A jardinero is someone who takes care of the jardín, or garden. While the word gardener is not all that exciting, I do find the word, as used in baseball, to be hilarious. A right fielder is called the jardinero derecho, the right gardener.

Ataúd means coffin or casket.
Fortunately I did not have to learn ataúd for any serious reason, but an ataúd played heavily in a joke I read today.
I also saw a couple of other phrases that mean a casket. But, I think they would probably be less formal. Pijama de madera and el sobretodo de madera […]

Technically a tumbaburros is a large bumper that would be used to knock donkeys out of the way when driving. Sometimes called a cattle guard bumper for protecting your grill if you happen to hit a large animal.
But that is not what is being referred to when a Mexican talks about a tumbaburros. They are […]

Problema is just what it looks like, problem. The problem with problema comes in trying to remember if its la problema or el problema. In language school they taught us a little rhyme to help, perhaps you will enjoy it.
El problema es masculino. La solución es feminina.
The problem is masculine. The solution is feminine.

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 something: […]

Today I was reminded of the word lagaña as we stood in the eye doctor’s office. It was the first funny Spanish word I remember learning as a teen. We were making a trip across the border into Mexico and we taught a friend to say “soy lagaña” and told him it meant “I’m […]

Monte means mount or mountain…most of the time. It can also mean woods, brush or weeds. The second meaning is most common where we live. Since there are no rises much above a few feet in the Yucatán Peninsula, people just use the word to refer to brush or weeds.
My first encounter with the word […]

To answer a knock at the gate or a doorbell you say “¡voy!” It means I go and is quite opposite from what we say in English–”Coming!”
It has been argued that in English there is a lack of understanding of the proper usage of the words come and go (as well as bring and take).
It […]

I was explaining the biblical definitions of the words mercy and grace one time to a group of young people. These were completely new words for them; therefore, they did not catch the error that I wrote on the paper I handed them.
Mercy is misericordia. Grace is gracia. The problem came when I wrote the […]

I’m sure all new Spanish speakers have had this happen to them. You don’t know what the Spanish word is for sure so you just try the English word with the Spanish pronunciation maybe add an -o to the end. Well this happened to our son, who was 5 at the time, while we were […]