¿Me puede pasar corriente?

Sometimes I'm amazed at the amount of Spanish I know.  Until I'm abruptly reminded of how much Spanish I don't know.

One night after enjoying a nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant, I was completely surprised by what happened next.

Se murió la batería de mi coche
My car battery died

To be honest, while that was aggravating, what bothered me even more was the fact that I had to ask for a jump in English.  I didn't even have a clue as to how to ask for a jump in Spanish.  So today I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen to you.

¿Me puede pasarcorriente?
Can you give me a jump?

That was easy wasn't it?  Let's look at some vocabulary and learn a few other things you'll need to know.

Jumper cables are called cables para pasar corriente.

¿Tienes cables para pasar corriente?
Do you have jumper cables?

The jumper cable clamps are called pinzas.

Now we know how to ask for jumper cables, we're halfway there.

There are two words for battery in Spanish, pilas and batería.  You want to use batería when in comes to talking about your car battery.

The cables para pasar corriente attach to the terminales (terminal for just one) of the batería.  And as you can see by picture you have a terminal positivo y terminal negativo.  And the dead battery is called the batería muerta.

La batería está muerta
The battery is dead

You have to conectar the pinzas to the terminales.

Conecta el cable con la pinza roja primero en la terminal positiva
Connect the cable with red clamp first to the positive terminal

Conecta la pinza negra a la terminal negativa
Connect the black clamp to the negative terminal

The next step is to encender or arrancar (start) the car.

Enciende/Arranca  el coche
Start the car

And finally, you need to retirar las pinzas from the terminales.

Retira las pinzas
Remove the clamps

And finally, here's a video where you can actually hear all of this and learn how to pasar corriente at the same time.

That's it!  Now you know everything you need to get a jump in Spanish.  And if your memory is as bad as mine, then you may want to consider downloading my android phrasebook app that will allow you keep these phrases and many more at your fingertips when you need them.

Before I let you go, here are some other posts you may like:

1.  Marque su pin
2.  Gira a la derecha, mas adelante

That's it for today, ¡Buena suerte!

¿A cuánto la boleada?

If you have no idea what a boleada is, don't feel bad, up until recently I had no what a boleada was either.

If you spend enough time walking up and down the streets of Mexico, you'll see something like this:

If you take a close look at his chair, you'll see the words "limpieza de calzado"  literally translated as "shoe cleaning".  We'd call it a shoe shine.  And in México you'll probably hear it more commonly referred to as a boleada de zapatos, or boleada for short.

I just realized that I have no idea what the official title of a person who does shoe shines is here in the U.S., but in México that person is called a bolero or bolera if it's a woman.  Other names you may hear are aseadores de calzado, lustrabotas, lustradores and lustra zapatos.  There may even be more names, but if you're looking for a shoe shine guy any of these should get the message across.

Although it's common to see puestos (stands) like the one above, it's also very common to see guys walking around with their cajón para bolear,  or shoe shine box.  If you ask for a boleada, they do it right there on the spot.

Let's cover a little more vocabulary related to shoe shines.

Shoe shine polish is called tinta or grasa para zapatos (México).  Wikipedia offers a few other options, click here to see the list.

The shoe shine rag, or any rag for that matter, is a trapo.  The shoe shine brush is called a cepillo.  In fact, cepillo is a generic word for brush in general.  The act of shining shoes is called lustrar zapatos, bolear zapatos or hacer una boleada.  There are probably other ways to say it as well.  A shoe shine chair is a silla para lustrar zapatos or silla para bolear zapatos.

Whew, did I miss anything?  Let's hope not.  Here are some sample sentences:

¿En que trabajas? Soy bolero.
What kind of work do you do?  I'm a shoe shiner.

¿A cuánto la boleada? A 25 pesos.
How much is a shoe shine?  25 pesos.

Juan es alto, bien vestido, con los zapatos bien boleados
Juan is tall, well dressed with his shoes well shined

A mis zapatos le hacen falta una boleada
My shoes need to be shined

Bolear zapatos no es un oficio, pero me da para comer
Shining shoes isn't a profession, but it feeds me

Voy a que me boleen mis zapatos
I'm going to get a shoe shine

Here's a great video of an interview with a bolero, or in this case a lustra zapatos because they're in Guatemala.  And yes, you do see kids this age working, as sad as it is.  If you can't see the video embedded below, you can watch it on YouTube.

