I just finished a 27 hour bus trip this afternoon. I would like to say that I will never do that again, but I have to get home somehow. While standing in the aisle trying to stretch my legs this morning I saw a sign that can be lit up when necessary which read ‘Permanezca [...]

While buying wire today I asked for alambre at the electrical store. The man showed me a board with several pieces of wire tied to it and asked me to pick out the size and type I wanted. I choose a 12 gauge stranded wire. He told me that it was cable and not alambre. [...]

I read the word hocico yesterday and had no idea what it meant, but it just looked funny. I pulled out the dictionary with a smile on my face and was not disappointed. It is the word snout, as in a pig’s nose. It can also be used idiomatically to mean stick one’s nose into [...]

The word lograr is most often used to mean to succeed, achieve or accomplish. Sometimes I will hear it to mean to obtain or to get. If someone is reaching out to get something and does, the verb lograr could be used. The idea is not just grabbing on to something, agarrar, but that it [...]

Vale la pena is an idiomatic expression meaning it’s worth the price or it’s worth the trouble.

To hinder or impede something is the word estorbar. But it carries with it the idea of getting in the way. More as a happenstance than as a malicious act of will. Like, to bother, or be a nuisance. A deliberate act would be detener or impedir. Detener meaning, to put a stop to or [...]

Here’s a word that is hitting close to home right now. Gripe is a cold or illness. Tener gripe is to be sick or have a cold.