful and you want to learn (or are learning) Spanish, please give me a chance and read what I have to say about my book below! Thank you so much for checking out my blog and I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

I have a whole method and a book I wrote about it called The Telenovela Method where I teach you how to learn Spanish from popular media like TV shows, movies, music, books, etc. that you can all find online for free. It was the #1 new release in the Spanish Language Instruction section on Amazon for nearly a month after it came out and currently has 17 reviews there with a 4.9/5 stars average. It’s available for $7.99-$9.99 for the e-book version depending on who you buy it from (Kindle version on Amazon is now $7.99) and $16.99 for the paperback (occasionally a bit cheaper, again, depending on who you buy it from).

It’s currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Respond in Spanish Like a Native: Common Spanish Phrases, Expressions & Comebacks appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

Spanish Transition Words (Muletillas) and Sentence Starters: The Grease of the Language Gears

Andrew — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:05:33 +0000

An extremely common problem amongst people learning a new language is smoothness, that ability to keep talking without herky-jerky stops-and-starts in their sentences (lots of awkward silences and “ummms” while they try to think of the right word), which is how fluency is generally defined. A specific area of this that’s almost never addressed anywhere that I’ve noticed a lot of people have trouble with, that I had trouble with, is how exactly to start a sentence or statement. What you’re looking for are Spanish transition words, or “muletillas” as they’re known in Spanish.

We’ve got all these little filler words and phrases in English that we use over and over again that work great for this stuff, and we don’t realize that we do, they really are the grease that allows the gears to work – without it things grind, hang up, jerk back and forth, and sometimes just break down. This stuff is immensely useful and valuable to know if you actually want to be able to talk to people, but almost no one teaches it because it just doesn’t occur to them to do so (plus, it’s not “proper” formal Spanish, so textbooks shy away from it). Let’s go over a list of the most common and useful Spanish transition words, or “muletillas”, and sentence starters:

Bueno

Bueno can be very accurately translated to the English word “well” in the context of “Well…”, not “well” as in “feeling well” in this case. It’s used in almost exactly the same way in many of the same circumstances, and is probably the most common sentence-starter in Spanish – you will very, very frequently hear sentences start with “Bueno, …”. Examples to give you an idea:

“Bueno, no es lo que queria decir.” = “Well, that’s not what I meant to say.”

“Bueno, tengo que ir.” = “Well, I have to go.”

It is commonly used to make the transition from one thing to another, such as indicating that you’re going to leave now or that it’s time to get down to business: the transition from introductions and niceties to actual business at a meeting may be indicated with a simple, single “Bueno…” just as we would do the same with a single “Well…”

Mira

Also means “Look” or “Look here”, but it’s used much more narrowly than “fíjate que” in that “mira” is almost always used to set the record straight. You would likely here it used in the context of some sort of argument or confrontation, as in “Look here, if you don’t clean that up I’m going to run over you with my cheese car!”, which would be “¡Mira, si no limpias eso voy a atropellarte con mi carro de queso!”, or “Look, I didn’t say you couldn’t touch my cheese car, just don’t eat it, ok?” which would be “Mira, no te estaba diciendo que no podías tocar mi carro de queso, solo que no lo comieras, ¿ok?”

Haz De Cuenta Que

This phrase means something like “Imagine that…”, “Pretend that…”, or “Make believe that…” and is used whenever you would want to say one of those phrases in English – don’t use “pretender” or “imaginar“, neither are appropriate really: “pretender” means something more like “to aspire to” and “imaginar” is used like “imagine” in the sense of “I thought” or “I suppose” e.g. “I imagine you’re quite busy” or “I thought you’d have already heard about it.”

If you wanted to say anything along the lines of “Make believe that you are a car made of cheese”, or “Pretend that you’re the mayor of Cheeseville, what would you do?”, you would use this phrase as such:

“Haz de cuenta que eres un carro de queso.”

“Haz de cuenta que eres el alcalde de Quesovilla, ¿qué harías?”

Edit: A couple native speakers have told me that they’ve also heard this phrase used to mean something like “remember that” or “keep in mind that”, etc. So that’s also a possible alternative meaning depending on the dialect.