Here's another video that's a little longer if you're up for more of challenge.  It's more of a mini-documentary, I found it to be rather interesting and well worth the 9 minutes it takes to watch it.  Aside from practicing your Spanish, it will also teach you how to shine shoes.  Again, if you don't see the video, click here to see it in YouTube.

¿Que hace una mujer bolera?

And that's all for today my friends.  You've been armed with everything you need to know to get a shoe shine.  Now go forth and impress your Spanish friends.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Gira a la derecha, mas adelante

Just about everyone has a GPS these days, and if you're serious about learning Spanish, you should be getting your directions in Spanish.

If you haven't changed the language on your GPS yet, today you're going to learn everything you need to know to get where you're going.  Break out your driving gloves boys and girls, it's time to go for a ride.

Here's a screen shot from the GPS on my phone, let's take a closer look at it.

 Let's start with the word bifurcación, which you'll find at the top of the picture where the directions start.

A  bifurcación  is a fork in the road. If you look at the picture closely you can even see the little arrows showing the fork in the highway.

Tome la izquierda cuando llegue a una bifurcación del camino
Go left when you get to the fork in the road

Next we get to:

Mantente a la derecha y sigue las indicaciones
Keep to the right and follow the signs

We need to take a closer look at the first part of this, Mantente a la derecha. To be specific, the verb mantenerse.

Mantenerse seems to be the verb of choice for my GPS.  Your GPS may prefer permanecer.

Permanece a la derecha
Keep to the right

Hold on, we're not done skinning this cat yet.  You have one more option:

Quédate a la derecha
Stay to the right

Your GPS might not use quedar, but it's certainly something you'll probably hear on the street and may even want to use yourself.  Here's another example for good measure.

Desde Tulum, quedar en el carril de la derecha
From Tulum, stay in the right lane

OK, let's move on.

Gira ligeramente a la izquierda hacia 85 North
Take a slight left towards 85 North

Hacia is the word you want when you need to talk about where your heading.

Voy hacia el sur
I'm going south

En lugar de irme a casa, voy hacia el restaurante
Instead of going home, I'm heading towards the restaurant

Also notice that the word North wasn't translated.  Your GPS might translate it so you may want to refresh your memory if those directions aren't already burned into your brain.

OK, we're still not there yet, so let's keep going.

Toma la salida 86 hacia 13 North, en dirección Buford Highway
Take exit 86 towards 13 North, towards Buford Highway

This is really pretty straight forward.  The only thing I want to touch on is en dirección.  En dirección is another way to say towards.   Here are some examples:

Voy en dirección a mi casa
I'm heading towards my house

Caminar hacia el norte en dirección a la Calle 55
Walk heading north towards 55th Street

Gire a la derecha en dirección al hotel Hilton
Turn right towards the Hilton hotel

Notice all of my examples used  en dirección a, while my GPS didn't use the "a".  I suspect that's a translation error on their part.  And finally we have:

Incorpórate a 13 North
Get on 13 North

Incorporarse is used to for taking/getting on the highway.

Desde Barcelona, incorpórate a la autopista y toma la salida 12
From Barcelona, get on the freeway and take exit 12

You may also hear carretera used for highway, and notice the use of tomar for taking the freeway.

Toma la carretera 880 rumbo al Norte
Take highway 880 going north

You may have noticed the word rumbo.  It's just another way to say which way you're headed.

Voy rumbo a casa de una amiga
I'm headed towards a friends house

Next we have the following:

Continúa durante 3,6 mi
Continue for another 3.6 miles

You may have noticed the "3,6".  In Spanish the comma is used instead of the decimal point, so don't let it confuse you.

And the part we've all been waiting for:

El destino está a la izquierda
Your destination is on the left

We need to talk to about one more thing that didn't show up on my GPS this time.

