I feel completely in my element when talking to my friends in Spanish. But when I have to go to the hardware store, or auto parts store, I feel pretty ignorant of the language. Bujía is one of those words that makes me feel like I have a long way to go. Bujía is a […]

The word cojín commonly is used for a cushion on a chair. A cojín can be a throw pillow, or a removable cushion. It might also mean a permanent cushion, but I have not been able to find reference to that. There is another use of the word cojín that seems to be less common. It is used for […]

Patente, as an adjective, is patent with the idea of being clear, obvious or evident. As an adverb it means clearly, or obviously. As a feminine noun (and the reason I found this word interesting) it is a patent in the sense that we English speakers think about the word when applied to a registered […]

Someone who speaks is a parlante. Someone who speaks English is an angloparlante. Those I knew, but last week I heard a new use for the word and that is a speaker, as in the thing in the radio that you hear the sound coming from. In Mexico the word we used was bocina to […]

Guiñar is the verb to wink. The noun wink is guiño or guiñada.

Pumelo is the word for grapefruit that I have heard in Argentina. In Mexico we used the word toronja. According to Wikipedia a pomelo is a particular type of grapefruit from Southeast Asia. However, pumelo is used to mean any type of grapefruit here. The word pumelo can refer to the fruit or the tree.

A new friend of mine asked me how old I was (he is 86). When I told him that I was 40 he replied with “¡Eres un pibe todavía!” Or, “You are still just a kid.” Pibe seems to be quite Argentine in its use according to a forum thread. It can mean a child […]