For many English speakers learning Spanish, the phrase pasado mañana is one of those expressions that makes them stop and think: “Wait a second, why does it mean the day after tomorrow if pasado usually means past?” It looks like it should refer to something that already happened, but in Spanish it actually points to […] More
One of the most confusing but also most fun parts of learning Spanish is discovering expressions that don’t make sense when you try to translate them word for word. Mexican Spanish in particular has many colloquial sayings that students hear in daily on TV show conversations but that are not easy to figure out at […] More
If you study Spanish long enough, sooner or later you will hear the words Fulano, Mengano and Zutano. These names don’t really belong to anybody, but they are used to talk about a person without saying the real name, or when the name is not important. For example, someone can say “Fulano me dijo que…” […] More
Almost 20 years ago we posted about -azo / -aza on SpanishNY. This is the updated version. In Spanish, this ending can mean bigger/awesome, or it can mean a hit/blow with something. There isn’t a perfect one-word match in English, so the best way is to learn it by examples. “Bigger / awesome” uses Spanish […] More
One of the things students always find fascinating in Spanish is how we have very specific words for family relationships that in English don’t exist. A good example is the word consuegros. Who are the consuegros? Very simple: they are the parents of your son-in-law or your daughter-in-law. In other words, the parents of your […] More
In Spanish, tocayo is a warm and friendly word you use when someone has the same first name as you. It’s like saying “name twin” in English, but with more charm. If your name is Carlos and you meet another Carlos, you can greet him with “¡Hola, tocayo!” and maybe even smile like you’ve known […] More
Learning Spanish can be a wonderful and challenging task. One of the most common difficulties for students is knowing when to use the verbs Ser and Estar. Both translate to “to be” in English, but they have very different uses in Spanish. Don’t worry, by the end of this post, you’ll have a clearer idea! […] More
Estrenar is one of those Spanish words that doesn’t translate into just one simple English word. In English, we often have to use more words, like “wear for the first time,” “use for the first time,” “debut,” or “premiere,” depending on what we are talking about. In Spanish, estrenar works for almost anything you are […] More
In Spanish, madrugar means “to wake up very early in the morning.” At first, it sounds simple — just wake up early, right? But this word is more than a clock time. It carries a cultural feeling: starting your day before most people are even thinking about coffee. The word comes from madrugada, which is […] More
In Spanish, we can exaggerate meaning by adding special prefixes to adjectives and adverbs.The most common ones are: re- rete- requete- They all mean very, super, extremely — but in a more informal or playful way.Sometimes they are used in everyday speech, sometimes in children’s books, and sometimes just for fun. re- This is the […] More
If you speak Spanish, azul is simple: it’s blue. Dark blue, light blue, sky blue… still azul. But in other languages (Italian, French, even English), things get a little more complicated. Where does azul come from? And blue? Azul comes (indirectly) from Arabic lazaward, which comes from Persian and referred to lapis lazuli, the blue […] More
When to Use Don and Doña in Spanish If you’ve heard people say Don Juan or Doña María, and you’re wondering what those words mean and when to use them, here’s a quick explanation. Don (for men) and Doña (for women) are respectful titles that go before someone’s first name, not the last name. So […] More
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