Sigue derecho
Keep straight

You may also hear the word recto for straight.  And remember, derecha is right while derecho is straight.  The first time I got directions while driving I nearly forgot this distinction, luckily my passenger got me straightened out in time.

Sigue recto
Keep straight

Lastly, let's look at the title of this entry.

Gira a la derecha mas adelante
Turn right further ahead

FYI, you can get your directions online in Spanish as well.  I use Google Maps with my language set to Spanish.  You'll see the same vocabulary used.

And that about wraps things up.   If I missed something, leave me a comment.

Espero que les sirva, ¡cuídense!

¿Qué lleva?

Today I'm going to talk about the verb llevar.  It has many uses, some of which you might find surprising.  This post by no means covers every possible usage of llevar, but I talk about several, so let's get to it.

 

***UPDATE*** 

 

I now have a podcast on the verb Llevar that complements this post quite well, so be sure to check it out, it's free to listen to and also has a written transcript available. 

11 uses of the Spanish verb Llevar no one bothered to teach you

http://helpingyoulearnspanish.com/what-does-llevar-mean-in-spanish/

Now let's get back to the task at hand.

Llevar is the verb of choice when it comes to getting around. 

Llévame a casa

Take me home.

¿Me llevas a mi casa? 

Will you take me home?

¿A donde me llevas?

Where are you taking me?

Te llevo donde quieras

I'll take you where ever you want

¿Quieres que te lleve? 

Do you want me to take you?

Yo te llevo

I'll take you

Have you ever had a friend tell you they're going to eat at your favorite restaurant, go on a dream vacation or something of the like and you really want to go with them?  Well, put on your best puppy dog face and ask:

Will you take me with you?

Surprisingly, you can use the verb llevar to talk about the passage of time, like how long you've been living somewhere or have been doing something.

Llevo 8 años viviendo en Barcelona

I've been living in Barcelona for 8 years

Llevo dos horas esperandote

I've been waiting for you for two hours

Llevo tres años aprendiendo español

I've been learning Spanish for three years

Another usage that took me by surprise is that you can use llevar to talk about what you're wearing.  The expression is llevar puesto.

¿Qué llevas puesto?

What do you have on?

¿De qué color es la camisa que llevas puesta?

What color shirt are you wearing?

Llevo puesta una camisa azul

I have on a blue shirt

You can also talk about what you don't wear.

No lleva gafas

He doesn't wear glasses

Since we're on the subject, at some point you'll hear the verb tener used to talk about what someone is wearing as well.

¿Qué tienes puesto?

What do you have on?

Tengo puesto un blue jeans clarito y unos converse blancos 

I have on light colored blue jeans and white converse shoes

One more thing for you ladies.  If you find yourself wanting to ask a guy the famous question, boxers or briefs, you'll find this useful.

¿Usas boxers o briefs?

Do you wear boxers or briefs?

¿Qué te pones, boxers o briefs?

What do you wear, boxers or briefs?

And if you ladies want to know what he's wearing right now, well, we've already covered that.  

Guys, you're on own your own.  I won't be held responsible for any cachetadas or palmadas (slaps to face) you get from being a little too curious.  Besides, I've already told you everything you need to know, just substitute the appropriate words and you're in business.  

Now let's get back to llevar.

Llevar is also useful for going shopping.  

Compra una camisa y llévate otra gratis

Buy one shirt and get one free

Did the salesperson finally convince you to buy something?  Then you can say...

Me lo llevo

I'll take it.

Here are some more uses of llevar.

¡Cómo pesa este bolso! ¿Qué lleva acá?

This bag is heavy!  What do you have in here?

 ¿Qué llevo en mi maleta?

What should I take (pack) in my suitcase?

Cuando viajo sólo llevo una maleta

When I travel I only take one suitcase 

Llevo mi celular a todas partes

I take my cell phone everywhere

And lastly, llevar also has it's food related uses.

If you want to know what that tasty looking dish in the menu has in it, or you need to make sure it doesn't have anything you're allergic to, you can simply ask:

¿Qué lleva?

What's in it?

Remember, asking qué lleva will get you the list of ingredients of what you're thinking about ordering.  If you want know what comes with it,  then you need to ask:

¿Con qué viene? 