Pues

This is the Spanish filler word. It’s like “bueno”, but more informal. It frequently finds itself in places where an English speaker would say “Well”, “ummm”, “let’s see”, “errr…”, “Hang on, let me see here…”, etc. Examples:

“¿Quieres ver una película?” (“Do you want to see a movie?”) may be answered with something like: “Pueeesss…..no sé, ehh….sí.” (“Weeelllll….I dunno, ehh….sure.”)

In many places, Mexico in particular, “pues” will be shortened to “pos” or even just a hiss that kind of sounds like “pss”. In Spain, it’s “pue” instead. Which one you should use should be determined, as always, by how the people around you are speaking.

La Verdad Es Que

“The truth is that…” or “The truth of the matter is that…”, but a more contextual translation that would give you a really good English equivalent would be “actually”, because they use it the same way we do that word and about as frequently (in other words: very). Many beginning learners will say “Actualmente…” when they want to say “Actually…” but that’s incorrect, as you’ll learn further down when I cover the phrase “actualmente”, you’ll see that it translates more to “currently” than “actually” and is used to express what’s currently going on right now.

Example:

“¿Estás bien?” (“Are you ok?”)

“Pues…la verdad es que no me siento bien.” (“Well…actually, I don’t feel well.”)

Entonces

It literally and contextually means “then” and is used in a very similar way that we use that word. Normally it’s used to indicate that one event followed another, just as we use it (“Then I went to the store” = “Entonces fui a la tienda”), and it’s also used in a sort of “So what, then?” kind of way, sometimes used the same way we use “so”, as in:

“So, what happened next?” = “Entonces, ¿qué pasó después?”

“So…you’re not coming then?” = “Entonces…¿no vienes?” or “Pues…¿no vienes, entonces?”

O Sea

“In other words…”, “That is to say…”, or “I mean…”

There’s an interesting structure to this phrase, because you’ve got the Spanish subjunctive involved (click me if you need help with that) due to the fact that’s sort of a hypothetical (as in, it means something like “if one were to say it this way” or “one could say it this way”). “O” means “or” and “sea” is the 3rd person present subjunctive form of “ser“, which means “to be”. This is an extremely common verbal crutch that you’ll hear used quite frequently in the way we would use “like” or “you know”. Examples:

“El jefe no me ha hablado todavía, o sea de verdad no sé.” = “The boss hasn’t talked to me yet, so in other words I don’t really know.”

“[blah blah blah long explanation about something], o sea la verdad es que solo me gusta mucho la ropa interior feminina.” = “[blah blah blah long explanation about something], in other words I just really like women’s underwear.”

Es Decir

More literally means “that is to say” and can be used pretty much anywhere you would use “o sea”, except it’s considered a bit more correct and less slangy than “o sea” is.

Luego

“Luego” also technically translates to “then” and is frequently interchangeable with “entonces”, though “luego” is more often used to indicated something happening next in sequence, e.g. “…then I went to the store, then the airport, then home.” would be something like “…luego fui a la tienda, luego al aeropuerte, y luego a la casa.”

Sometimes it’s used when we would use “later”, as in the most common example of “Hasta luego” which means “See you later”. Other similar expressions include “Luego voy” (“I’ll go later”), “Luego te digo” (“I’ll tell you later”), “Luego lo hago” (“I’ll do it later”), etc.

Actualmente

Not “actually”, first of all. This is a false friend, it doesn’t mean what it looks like it does. “Actualmente” actually (see what I did there?) means “currently”, “at the moment”, “these days”, or, as the dictionary defines it, “nowadays”. The best basic translation is probably “currently”. Examples:

“Qué pasa?” “Pues, actualmente no sé, creo que esperamos a que Juan llegue.” = “What’s happening?” “Well, currently I don’t know, I think we’re waiting for Juan to arrive.”

“Actualmente hace muy buen tiempo, pero podría llover más tarde.” = “Currently the weather is very nice, but it could rain later.”

A Propósito / Por Cierto

They both pretty much just mean “By the way”. Just as with “by the way”, they usually indicate a change in subject or a transition into some new sort of business. Just use them the same way you would “by the way”, e.g. “A propósito, ¿sabes dónde está María?” = “By the way, do you know where Maria is?” or “Por cierto, ¿no ibas a ir a la tienda?” = “By the way, weren’t you going to go to the store?”

