The other day I shared with my classes the
viral video sweeping the interwebs and forums of Spanish language instructors: “Qué
difícil es hablar el español” by the supremely talented Colombian sibling duo of Juan Andrés and Nicolás Ospina, aka
Intentalo Carito. In the clip, the two playfully
analyze the regional variations of popular expressions in Spanish…as told by a
hapless gringo trying to acquire the
language while bouncing from Mexico to Patagonia to Spain to Venezuela etc.
etc. The song is loads of fun and quite informative!
For the complete lyrics,
click here.
Y aunque estaba confundido con lo que comía en la mesa,
de algo yo estaba seguro,
un ‘strawberry’ es una fresa.
Y que sorpresa cuando en México a mi me dijeron ‘fresa’
por tener ropa de Armani y pedir un buen vino en la mesa.
Con la misma ropa me dijeron ‘cheto’ en Argentina.
-“Cheto es fresa yo pensé”-, y pregunté en el mercado de la esquina:
-“Aquí están buenas las chetas?”-, y la cajera se enojó.
-“Andate a la re(beep) que te remil parió!”
The next class, one of my students brought me an article
from USA Today, “Lexicon of regionalisms to live on after final printing,” which
discussed some interesting idioms from around the country. This made me very happy for two reasons:
a)
I’ve got a student connecting with the
class material…
b)
I just learned some amusingly colorful
language!
-
In Wisconsin, we say bubbler when referring to the water
fountain.
-
A devil
strip is the piece of grass between the sidewalk and the street in
northeast Ohio.
-
And my favorite: toad-strangler, turd-floater
and fence-lifter all mean heavy rain
in the Gulf States, Texas and Oklahoma respectively.
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