Quite often you'll want to take your food with you for one reason or another, and for that you'll need para llevar.

¿Para aquí o para llevar?

For here or to go?

¿Me lo puedes poner para llevar?

Can I get this to go?

Una caja para llevar por favor

A to go box please

Lo quiero para llevar

I want it to go

As you can see llevar is a very flexible verb.  Everything I talked about you'll hear on a regular basis and needs to become part of your everyday vocabulary if you're serious about your Spanish.  

That's it for today, and don't forget to check out the my podcast on Llevar on as well.

 

 11 uses of the Spanish verb Llevar no one bothered to teach you
http://helpingyoulearnspanish.com/what-does-llevar-mean-in-spanish/

 

¡Chau!

Marque su PIN

So there I was in Mexico in desperate need of an ATM machine.  Sadly I didn't know where to find one, or how to ask for one.  I had a faint recollection of how to say ATM in Spanish because I had heard the word once before in a podcast, but I couldn't remember it to save my life.  But desperate times called for desperate measures and I absolutely had to break down and ask someone where to find an ATM.

I walked into the closest building which just happened to be a casino and started talking.  I don't remember what I said, but I remember the gentlemen I was talking to having a blank look on their faces (most assuredly because of my wretched Spanish) and me ending the conversation with...

¿Saben dónde está un cajero?

I went in the direction they pointed to and there was no ATM machine in sight.  I did however, find a bar with a cash register, which is exactly what I asked for, a cajero.  A cajero is actually a cashier, not an ATM machine.  While I did eventually find an ATM, it wasn't until much later that I was able to find out how to ask for an ATM machine in Spanish.

¿Hay un cajero automático por aquí?
Is there an ATM machine around here?

Cool, now we know how to ask for an ATM.  This handy little phrase may slip your mind, but not to worry, you can use my Android app My Spanish Phrasebook so you can have this expression and few other useful ATM expressions (and a whole lot of other useful phrases) handy when you need them.

But guess what?  knowing how to ask for an ATM machine is only half the battle, because the ATM machine you have to use might not have English as a language option.  And that my friends, is what we're going to talk about today.

I'm going to walk you through withdrawing your hard earned cash from an ATM in Spanish.  It's not as hard as you might think, but it certainly won't hurt to have a "how to" lesson on doing it before you do it for real the first time.

Let's get started.  BTW, this is probably going to be a bit long, so I recommend you get comfortable.

Marque su PIN
Enter your PIN

That should be pretty straight-forward.  You may also see codigo secreto for PIN.   FYI, marque comes from the verb marcar.

Ver Saldo de Cuenta
Account balance

I'm not going to translate everything, so anything I don't cover you can consider it to be your homework assignment.

Of course you have to press OK after entering your PIN, but the button was on the machine and not the pantalla - screen.

OK, so now we're ready to get down to business.

If you don't already know it, efectivo is cash.  I first learned that from reading the Spanish on a gas station pump.

Retiro de Efectivo
Withdraw Cash

Reciba Saldos y Estados de Cuenta
Get Balance and State of your Account

Saldos means balance and cuenta is account.   I selected Retiro de Efectivo.

This screen should be pretty self-explanatory.  I went with...

Ingrese otra cantidad
Enter a different amount

Borrar means to erase.  This is the button you want when you punch in a wrong number.

This is the screen you get when you don't put it the nice round numbers these machines like.

Este ATM utiliza billetes de $20 para los retiros.  Ingrese una cantidad diferente.
This ATM uses increments of $20 for withdrawals.  Enter a different amount.

Once you've finally entered everything properly, the ATM gives your  efectivo  and asks...

Sin Recibo
No receipt

Imprimir Recibo
Print Receipt

And that's it, así de facil.

Now keep in mind that your ATM might translate things a little differently, but we talked about all the key words that you need to know, so consider yourself armed and dangerous, ready to take another step down the path to fluency in Spanish.

Oh, one last thing.  You probably noticed the pictures I posted here showed amounts in dollars.  Well, in a Spanish speaking country those amounts will almost always be pesos, so be prepared.  And as for dealing with conversion rates, that my friends, I leave up to you!

