Talking with a friend last night he used the word aguacero to refer to a rain storm. It was the first time I remember hearing it. It means a sudden downpour of rain. Or it can mean a flash flood.

I never knew there was a question about the spelling of the ninth month until this weekend. I saw it spelled “setiembre.” The Real Academia de España accepts this spelling as well as the more common “septiembre” spelling. The spelling without the p is apparently used in some parts of Latin America as well as […]

This would be equivalent to a joker or wild card in English. It is not only used in games though. Sometimes a word can be a comodín. I recently heard a Spanish podcaster who used comodín when talking about a word that is used to mean whatever you want it to mean. It is also […]

I mentioned before that leyendo was the gerund form of the verb leer, which means reading and to read. With the -a instead of -o it becomes the noun legend. Leyenda can be a simple story, but would more appropriately be a story that seems larger than life. Sometimes based on fact, sometimes not. A […]

This is a word that falls into the false friends category. Lectura does not mean lecture. It is closely tied with the word escritura in that it refers to reading. Lectura, escritura y arithmética. Reading, writing and arithmetic. Lectura de las palmas would be a palm reading. But, to read is leer. The gerund reading […]

Escritura has several different meanings. When your teacher is talking about your escritura they are referring to your handwriting or manner of writing. When a judge is asking to see your property deed he will ask for your escritura. When a pastor is talking about the Bible he may call it the Escrituras. Often it […]

No, I am not talking about the verb, rather the noun. A traje de smoking, or commonly just called smoking, is a tuxedo. It is also commonly spelled esmoquin. When we were in language school it took us a while to figure out that “renta de smoking” had to do with renting tuxedos and nothing […]