You will sometimes see “y por si eso fuera poco” towards the bottom of advertisements. It means “and if that were not enough.” I have seen it before, but because I recently was trying to explain to someone what it meant, I guess I am more sensitive to noticing it. I have seen it quite [...]

In Spanish (or Mexico at least), you don’t ask a person if they understand you, you ask them if you are making yourself clear. To ask them if they understand is putting the blame on them if they do not. But by asking if you are explaining yourself then you place the blame on yourself [...]

Sentido is a word that has multiple meanings. It is the participle for sentir, to feel. It can be used in just about any way we use feel in English. It can mean a physical touch type feel, or a feeling you get when you know something is right or wrong. Such as a perception. [...]

Tarde o temprano is an idiomatic expression that means sooner or later. An example of its usage would be: Tarde o temprano los Delfines de Miami van a ganar un partido. Sooner or later the Miami Dolphins are going to win a game.

I saw te obsequia on an advertisement tonight and thought it was interesting. The verb is obsequiar and its meaning is similar to the English word obsequious which means to fawn over someone or be ingratiating. Obsequiar means to shower someone with attention or gifts. Te obsequia can be used idiomatically to mean it flatters [...]

At church the other day, I noticed that a couple of the verses we read started with the phrase por tanto. I couldn’t reason out the meaning to myself. I knew that tanto was much or a lot and the verses just did not make sense with this meaning. One of the verses was: Por [...]

Anyone who has learned some Spanish knows that gato is cat. But did you know it has other meanings? One of the strangest is that a car jack is called a gato. On certain types of jacks they look similar to a cat when arching its back. This action pushes the car up. That is [...]

We just got home from the state fair. Something we always eat there are called churros. They are a deep fried batter covered with sugar and cinnamon. Something like a donut. Sometimes they are shaped into circles and sometimes they are just straight like sticks. I read that they are a popular breakfast food in [...]

If you watch children’s programs here long enough you will hear a reference to Príncipe Azul. Translated literally it means blue prince. But its significance is Prince Charming, just like in the fairy tales, or the ideal man. I’m not completely sure why blue is used but some things I have read say it could [...]

There is a commercial on here that I have seen quite frequently and it uses the phrase lo que me late. I couldn’t figure out what it was talking about in context so I used my handy translator. It informed me lo que me late means what barks at me. Now I was really confused [...]