¡Hasta Luego! 

¿Así?

One simple word, comprised of just three letters.   It's amazing how something that seems so simple can be so deceptive.

To be honest, I really don't remember learning much at all about the word así in any of my Spanish books.  It's (yet another) one of those words that I picked up somewhere along the way.  With that said, let's take a closer look at the word así.

By itself, así can have several meanings:

¿Como lo hago?  ¿Así?
How do I do it?  Like this?

You could also just simply say: 

¿Así?
Like this?

Here's where things can get a little tricky.  ¿Así? Doesn't always mean "Like this".

It can also mean "Like that".

¿Como lo hago? ¿Así?
How do I do it? Like this?

Sí, así.
Yes, like that.

No me hablas así
Don't talk to me like that

No seas así
Don't be like that

No hablas así de mi novia
Don't talk like that about my girlfriend

If you're in the throws of passion, así will definitely come in handy.

Asi me gusta papi
That's how I like it baby

Así papi, así
Like that baby, like that

But  wait, there's more.

Not surprisingly, you can pair up así with other words to make it take on whole new meaning.  What may actually come as a surprise  is that you can pair así with itself.

¿Cómo estás?
Así así.  Me duele la cabeza

How are you?
So-so. I've got a headache.

¿Cómo estuvo la comida?
Así así. 

How was the food
So-so

Así así isn't known by all Spanish speakers, but at some point you might hear it.  Mas o menos is universal and has the same meaning.

There's also así es.

Me dijieron que compraste una casa nueva
Así es

They told me you bought a new house
That's right

There's así de.

Estuvo así de cerca de comprar un iPhone
I was this close to buying a iPhone

Solo oprimes esta tecla. Así de fácil
You just press this key. It's that easy.

You could also say:

Asi de simple
It's just that simple

If you like to go fishing and you need to convince your friends of exactly how big that trout was, you can say:

Te lo juro, era así de grande
I swear it was this big

Let's not forget así que, which means "so".

No tengo dinero encima asi que necesito ir al banco
I don't have any money on me so I need to go the bank

And here's one more that's actually a bit tricky.


Manuel no puede ir al cine, está castigado
¿Ah, si?

Manuel can't go to the movies, he's grounded
Really?


Although our response was ah, sí it sounds just like así. Don't feel bad if you can't tell the difference, I didn't catch it the first couple of times either.  In fact, unless the speaker makes a significant pause, it's almost impossible to tell the difference.

Ya.  That's it.  There are probably even more ways to use así, but if you master these you'll have people thinking you were born speaking Spanish.

¡Hasta luego!

¿Cuánto vale?

I remember the first time I heard this, I was in a book store in Mexico looking for a Spanish dictionary.  Oddly enough, I had a hard time finding a pure Spanish dictionary at home.  But I digress.

I took my dictionary to the counter and asked "¿cuánto cuesta?" just like my Spanish book taught me.  That's when the attendant looked at me and said "¿cuánto vale?"  Then she proceeded to tell me the price of the book.

At first I thought I said something wrong and found myself pretty confused for a few seconds.  Luckily it wasn't hard to figure out what it meant, but I was stuck with the feelings of confusion and doubt until I got back home and my Spanish tutor got me all straightened out. 

It turns out that "¿cuánto vale?"  is just another way to ask the price of something.  It's used universally, not just in Mexico, so you're likely to hear it somewhere down the line.

There are a few other ways to ask the price of something, so let's take a quick look at them.

¿Cuánto sale?
How much does that come out to?

¿Cuánto es?
How much is it?

¿Cuánto le debo?
How much do I owe you?

Since we're on the subject, I talked about costar before, and you can click here to read about that.  It's used in a very common expression and has a another usage that you definitely want to know about, so be sure to take a moment and look over that post.

¡Hasta pronto!

¿Vas llegando?

I was having dinner in a great little Mexican-Central American restaurant chatting with the owner.  In fact, he actually thought I was Panamanian, I was flattered.  I guess all my hard work is paying off.  Everything was going well. That is, until he asked me...

¿Vas llegando?

