Spanish speakers love to stretch meanings, and animal names are a favorite starting point. Over time, many animal words have spawned new meanings, tools, nicknames, or even insults. They often confuse students because they don’t refer to the actual animal anymore. These are the most obvious examples, but I am sure there are many […] More
Everyday phrases that don’t translate directly Spanish is full of expressions that confuse students because the literal meaning does not match the actual usage. Some of them are playful, others are pejorative (so they are better learned than repeated), and a few are just Mexican. Here is a batch of ten more examples. Spanish expression […] More
Notario Público When Spanish-speaking students first come across the term Notario Público, they are often tempted to translate it directly as Notary Public. After all, the words look the same, and in both cases we are talking about someone who signs and stamps legal documents. But the truth is that the role of a Notario […] More
In many Spanish-speaking countries, the word burro has many uses. It can mean donkey, it can mean a big burrito, or even a stubborn person. But in the school context, to ser burro / ser burra for female students, means something very specific: the least smart or the laziest student in the classroom. In other […] More
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 ask many people in Latin America about old TV shows, they might still remember Señorita Cometa (Kometto-san). This was a Japanese children’s series from the late 1960s that was later dubbed into Spanish and shown on television across several countries in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though it was originally Japanese, the Spanish […] 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
