Dangerously Daring: The Spanish Edition

[holdouttrout]

Languages are always important for a dangerously daring person to know. For instance, it is vitally important that, should you travel to a foreign country, you can ask where the bathroom is, and also be able to tell someone you love them. Everything else can be covered with pointing and charades.

Now, the boy's book has Latin phrases, which are interesting, but not terribly useful. And the girl's book has Spanish phrases, which are useful but not particularly interesting--except for the Spanish equivalent of "The real McCoy," which makes me crack up. So I went with Spanish and decided to do a (very little) bit more research.

Oh, yes. I'm sure you're thinking to yourself: She is going to talk about Spanish vocab words, which I have no use for at all. Why bother clicking on the cut?

Because I'm going to give you some unusual Spanish phrases, that's why.

English Equivalent	Literal English	Spanish
The real McCoy	The real, real potato seller	El mero, mero patatero
I don't get it!	It doesn't fit in my head!	¡No me cabe en la cabeza!
He's so old he can barely walk.	He's falling of age.	Se cae de viejo.
To get goose bumps	lit. "the flesh of a hen"	ponerse la carne de gallina

Other useful phrases to know (taken from "Wicked Spanish for the Traveler"* are:

English	Spanish
When did the brakes go out?	?Cuando se fueron los frenos?
You make me hot, my chili pepper.	Me calientas mucho, chilito mio.

Because you can never know when super brake-cutting spies or love will strike.

*Please, don't attempt to use any of the phrases from this book. They are, usually, Really Bad Spanish and also can be very culturally insensitive. Not to mention difficult to remember.



In the comments, if you have unusual phrases you think everyone should know, you should share them.

Comments

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Ne te rue pas sur mon jupon, Luc, espèce de rustaud brutal!

This one is my favorite. Can you actually speak French? I must learn, if only because I keep trying to pronounce the words out loud anyway, and even to my non-French-speaking ear it just sounds painful.

[pepper-field.livejournal.com]

I can speak it a little bit. Very badly, to be honest (although my accent is fairly decent, because a French friend of my mum taught me for a while). I did do an A-level in it, but I've not had the opportunity to really use the language properly. I'd love to spend a long while in a French-speaking country, someday, to give me the final push to understanding it.

See, I have this book. It's part of a series that I adored since teenagerhood, about a character called Angelique (see icon - and Rigel knows who I'm talking about - romantic novels, you know). It was originally written in French, and the last book or two have not yet been translated. I've read all the ones in English (fifteen or so), and I own one of untranslated French books, and it's frickin' HUGE. I've never managed to get more than about a quarter of the way through. Absolute torture. I need to know what happens. Every now and then I pick it up and have another go.

[holdouttrout.livejournal.com]

Reading in Spanish is kinda like that. It's not that I can't do it--it's that it takes me so long to get into the book and start really *reading* instead of translating. It's killer.

I'll never forget, though, when I was in Spain, and struggling through literature in classes (some of it in the equivalent of Shakespearean English) I was able to fly through more modern, popular literature. That was so nice. *sighs wistfully*