Once again, I had the deer in headlights look.  In fact, I couldn't even understand what he said, my gringo ears just weren't able to decipher those two simple words.  Oh well, I'm used to that now, so let's just talk about what this means.

The first thing I learned is that "vas llegando" is incorrect, at least grammatically so.  But let's remember that even though it's grammatically incorrect, it's important recognize common, colloquial speech.  It should be:

¿Vienes llegando?
Are you just arriving?

That's a literal translation,  but I think it sounds more natural to translate it as:

¿Vienes llegando?
Did you just get here?

It can also be interpreted as...

¿Vienes llegando?
Are you on your way?

How do you know when to use which translation?  Simple, context. 

You're driving to visit your mom, and she calls and asks "¿Vienes llegando?" - Are you on your way?

You finally make it to your moms house and your brother walks in 5 minutes after you and asks you ¿Vienes llegando? - Did you just get here?

So with that said, let's revisit my conversation in the restaurant.  To be just a little more specific, I told the owner that I was working locally and that I wasn't familar with the city, and that's when he asked...

¿Vas llegando?

In this context, "vas llegando" would be better translated as "Did you just move here?".   One phrase, three possible translations.  Don't you love Spanish?

Fortunately, the rest of the conversation went well and there were no more "deer in headlights" moments.  Thank goodness, I try to keep them limited to one a day. 

The actual phrase is "venir llegando", and in general means "to have just arrived (got here)".   Here's a couple of examples:

Vengo llegando
I just got in.

Viene llegando
He just got here.

That's it!

Espero que te sirva.

¿Vaso o copa?

At some point we all learn the words vaso and copa. Usually we're taught a vaso is defined as a glass or cup, and then we're told if you want a glass of wine, then you need to use the word copa. Easy enough, but they never even bother to explain why, much less what the difference is between a vaso and a copa.

Well, 5 years later, I finally got the answer to that question, which I stumbled across from sheer dumb luck. To be honest, it never occurred to me to the ask the question. Today we're going to talk about copas.


A copa is what we call a wine glass. In Spanish you order (pedir) a  "copa de vino", a glass of wine. It might a "copa de vino tinto" red wine, or "vino blanco", white wine.  The difference here is in Spanish you're specifically mentioning the type of glass wine is served in, while in English we're fine with just using the generic term "glass".

Let's take a closer look at what a copa actually is.   Not that you need one, but here's a photo:

A copa actually consists of several parts:

Recipiente de vidrio - This is the part you drink from.  

Cálliz, tallo or pie - The stem.

Base - The base.  Remember to use your Spanish pronunciation.

Copas have stems and bases, where as vasos don't.  There is actually more than one type of copa, such as:

copa de agua, copa de whiskey, copa ancha, and copa de vino

Those are just a few.  Click here if you want to see what other kinds of copas there are.  This page is in Spanish, and I found interesting.

Well, I think that's enough about copas. Let's move on to vasos.  And technically, a copa is still a vaso.   Really, there isn't a whole for me to say about vasos, except that a vaso doesn't have a pie (stem), and like copas, there are many different kinds.  Here's a few to get you started:


vaso largo 
A tall glass

vaso ancho
A short, wide glass

vaso de plastico
A plastic cup

There are several types of vasos, like a vaso de agua, water glass, but I won't torture you with any more photos.  I'm pretty sure you already what these things look like anyway.

Ya!  That's it for today!

¡Hasta la próxima!

Soy muy noviera

When you say "Soy muy noviera (noviero)"  it means you like to have a lot of boyfriends, or girlfriends in the case of a guy.  It doesn't necessarily imply that you like to have them all at the same time. 

But this post isn't exactly about that.  Instead, we're going to talk about the different stages of relationships, and it all starts with meeting someone.  Once you meet (conocer) someone, you start off as friends, amigos.

If you decide that you like each other's company in that special way, but not enough to be an actual couple, then you're amigos cariñosos or perhaps amigos con derechos.  Spanish has a number of ways to describe relationships like this.  We say friends with benefits. Just to be clear, friends with benefits is a way of saying you hook up with (ligar) someone just for the purpose of having sex.