Por Lo Menos

It means “At least”. “Por” means “for”, “lo” means “that” or “it”, and “menos” means “less” or “least” in this case, so you put them together and you get “that which is least”, or…”at least”. Examples:

“¡Por lo menos pregúntale el nombre antes de que le quites la ropa, hombre!” = “At least get her name before you try to take her clothes off, man!”

Por Fin

“Finally” or “At last”.

Frequently said with exasperation that the thing in question is finally happening. Examples:

“¡Por fin! ¡Estás aqui!” = “Finally! You’re here!”

“Por fin, tenemos la tarea de todos.” = “At last, we’ve got everyone’s homework.”

Es Que

This is the Spanish equivalent of “It’s that…” or “It’s such that…” or “The thing is that…”, all of which are roughly the same thing. This is one of the most common and most useful, all-purpose phrases in Spanish, and can be used for nearly anything–I guarantee you that if you ask a Spanish-speaking person “Why?” or “Why is ____ ?”, there’s a superb chance that their answer will begin with “Es que…”, meaning “Well, it’s that…” or even “Pues, es que…” (hey, don’t forget: you can mix-‘n-match all this stuff!)

“Es que” is always used to answer something, in response to something, it requires some sort of preceding question or statement to actually respond to.

Che

This is pretty much exclusive to Argentina and just means something like “Hey!”, or “Hey buddy”, e.g.

“¡Che! Me gustan tus zapatos.” = “Hey, I like your shoes.”

“¡Che! ¿Qué tal, hombre?” = “Hey! What’s up, man?”

Lo Que Pasa Es Que

“What’s happening is that…” or “What’s going on is…”, that’s it. It can be used anytime “Es que…” can, which means pretty much any time. This is a very common Spanish transition phrase that you’ve likely already heard unless you’re just now starting to learn Spanish.

Quizás / Tal Vez

They both just mean “maybe” or “perhaps”, that’s it, very simple. You’ll sometimes see it spelled “quizá” minus the “s” on the end. Examples:

“Quizás no debí haberme comido todas esas ardillas, creo que tengo una bola de pelos.” = “Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all those squirrels, I think I have a hairball.”

“Tal vez El Presidente nos preste algunas de sus prostitutas si nos aburrimos.” = “Perhaps the President will let us borrow some of his prostitutes if we get bored.”

Resulta Que

Literally, “It results that…” or “It results in…”, more accurately it means something like “It turns out that…”. If you wanted to say “Well, it turns out that the dog doesn’t like broccoli!” you would say that “¡Pues, resulta que al perro no le gusta el brócoli!”

You would also use this particular expression to mean “it works out that” in a mathematical context, such as saying “The price of the car works out to 20,000 pesos.” would be done as “Resulta que el precio del carro son veinte mil pesos.”

Así Que

Just another way of saying “So” when used at the beginning of a sentence, such as “So, you think I’m fat?” would be “¿Así que crees que estoy gordo?”, or “So, you’re coming then?” would be “¿Así que vienes?”. The reason it’s used in this very specific manner is due to what it really means, “así” means “this way” or “like this” or “in this manner”, and “que”, of course, means “that”, so “así que” literally means something like “It’s going to be like this, then is it?” in reference to whatever follows that “Así que” – got it?

Aunque

“Although”, “Even though”, etc. Examples:

“Aunque me dicen que estoy loco, aún voy a rezar al monstruo volador de espaguetti.” = “Even though they tell me I’m crazy, I’m still going to pray to the flying spaghetti monster.”

“Aunque hui del “Superbowl” como de la peste, aún tuve que oír personas quejándose sobre Christina Aguilera. Yo no estaba feliz.” = “Although I avoided the Superbowl like the plague, I still had to hear people complain about Christina Aguilera. I wasn’t happy.”

Además

“Moreover”, “Besides…”, “Also”, etc.

This is occasionally also used where we would use “too”, e.g.

“Él es guapo y además inteligente.” = “He’s handsome and smart, too.”

“El queso es demasiado suave, demasiado débil, y además huele muy mal.” = “Cheese is too soft, too weak, and besides, it smells terrible.”

Ni Modo Que

“No way that…”, or “No way in hell that…”. “Modo” literally means “way” so this one is pretty intuitive. It’s never just used on its own like “No way!” is in English, something always follows it and that something will always involve the subjunctive. Examples:

“¡Ni modo que vaya a hablar con ella!” = “Like hell I’m going to talk to her!”

