Leonor from Dallas, Texas, says that when she was a child, her Spanish-speaking mother and grandmother used to her after a bump or scrape with Sana, sana, colita de rana, Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana , literally, “Heal, heal, little...
In Spanish, desahogar means “to vent” or “to let out one’s emotions.” Literally, it means to “undrown.” Ahogarse en un vaso de agua means “become overwhelmed” — literally, “to drown...
When someone is perseverating or worrying too much, some Spanish speakers will suggest they stop obsessing with the phrase no te comas el coco. Literally, it means “don’t eat the coconut,” the word cocoin Spanish being slang for...
While in a cooking class in Mexico, Travis from Orlando, Florida, was told by the instructor that the word quesadilla comes a supposed Nahuatl word, quesaditzen. That’s not the case, although many other food words derive from that indigenous...
Our conversation about slang terms for traveling on foot, such as going with Pat and Charlie, inspired Kevin in Green Bay, Wisconsin, to share some more he learned from his wife Arely, who is from Honduras. There voy al puro once, literally means...
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...