Hay más cachuchas de rosa?

One Spanish word that practically everyone knows whether they speak Spanish or not is sombrero.   I probably don't even need to tell you what this means, but just in case, it means hat.   We Americans tend think of a sombrero as the one in this foto:

In reality, a sombrero is not any particular kind of hat, but a hat in general.  But today we're going to talk about a specific kind of hat, the good old american ball cap.

A ball cap is more commonly known as a gorra.  Like the one in this picture:

There's also a gorro, which we call a beanie, or a skull cap:

The two are very easy to confuse since they differ in name by only one letter, which is why I posted the images, because that's about the only way I can remember which is which.

Now we can talk about what a cachucha is.   Actually, we already talked about what a cachucha is.  It's a gorra, except cachucha is a Mexican term.

I was doing some voluteer work at a local clinic, acting as a translator.  Maybe I'll make another post about that experience, as it was quite a fun, interesting and rewarding experience.

Anyway,  they were also giving away goodies like t-shirts and ball caps, and promoting the 2010 census.  A señora asked me:

¿Hay más cachuchas de rosa?
Are there more pink ball caps?

I had actually seen this word before, who knows how long ago, and I was suprised that my brain actually processed this word right away.  Of course it probably helped that she was looking right at the ball caps when she asked, which undoubtedly jogged my memory.

¡Ya!  That's it for today,  I hope you learned something new.  Try this word out next time you get a chance, it'll help drill it permenantly into your brain, while making you sound muy Méxicano. 

¡Cuídense!

Estoy exitado por ti

I was having a conversation with a young lady who was telling me that she was only a few months away from graduating from nursing school.   I thought that was pretty cool, it must be an exciting time in her life.  

A quick flashback reminded me of how I felt when I was on the brink of accomplishing something significant in my life, and I decided to tell her that I was excited for  her.  So I said... 

Estoy exitado por ti
I'm excited for you.

Well, while that is what I said, it doesn't quite mean that.

Excitar means to be excited.  And emocionado means the same.  According to the dictionary, that is.

There's only one problem...some dictionaries neglect to explain one subtle difference.

Emocionado is the word you want to express excitement in this context.  

Excitado expresses excitement in a very different context.  It means to be sexual excited.

Let's revisit our example:

Estoy exitado por ti
I've got the hots for you.

Well, that sort of changes things a bit doesn't it?

What I should have said was:

Estoy emocionado por ti
I'm excited for you

Lo peor es (the worst thing is), I actually knew about the difference between those two words, but somehow the wrong word slipped out anyway.  Oh well, somebody's got to make people laugh, right?

Bueno, that's all for now. 

¡Hasta la próxima!

Eres un ocioso

Ever come across something and thought "This guys got way to much free time"?  Sure you have!

Ocio is the word you need to able to express that thought in Spanish.

Ocio means leisure or free time.   A person who is an ocioso (or ociosa) has a lot of free time on their hands. 

So I think we can translate "Eres un ocioso" safely as "you have too much free time".
And when you see something that was clearly done by an "ocioso", you can say:

Una persona con mucho ocio hizo eso.
Somebody with too much free time did that.

Hmm, the more I think about it, it's quite possible that the author of this blog is an ocioso...

Mis tenis son chafas, son marca patito

When I first heard this I thought "¿De que hablas willys?"  That's the Spanish translation for "Whachu talkin' bout Willis?".  I thought those of you who remember "Different Strokes" might get a kick out of that.  Surprisingly, the show was titled Blanco y Negro in Spanish.  

Anyway, I digress.  Back to our tenis.

Tenis is the word you'll want to use for what we call, or at least used to call, sneakers.  Any type of "tennis shoe" is called tenis. Be sure to use the Spanish pronunciation.

Chafa means that something is of low quality, poorly made  (de muy mala calidad). I believe the word we would use is cheap.

Marca simply means brand, as in a brand name, like Nike.  When you say something is "Marca patito" , that means it's not a name brand product.  We might say it's a generic or off brand.

So now let's translate the entire phrase:

Mis tenis son chafas, son marca patito
My tennis shoes are cheap, they're an off-brand.

It should be pretty easy to incorporate these new words into your Spanish.  You'll sound "muy Méxicano", because these two words are very Mexican, and I doubt you'll hear them from anyone who isn't Mexican or spent a lot of time around Mexicans.

That's it for now,

¡Cuidense!