I love to sew. When I go shopping for fabric I am not looking for fábrica. Fábrica is a factory or a place where things are manufactured. What I need in the fabric store is tela.

To me the word rumbo has always sounded fun and exciting, a game or a dance or something like that. But alas, it is not. Rumbo is a direction. It can also be a path that you try to follow. Not all that exciting but still a fun word.

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 […]

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.

While listening to two mutual friends talk I heard the word ganga for the first time. These two friends, older than me by 20 years, share a language all their own. They have been best friends for almost 30 years. When they talk with one another, I never know if the words they are using […]

Moda is fashion or style. To be de moda is to be fashionable or of the current style. To go out of style is pasarse de moda.