“Ni modo que yo pueda ir contigo, lo siento” = “No way can I go with you, sorry.”

Sin Embargo

“Sin embargo” means “However”, “Nonetheless”, “Nevertheless”, “Notwithstanding”, etc. It is one of the Spanish transition words that you will hear the most often.

This is frequently used while someone is shaking their finger at you. They’ll acknowledge your point, quite aware that they’re about to invalidate it, and then say “sin embargo” right before they do so. As such:

“Entiendo que el queso no es tan furte como el acero, pero sin embargo voy a hacer un carro con él.” = “I understand that cheese isn’t as strong as steel, but nevertheless I’m going to make a car out of it.”

“Admito que pagué por más o menos una docena de prostitutas con fondos del estado, ¡pero sin embargo aún creo que soy adecuado para ser El Presidente!” = “I acknowledge that I did pay for a dozen or so prostitutes with state funds, but nonetheless I still think I’m fit to be President!” (for those who don’t get it, that’s Silvio Berlusconi there on the left)

Menos Mal Que

“Good thing that…”, or “It’s just as well that…”. Fantastic little sentence-starter that you can get a ton of mileage out of. It literally means “Less bad that”, and is just they’re way of saying “It’s good that this thing happened.” Examples:

“Menos mal que no estacioné mi carro de cheese al sol, ¡se derretiría!” = “Good thing I didn’t park my cheese car in the sun, it would have melted!!”

“Menos mal que no olvidaste los ratones, ¡las serpientes tienen mucha hambre!” = “Good thing you didn’t forget the mice, the snakes are really hungry!”

Fíjate Que

“Look”, “Look here, …”, or “Look at that…”, etc. “Fijar” means “to fix” in the sense of to focus or fixate on something, not as in “to repair” (that’s “arreglar“), so “Fíjate”, as you can imagine, means something like “fix yourself” (as in, “focus yourself”, i.e. “pay attention”) and “que” means “that”, so “fíjate que” means something like “fixate yourself on that”, or “focus yourself on that” and best translates to what we might say as “Look, …” or “Look at that”. It’s just used to call someone’s attention to something.

An example would be if you wanted to say “Look, there’s a giant car made out of cheese!”, it would be “¡Fíjate, hay carro enorme hecho de queso!”

“Fíjate” without the “que” means “Watch out!”, “Look out!”, or “Pay attention, …”

Also, note that “Fijarse que + subjunctive” = “Make sure that…”, as in “Make sure that the oven is off.” (“Fíjate que esté apegado el horno.”). This is usually used the way that we would say “Check that…” instead of what most English-speakers will be inclined to use, “checar“–most Spanish speakers use “Fijarse que + subjunctive”, not “checar”.

Lo Bueno / Lo Malo

“The good thing…” / “The bad thing…”

“Lo” = “It” and when placed before another word it means “that which is ____”, e.g. “lo bueno” means “That which is good”, “lo malo” means “That which is bad”, and of course the more accurate contextual translation in English would be “The good/bad thing…”. This works with a ton of other words, such as:

“lo peor” = “the worst thing…”

“lo único” = “the only thing…”

“lo extraño” = “the strange thing…”

“lo gracioso” = “the funny thing…”

Such as in “¡Lo mas extraño es que El Ministerio de Transporte no me daba permiso que manejar mi carro de queso en las carreteras públicas!” = “The strange thing is that the Department of Transportation wouldn’t let me drive my cheese car on the public roads!”

A Ver

“Let’s see…” or “Let’s see here…”

Fantastically useful little Spanish sentence-starter here. It’s frequently used to call attention to something, such as:

“¿Tienes un dólar?” “A ver…” = “Do you have a dollar?” “Let’s see…”

“A ver si mi paquete ya ha llegado…” = “Let’s see if my package has arrived yet…”

“A ver si mi carro de queso flota…” = “Let’s see if my cheese car floats…”

It will be frequently used with “si” or “qué” to mean “Let’s check and see…” or “Let’s check…”, as in:

“A ver qué hay en televisión…” = “Let’s see what’s on TV…”

Con Razón

“No wonder…” or “Little wonder that…”

“Razón” means “reason”, so with “con razón” you get “with reason”, e.g. “Con razón tu carro de queso se derretió, ¡lo dejaste al sol!” = “No wonder your cheese car melted, you left it in the sun!” or, using the literal translation (see if this makes sense to you now , it should), “With reason your cheese car melted, you left it in the sun!”

