Silas, a 10th-grader in Madison, Wisconsin, is working on his own conlang, or constructed language. He wonders how and why the French uvular R sound, as in the French word rouge, came about, as opposed to the rolled Spanish R in carro. As...
The Spanish idiom del año del caldo describes something exceedingly old. Literally translating as “from the year of the broth,” it suggests the idea that something is “as old as the year soup was invented.” Someone said to be...
If you want to describe people who have an overly high opinion of themselves, here’s some handy Spanish slang: In Argentina, you might describe such a person as Tarzán de maceta, or “Tarzan of the flowerpot.” You might also call...
Following up on our conversation about terms for “weak coffee,” a listener in Mexico reports that there, such a beverage is sometimes called agua de calcetín or “sock water.” This is part of a complete episode.
Katie in Greenville, South Carolina, reports that when she was growing up in rural Montana, if one of her classmates was caught doing something wrong or reprimanded by a teacher, the rest of the children would say a ver, drawing out the syllables...
One of the words newly added to the 7th edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) is vaquita, the name of a small dolphin that lives in the Sea of Cortez. In Spanish, the name of this endangered animal means “little...