One of my students wanted me to watch the movie Rudo y Cursi together with him. He speaks Spanish very well, even better than many native speakers, but he wasn’t familiar with Mexican swearwords. That was the reason he couldn’t understand the movie the first time he saw it. I had no idea what was […] More
Mexico City, the largest Spanish-speaking town in the world. This is a day landing in Mexico City apparently from a flight arriving from Frankfurt. Let me try to explain to you what you are seeing here. First, this window shows the inner part of the city, towards the Zócalo, which you can’t see […] More
There are dozens of examples of words in Spanish that are spelled with a (silent) H, for which you can find at least one cognate in another language that is spelled with F. Most languages followed the original Latin spelling. I don’t like this, haha, why do we have to be different to the […] More
Para ti, para mí, para ella, para él, para todos, para nadie…¡para vos! I hope this commercial in Spanish from Argentina made for Coca Cola Femsa, helps you understand one of the uses of the preposition para. Similar commercial with subtitles. (also Argentine accent). Cola in Spanish means cola, ass, […] More
Every Spanish language student knows that there are two verbs that mean to know, saber and conocer. This is true in other Romance languages as well. What many students don’t know is that we have a verb with the opposite meaning: desconocer. The main meaning of desconocer is to not know, but it could […] More
I saw the film Amores Perros together with one of my students. Below is one of the main soundtrack songs. Its name is Lucha de Gigantes, by the Spanish band Nacha Pop. The actual movie scene is too strong to embed on this website. It’s not for kids and it’s not for many people. […] More
Here are 10 common random idioms you may have trouble with if you hear them for the first time: Expression Approximate literal translation (what you might think you actually heard) Explanation el astro rey the king star the Sun. ( nickname). el primer trimestre the first trimester first quarter. Used extensively in financial […] More
