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Spanish is rich, playful, and full of expressions that even advanced students find mysterious. Many of them don’t mean what the words literally say — and some don’t even make sense if you translate them word by word. Here are ten expressions that many people in Mexico use all the time, with their literal meanings and their real sense in conversation.
| Expression | Literal Translation | Colloquial Meaning / English Equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| sonsonete | sing-song or repetitive sound | repetitive tone, often annoying or nagging voice |
| buscapleitos | fight seeker | troublemaker, someone who’s always looking for conflict |
| bajita la mano | little low hand | discreetly, quietly, under the table, “on the down-low” |
| pásame el deste | pass me that-thing | “pass me that thing,” used when you forget the name of an object (very common in Mexico). When the speaker can’t remember or doesn’t want to name an object. |
| se me prendió el foco | the light bulb turned on | Oh, I just got an idea. Oh, something just occurred to me. |
| mandar por un tubo | to send through a tube (or pipe). | to reject or dismiss someone abruptly, “tell someone to get lost”, to tell them off, or make them leave you alone — “to blow someone off” |
| ternurita | “little tenderness” (used sarcastically) | sarcastic. In Mexico it’s like “nice try, try again”. Someone tried to cheat, make me believe something, but it was like a little child trying to cheat on an older person. “Nice try… but not quite!”. Way to go, but you need to try harder! Sometimes, someone claims to have noticed something that was too obvious for the rest. |
| descubrir el hilo negro | to discover the black thread | to claim you’ve found something new when it’s already well known, “reinvent the wheel” |
| ni a cuál irle | not even one to root for | used when both options are bad or equally awful, “they’re both terrible” |
| preparar el terreno | to prepare the ground | to get someone ready for news or an idea, “soften the blow” or “pave the way”, sometimes to set someone up for something, to get them ready for news or an idea — “soften the blow” |
Spanish is full of colorful expressions like these. They make conversations sound more natural and full of local flavor. Most of them can’t be learned from a grammar book — you get them from listening to native speakers.
