Cacho’s Spanish Word Blog

I’ve been speaking Spanish for years and have no trouble pronouncing 99.9% of Spanish words. I know I speak the language pretty well because native speakers have no trouble understanding me and I can communicate what I want to communicate. There is, however, one word that I’ve never even come close to mastering. In fact, [...]

A couple weeks ago I received an email from Patrick Jackson at Learning Like Crazy on the topic of “Spanish slang and informal Spanish words.” Patrick’s emails are always a pleasure to read and I usually learn something new. This particular email taught me an informal Spanish word I had never heard before, but now [...]

Quite a few idiomatic expressions use “la mano” which, as I’m sure you know, means “hand”. (Just a quick, friendly reminder that “mano” is feminine even though it ends with the letter “o”. That’s right, it’s irregular, amigo.) Now let’s look at a few expressions using “mano” that I find particularly useful or amusing. darse [...]

Time to go shopping for some new playeras (t-shirts). In Argentina, they call them remeras. Don’t confuse that with rameras which are prostitutes. For example, if you walk into the local negocio (store) and tell the clerk, “busco una ramera negra” (I’m looking for a black prostitute), she will likely hace una mueca (make a [...]

To most people cars (coches, carros, autos, vehículos) are simply a means of transportation. But to those who appreciate the ingenuity of the internal combustion engine, they are much more, perhaps even a modern marvel. Yes, I consider myself a car lover. So let’s take a look at the Spanish words for the parts of [...]

Do you know the Spanish words for all the things in the bathroom (el cuarto de baño)? How about the verbs that describe the things you do in the bathroom? Let’s review them today. bathtub=la bañera, la tina bath mat=la alfombrita de baño bath plug=el tapón shower=la ducha showercap=el gorro de baño toilet=el inodoro toilet [...]

Telenovelas are Spanish soap operas. I’ve watched hundreds of hours of telenovelas (like Alborada, Contra Viento y Marea and Rubí) and learned a ton of Spanish in the process. On this post I’m going to share some of my favorite phrases and expressions I learned from these shows. By the way, if you’ve never seen [...]