This is a word that I always know what it means when I hear it, but sometimes I have trouble pulling it up when I need to use it. It does not mean to grab with the hands, rather it is to record. Like we would use the word record when referring to recording audio or video. It can also be used when manually recording something with pen and paper, but mostly I have heard it used when speaking of electronic recording of something.

The device you use to record with is called a grabadora. It can also be called a player (with a Spanish pronunciation). Just like we call an old tape player a recorder sometimes.

The primary definition in my dictionary is to engrave. I have never seen it used that way, but I also don’t know if I have been in a business that does engraving.

This is patrol or police car. Patrullar is to patrol.

This can also mean a band or a group of people. There is a singing group in Mexico called Patrulla 81. There is also the famous Patrulla Águila from Spain.

Recently on a Spanish discussion forum there was a question about what the lights on top of a patrulla are called: torreta.

In continuation of the post costumbre, let’s look at the word costume.

What Spanish word you use for costume really depends on what kind you mean.

One type of costume is traje, this would be a suit or outfit for a specific purpose. Such as, a traje de baño is a bathing suit. A traje de ceremonia is formal attire. A traje de chaqueta is a woman’s suit.

Another type of costume would be disfraz. This would be a disguise or to dress up as someone or something else. The kind the kids wear to costume parties.

This is an odd word. It means an outline and is used very much like we would use the word in English. It would be a rough draft to a drawing or it could be a word list that you would use as a prompt while giving a speech or it could be the first draft of a play.

Outline. Plain and simple. The verb is bosquejar and means to outline.

I am curious as to where the word comes from. It does not look (or sound) Latin or Greek. Anyone else know?

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 was when I was walking down the street and decided to engage an old shopkeeper in conversation. We sat outside his shop drinking a Coke as he told me the story of the way the city has grown. He said that he could remember where we were sitting was all monte back in the good old days. He said they came and cleaned out the monte and used the rocks from the area to build the houses. Wanting to clarify I asked him if they blasted the monte to get the rocks. He said there was some blasting, but mostly they just carried the rocks off from where there had been monte.

It was several months before I finally understood my conversation with the shopkeeper. I thought he was referring to a mountain when he meant brush and weeds. I even told other people that the reason it was so flat in this area is because the old man told me that they blasted the mountains to build the houses. How embarrassing!

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 is, by the way, grammatically wrong to say “coming” when you mean that you are going to the door, yet that is what we say. You cannot be in the living room and come to the front door, at least, not from the speaker’s perspective. You can only go to the front door. Alas, we still say “coming” when we mean we are going to the front door.

In Spanish though, you say that you go to answer the door.

When we were in language school we rented a guest house behind a family. It took me a while to understand that when the lady yelled “¡voy!” when I knocked on her door that she was telling me she was going to the door. I thought she was telling me to leave (vete or váyase). I always just stood there and acted like I either did not hear her or did not understand her. Eventually she came to the door and I could ask her my questions.

Whenever I see the word costumbre I automatically think costume because of the beginning of the word. But that is not the meaning of costumbre.

Costumbre means a habit, custom or tradition. Something you do because you always have is a costumbre. In Mexico Chiles en Nogada in September is a yummy costumbre.

Costume is, well, a word for another day.