Once you decide to become exclusive, an official couple, you're enamorados.  We would call this dating, in a relationship, or if you don't mind a high school flashback, going steady.  I suppose the correct term would be courting, or the courtship.  Although to be honest I can't remember the last time I actually heard someone use those words outside of a movie that takes place in the 1700's. 

Once the official peticion de mano (marriage proposal) has taken place, and you have a comprimiso de boda/matrimonio , meaning you've decided to get married, you officially enter the noviazgo phase, the engagement.  The official title of a couple at this point is novios, although you'll hear the terms pareja or enamorados.

The interesting thing to note about the words novio and novia is that they mean boyfriend/girlfriend as well as fiancé/fiancée.  A more accurate translation for boyfriend and girlfriend would be enamorado/enamorada, but novio and novia are what you'll hear the most.  How do you know when novio means fiancé and not boyfriend?  The context of the conversation.  Or you could simply ask "¿estas comprometido?" - Are you engaged?  There's also prometida/prometido which undeniable means fiancé/fiancée, but isn't always used. 

Once you take the big plunge and go through with the boda (wedding), you're now in the stage called matrimonio, marriage - and you'll be known as casados, formally known as husband and wife, marido and esposa.

While marido and esposa are the official terms, you'll also hear mujer (woman) as a synomym for esposa, without the negative baggage that the word "woman" carries in English.  And esposo is another word for marido.  You can even say "mi vieja/viejo" (my old lady/man). 

Sadly, sometimes marriage (matrimonio) just doesn't work out, and then you divociar (divorce) and become divorciados (divorced).  That is, after you separar (seperate) and become separados (separated).  But if you're lucky (suertudo), you reach the final stage of marriage, "till death do us part".  Although some people might argue about the lucky part of that.

That's it, a crash course on the in's and out's of the relationship terminology in Spanish.

Espero que te sirva.
I hope this helps

¡Nos vemos!

¿Me escuchas ahora?

These words will forever be remembered as what was very likely one of the most famous advertising campaigns of the 21st century.

¿Me escuchas ahora?
Can you hear me now?

Thank you Verizon Wireless.

Talking on the phone is really no big deal, unless you're doing it in a second language you're still struggling to learn.  At that point it can become terrifying, but today we'll talk about some handy phrases that will surely be helpful when the day comes you have to speak Spanish over the phone.

Talking over a landline (teléfono fijo)  isn't usually that bad, but cell phones are a completely different story.  Let's discuss some common situations, starting with the most basic:

A cell phone is a celular, or simply cel.  You'll probably hear móvil in Spain.

No te escucho
I can't hear you

OK, Oir actually means "to hear", but escuchar (to listen) is a colloquial usage and is very, very common.  But if you want to be grammatically correct, you can say:

No te oigo
I can't hear you

And is there anyone who hasn't had these problems when talking on a cell phone?

No tengo recepcion
I don't have reception

No tengo señal
I don't have a signal

Se te escucha cortado
You're breaking up

You can't  hear the other person because they're speaking too softly,  like a whisper, or, not loud enough:

No te escucho porque tu voz suena muy baja 
I can't hear you because your voice sounds low

Now let's talk about technical difficulties.

Se me acabó la batería / Se me terminó la batería / Me quedé sin batería
My battery is dead

Necesito recargar la batería
I need to recharge the battery

You can also use the verb cargar

Necesito cargar la batería
I need to recharge the battery

Ojalá que te sirva. I hope that helps.

¡Nos vemos!

Yo lo enchufo

Every week I have an intercambio with my amiga from Peru.  Well, on this particular occassion while I was setting up my laptop she says:

Yo lo enchufo

Surprisingly, while I didn't understand what she said, my eyes didn't glaze over.  I politely said "¿Cómo?", and she repeated it again.  That's when my eyes glazed over, because my ears just weren't getting the job done.

Yo lo enchufo 
I'll plug it in

She was referring to the power cord for my laptop.  It's amazing how after 5 years of learning Spanish it never occurred to me learn how to talk about plugging things in, nor had any book ever bothered to mention it.  Oh well.

