Learn Spanish for Real: Spanish Slang, Colloquialisms, & Cursewords 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 This is completely incorrect, “pelota” refers to an outdated Spanish word for “skin”, and the phrase isn’t the least bit sexist.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 #8: “That rings a bell / sounds familiar!” and “sonar”/”resultar”

Andrew — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 03:09:53 +0000

Awkward title, but accurately descriptive. We’re going to talk about the ways you can say essentially the same thing in Spanish: “That rings a bell” or “That sounds/looks familiar”.

This is going to revolve around two verbs: “sonar” and “resultar”, primarily “sonar”.

The way Spanish-speakers principally say this is “Me suena ___” where ____ is whatever it is that rings a bell or sounds familiar, e.g. “Tu cara me suena” (also the name of a Spanish TV show) is how you would say “Your face rings a bell for me” or, slightly better translation, “Your face looks familiar to me”. Literally what that sentence means is “Your face to me rings”, as “sonar” literally means “to ring”.

Some more examples:

Does that name ring a bell? – “¿Te suena ese nombre?”
That rings a bell – “Eso me suena.”
That sounds vaguely familiar – “Me suena ligeramente” [lit. “It rings lightly to me”]

Another way: “resultar”

You can also use the verb “resultar” (litarally: “to result”) in basically the same way to mean the same thing, e.g.

Her voice sounds familiar – “Su voz me resulta familiar” (lit. “Her voice to me results familiar”)
I’ve heard that name before, it sounds familiar – “He oído antes ese nombre, me resulta familiar.”
Does this face look familiar to you? – “¿Te resulta familiar esta cara?”

But you can always just…

Use “parecer”, of course, which means “to appear”, e.g. “Me parece similar” (that looks similar), “Me parece lo mismo” (that looks the same to me), “Me parece familiar” (that looks familiar), etc.

Most of you already knew this, however, it was kind of the obvious one, which is why I barely felt it worth mentioning and emphasized the other 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 #8: “That rings a bell / sounds familiar!” and “sonar”/”resultar” 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.