Monday, February 27, 2012

Pisteando en mi casa con mi kerida

 Let's start with the word kerida.  If you don't recognize this word, it's not because you haven't been studying your Spanish, it's because you aren't spending enough time texting and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. Kerida is a slangy spelling of querida, which we can translate as sweetie or dear, maybe even darling.  Translation isn't always an exact science, but you get the idea.

Let's move on to the more interesting stuff.

If you look up the word pistear in the dictionary, you may be surprised at what you find....nothing. Yep, absolutely nothing.  According to your Spanish dictionary, this word doesn't exist, but trust me, it does.

So I guess this is the part where I tell you what pistear means. Pistear means to drink and it's a nice alternative to tomar and beber, which get the job done when you're talking about drinking, but are pretty boring and routine when Spanish has so many other more colorful and fun words. 

Vamonos a pistear que es sabado
We're going drinking because it's Saturday

Keep in mind we're talking Mexican Spanish here, although there are other countries that use pistear the same way.  And in some countries pistear will mean something different altogether.

You can also use the word pisto to refer to bebidas alcoholicas - alcoholic beverages. 

Tu traes el pisto
You bring the alcohol


Guess what?  There's more.

There's the verb chupar which officially means to suck (as is in to suck on) and unofficially means to drink.

Voy a chupar esta noche
I'm going drinking tonight

 Deja de chupar tanto
Stop drinking so much

Now that you've decided to go drinking, you're probably going to order some cold ones, or frías.



Mesero, ¡traenos unas frías!
Waiter, bring us some cold ones

A beer is also called a chela.  Substitute the word chelas for frías and you're in business.

For some people a regular size beer just isn't enough, and they need something bigger.  Something like this...


Yes, a good old fashioned 40oz, or a caguama in Spanish. Well, at least it's caguama in Mexican Spanish.

 In fact, if you're specifically going out to drink some chelas, there's a verb for that too.

Ayer estuvimos cheleando en el antro
Yesterday we were out drinking (beer) in the club

Vamos a chelear
Let's go drink some beers

Before I forget, antes de que se me olvide, these are all very informal phrases perfectly fine for hanging out with friends,but maybe not so much for more formal occasions and grandmothers.

Well, that's it for today.  I could use some chelas right now, but tengo hueva- I'm feeling lazy, so I'm just going to sit at home thinking about my next entrada.

¡Saludos!

Monday, February 13, 2012

¿Por qué estás en cueros en la sala?


Settle down ladies, take a deep breath and try to stay focused.  Guys, sorry, I've got nothing for you.  The good news is you'll learn all the Spanish you'll need to find a picture more to your liking by the end of this post.

Today we're going to talk about being naked and how to get that way.  And I am in no way responsible for the trouble you guys are bound to get yourself into with this info.  There, I've made my disclaimer and I'm sticking to it.  Let's get started!

The gentleman in our picture is medio desnudo or semidesnudo if you prefer.  OK, he's probably a little more than half-naked.  I'm pretty sure if we take away his leaf he'd be completamente desnudo - completely naked.

While desnudo is a perfect word for describing our friends wardrobe, it's certainly not the most creative or fun way to talk about it.

Here's a nifty phrase you can most certainly find a use for at some point.

Como tu madre te trajo el mundo
Like your mother brought you into this world

So, how did your mother bring you into to this world?   In your Traje de Adán or Traje de Eva.

Adán and Eva are Spanish for Adam and Eve and a traje is a suit.  The literal translation is your Adam or Eve suit.  Figuratively speaking, we're talking about your birthday suit, which is what our friend is wearing in the photo.

I can't begin to tell you why our friend is in his Traje de Adán, but I can show you a few ways to talk about being naked and how to get naked in Spanish.

Estar desnudo is pretty standard.

No entres, estoy desnudo
Don't come in, I'm naked

To talk about the process of getting naked, you can use the verb desnudarse.

Me voy a desnudar
I'm going to get naked

You may find this next example more fun.   I'll bet some of you will be using this one right away.  This is the part where you refer back to my disclaimer.