Let's go into a little more detail.

Enchufar
to plug in

Dámelo para enchufarlo
Give it to me so I can plug it can

¿Puedes enchufarlo?
Can you plug it in?

Well, now we know how to talk about plugging a cord in, but we still don't know how to talk about what we plug the cord into.  The word for socket, plug or outlet is enchufe.  You can also say tomacorriente.

But this is where things get a little tricky. A search for enchufe fotos returns the following:

As well as:

 It turns out enchufe can mean both the wall socket and the actual plug.  The search also turned up one other photo:

I just thought that one was kinda funny.  Let's get back on track.

If you want to talk about the actual plug without the ambiguity, then use the word clavija.   

Now that we've got the thing plugged in, the verb desenchufar means to uplug.

Ya lo desenchufé
I already unplugged it

Está desenchufado
It's unplugged

Puedes desenchufarlo
You can unplug it

If you'd like a little more practice with enchufar, then check out this great free podcast.

Enchufar


Created by the good folks at Learning Spanish Like Crazy, this podcast will help you learn the correct usage and conjugation of the verb enchufar .   But make yourself comfortable before you start listening, because it's 17 minutes long.

So there you go.  Next time you need something plugged in or unplugged in Spanish, you'll know exactly what to say.

Lastly, if you enjoy the podcast, you may find the Learning Spanish Like Crazy downloadable audio courses a great way to learn Spanish.  The learning method is exactly the same as the podcast. There are 3 levels, one for each stage of the learning process - Level 1 (beginners), Level 2 (intermediate) and level 3 (advanced).


¡Nos vemos!

Se me ponchó una llanta

If you don't know, a llanta is a tire.   And as we all know, tires often go flat.  I had a flat two weeks in a row, both at almost midnight.  Yeah, it sucked.  But I digress.

In Mexico, when you want to talk about getting a flat tire, the verb you're likely to hear is poncharse.    So if you want to say you got a flat tire, that's where our phrase comes in:

Se me ponchó una llanta
I got a flat tire

If you want to talk about other people who got flat tires, you can say:

Se te ponchó una llanta
You got a flat tire

Se le ponchó una llanta
He/She got a flat tire

Se nos ponchó una llanta
We got a flat tire

Se les ponchó una llanta
They got a flat tire

A flat tire, the tire itself that is, is called a ponchada.  And the plural version is ponchadas.  You may also hear the word ponchadura.

If you want your tire fixed, you  might want to go to a "taller para reperar llantas" - a workshop where they repair tires.   These places go by several names:

"ponchaduría", "desponchaduría", "desponchadora", "vulcanizadora"  or "vulka".

These workshops aren't your Sears or Wal-Mart tire centers, but instead might look something like this:

In fact, if you take a drive through a Mexican neighborhood, you may see a desponchadora that hopefully isn't as quite as untidy as the one in our photo. 

Like always, in the Spanish language there's more than one way to skin a cat.  Especially if you're talking about flat tires.  Other words to take a look at are pinchar, gomas, and desinfladas to name a few.  Wordreference.com is a great place to look if you're interested in alternatives.

Anyway, that's it for today.  Be careful not to ponchar any llantas in the near future!

Nomás

A few days ago I was having lunch in a Mexican restaurant, chatting with one of the meseras (waitresses) . She was a Hondureña, a woman from the Honduras. We weren't talking about much of anything, just some friendly chit-chat. She asked me where I was from, and after answering, I asked her why, and she answered "nomás".

Nomás is a simple word with many uses. It's a contraction for nada más, literally translated "no more". But like many words in Spanish, it has colloquial meanings as well, such as "just" or "that's it". You can read about the various usages at WordReference. But in this case, it means "just wondering", or "just asking".

Now, you could say something like "me estaba preguntando" or "solo me estaba preguntando". There's also "nada, curiosidad", which is something like "no reason, just curious", but personally I like nomás. It's certainly less of a mouthful than the first two alternatives, and a heck of a lot easier to remember.

This is a nice bit of Spanish to put in your bag of tricks, making you sound more a little bit more like a native. Experiment with it, and have fun.

¡Hasta la próxima!