Por Eso

“Because” or “That’s why”.

It’s frequently used to explain or to help make things understood when it might not be clear what’s going on, e.g.

“Señor Andrew, ¡manejas un carro de queso!”, “Sí, por eso mis pantaloncillos están amarillos.” = “Señor Andrew, you drive a cheese car!”, “Yes, that’s why my pants are yellow.”

“Fíjate, hay un video musical de Shakira en la televisión.”, “Sí, por eso no puedo levantarme” = “Look, there’s a Shakira music video on TV.”, “Yes, that’s why I can’t stand up.” 😀

En Fin

“Well, anyway…” or “So, anyhow…”

It literally means something like “In conclusion…” but isn’t always necessarily used to conclude something (though it frequently is, that is it’s often used to lead into the conclusion), sometimes it’s used to change subjects or bring the conversation back to what was originally being discussed. Examples:

“En fin, la verdad es que sobreviví sólo comiéndome mi carro de queso cuando quedé varado en el desierto.” = “So anyway, I actually did survive only by eating my cheese car when I was stranded in the desert.”

Total

This is one of the less-used Spanish transition words but it’s still common in some dialects. It means something like, “So it turns out that…”

“Total” literally (and normally) means, simply, “total” as in “complete”, but when it’s put at the beginning of a sentence as a starter it basically means something like “So anyway, it turns out that…” and is frequently paired with “que” in the process of doing so e.g.:

“Pues, total que no me levanté a tiempo esta mañana.” = “Well, turns out that I didn’t wake up on time this morning.”

Vale

Not very common at all in this particular context in Latin America, but I’ve noticed that it’s used all the time in Spain (I spent three months there, in Zaragoza, in 2015), it’s their equivalent of our “ok” or “you know”, it’s a constantly used filler word there. You can use it like you would “ok”, you can use it like you would “well” (“vale” and “pues” are frequently interchangeable), you can use it like you sometimes would “ummm”! See below:

“¿Vale?” “Sí, vale.” = “Ok?” “Yeah, ok.”

“Pueesss, vale, vamos a ver lo que tenemos aquí…” = “Wellll, ok, let’s see what we’ve got here…”

“Creo que mi carro de queso no funciona muy bien, vale?” = “I think my cheese car didn’t work very well, you know?”

“Vale…ehhh…donde puse mi busto del culo de Shakira, es doscientos kilos de bronce, sé que está en algún lugar por aquí…” = “Ok…ehhh….where’d I put my bust of Shakira’s ass, it’s two hundred kilos of bronze, I know it’s around here somewhere…”

Ya

What a fantastic little word. It’s a bit difficult because if you use the literal translation of “ya”, which is “already”, every time you hear it, it won’t make sense, but you have to understand this word because you will hear it used constantly, it’s an extremely common Spanish filler word.

It can mean “already”, of course, it can also mean “now”, or if made negative it can mean “anymore” as in “not anymore”, e.g. “Ya no viene” = “He’s not coming anymore.” It’s often used simply as emphasis, usually to emphasize that something is being done, it’s being done now, or that something will be gotten to in just a second if the listener would just be patient and quit friggin’ bugging you about it. Examples:

“Ya voy.” = “I’m already going” / “I’ll go in a minute” / “I’m going!!!!” [in response to someone repeatedly insisting that you go] – which translation is correct depends on the context.

“Ya están las hamburguesas.” = “The hamburgers are ready/here now.”

“¡Ya estoy allí!” = “I’m already there!”

“La verdad es que ya quiero salir.” = “Actually, I already want to leave.” / “Actually, I want to leave now.”

To confuse you even further, when “ya” is combined with “que” it means something completely different: “Since…”, “Seeing that…”, “Seeing as how…”, etc. It’s used to mean something like “Well, since ___ has/is already occurred/occurring…”. Here, look at these and see if you get it:

“Ya que comiste mi carro de queso, ¡¿cómo vamos a ir a la casa?!” = “Since you’ve eaten my cheese car, how are we going to get home?!”

“Ya que compraste todo lo que necesitábamos, supongo que podemos ir a casa ahora.” = “Seeing as how you already bought everything we needed, I suppose we can go home now.”

Additional Reading and Further Resources: Places to learn even more conversational Spanish, slang, and expressions!