¡Desnúdate!
Get naked!

Feel free to add mujer or hombre on the end of that.

Now that we have the standard boring Spanish out of the way, let's move on to the fun stuff.

Estar encuerado

¿Por qué estás encuerado?
Why are you naked?

And remember, if you're a woman you need encuerada.  The verb encuerarse works just like desnudarse.

¡Encuérate!
Get naked!

Me encueré en la playa
I got naked at the beach

You may know the word for leather is cuero, which is pretty much Spanish101.  What you may not know is that you can also use the word cuero to talk about being naked.

Estoy en cueros
I'm naked

En las playas nudistas todos están en cueros
At the nude beaches everybody's naked

¿Por qué estás en cueros en la sala?
Why are you naked in the living room?

I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that question.

There's also andar en cueros.

Me gusta verte andar en cueros
I like to see you going around naked


I've seen en cueros and encuerado translated as butt-naked or stark naked, and even just plain naked.  While there probably is a slight difference in the meaning of these terms, the bottom line is you're talking about someone sin ropa, with no clothes on.


Oh, before I forget, there's one more word for naked, and this one is very, very Mexican.  And that word is bichi.  There's also andar bichi, which works exactly the same as the other expressions.


¿Te gusta andar bichi por tu casa?
Do you like to walk around your house naked?

Hold on, there's more.

Sácate la ropa
Take off your clothes

Quítate la ropa
Take off your clothes

Surprisingly (or maybe not) you can use quitarse and sacarse to talk about taking off your clothes.  I don't know about you, but it came as shock to me when I first learned about this.  Actually, those two verbs are not specific to taking off your clothes, you can use them to talk about taking off anything.

Who knew there were so many ways to talk about being, and getting, naked.  And to tell you the truth, there are probably even more colloquial ways to say it, especially when you start talking about regional Spanish.  If you know a nifty expression, please comment, sharing is always welcome, It's how we learn.

¡Hasta la próxima!

Monday, February 6, 2012

¡Pulgar Arriba!

You've likely figured out that pulgar arriba means thumbs up.  It's not much of a stretch to figure out that pulgar abajo means thumbs down. 

Not to knit-pick, but the proper way to say pulgar arriba/abajo is pulgar hacia arriba and pulgar hacia abajo.  But anyone who knows me also knows that I like to speak how the people speak, so I'll be following the crowd and going with pulgar arriba.  You may also hear manita arriba.

I'm sure your Spanish book taught you the word for hand, la mano, and even the word for fingers, dedos de la mano, or simply dedos or deditos.  But as always, those pesky Spanish books are focused on grammar, and often leave out some important details. 

Any Spanish speaking five year old can look at their hand and ramble off the names of their deditos.  Imagine my surprise when after 5+ years of studying Spanish I couldn't do the same. 

Let's do a quick run down of los nombres de los dedos,  starting with the thumb, dedo pulgar.  You can also say dedo gordo

Next we have the índice, or as we call it the index or pointing finger. 

The middle finger is called dedo medio or corazón

The ring finger is dedo anular and last, but not least we get to the pinky, or little finger, dedo meñique.  

FYI, you can drop the word dedo and just refer to each finger by it's name: pulgar, índice, etc.

You can do a lot of interesting things with fingers, let's talk about a few of them.



I can't remember the last time I needed to pinky swear, but in case you ever do the phrase you're looking for is promesa de meñique



There may come a time when you need cruzar los dedos (cross your fingers) or  mantener los dedos cruzados (keep your fingers crossed). 

This next image is probably the most recognized gesture you can make with your fingers.



In Mexico it's called sacar el dedo or pintar el dedo. Maybe a kind reader can tell us what's it's called in other countries.

Well, that's all you can do with fingers that I'm going  to talk about in this blog.

I try to keep this blog family friendly, so if you want to read about some not so innocent things you can do with fingers click here.  

That's it for today,

¡Hasta la próxima!