First and foremost I strongly recommend you check out a podcast called Español en 3000, it’s run by an Australian guy living in Medellin, Colombia, and they do such an excellent job with their interviews and how they use them to teach Spanish. Unlike most other podcasts focused on teaching Spanish, these are entirely unscripted and natural, with native speakers, so you learn the kind of Spanish people speak in conversation every day. People talk normally, naturally, in their native language. They interview Spanish-speakers living in and around Medellin, and though they talk to more Colombians than anyone they’ve made a point to represent all dialects of the Spanish-speaking world (they have interviews with people from Mexico, Argentina, Spain, Venezuela, Chile, and many more). They include a verbatim transcript of each interview as well as a lesson at the end focusing on the Spanish used. The mobile version of the site is excellent, everything worked perfectly when I tested it, so you can listen to it on the go. Check out my review of them here (yes, there’s a free trial).

I have a whole category of posts on this website dedicated to teaching this sort of colloquial, “everyday” Spanish called Learn Spanish for Real: Spanish Slang, Colloquialisms, & Cursewords. Learn the 4 different ways to say somebody is naked in Spanish, or how to say something is a “rip-off” in Spanish, or even how to say something is a pain in the neck/ass in Spanish (I cover both so you have the polite and the not-so-polite way of saying it).

Edit (12/9/2011): Thanks to a commenter below, I can highly recommend this very extensive article (be warned: it’s entirely in Spanish) on muletillas, definitely worth checking out. Thanks, Mijail999.

Additionally, I have a few other similar posts you might be interested in:

There’s a list of muletillas (what this stuff is called in Spanish) over on Spanish Wikipedia organized by country, though it’s all in Spanish.

Sources

First and foremost the wonderful Spanish speakers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and talking to over the years, whether that was in person or via Skype. Secondly, my own personal experience based on reading and listening to actual contemporary Spanish-language media (which I can’t recommend enough). Also, the guys over at HTLAL (if you’re not a member you should be), Joseph Keenan’s fantastic Breaking Out of Beginner’s Spanish, and the Foro de Español forums.

I await your corrections and questions in the comments (and I do appreciate them, by the way).

Edit (7/15/2013): Many thanks to Jared Romey at Speaking Latino and his wife, Diana, for pointing out several grammatical errors in this article and then being kind enough to put together a whole word document outlining them and how to fix them for me! Fantastic! Additionally, Nélida Kreer at Traducciones-Montevideo was the one who originally caught the errors and mentioned it to Jared.

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

It's currently available in both e-book and paperback from:

Cheers,
Andrew

The post Spanish Transition Words (Muletillas) and Sentence Starters: The Grease of the Language Gears appeared first on Learn Spanish with Andrew.

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Learn Spanish for Real #9: Four Ways to Say Somebody Is Naked!

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2. En Cueros

3. En Bolas

4. Como Dios me/te/le trajo al mundo

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

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“Estar en el quinto pino”

“Donde Cristo perdió la zapatilla”

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

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Are these expressions only used in this colloquial sense or are they also used to literally mean that something is an actual robbery / armed robbery?

Scam/Con/Fraud

And “timo”, too!

I learned to speak conversational Spanish in six months using TV shows, movies, and even comics: I then wrote a book on how you can, too

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The Story

What does it mean and what’s the difference between it and “tener un cabreo de cojones”?

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Respond in Spanish Like a Native: Common Spanish Phrases, Expressions & Comebacks

Es Un Decir

Para Que Conste

¿Y Qué?

¿Y?

Da Igual / Da Lo Mismo

O Sea

Claro/Claro que Sí

Para Nada

En Absoluto

¡Imagínese!

En Tus Sueños

Estás Loco

¿Verdad?

Ni Loco

Ya Basta

¿En Serio?

¡Qué Barbaridad!

¿Cómo no?

Es El Colmo

No Puede Ser

No Me Diga

Está Bien

De Acuerdo

Déjese De Cuentos

¿Cómo?

Seguro

No Me Importa

¡Qué Esperanzas!

Ni Modo

No Es Para Tanto

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Spanish Transition Words (Muletillas) and Sentence Starters: The Grease of the Language Gears

Bueno

Mira

Haz De Cuenta Que

Pues

La Verdad Es Que

Entonces

O Sea

Es Decir