We describe being drawn to an irresitible temptation with the phrase “like bees to honey”. In Spain, the equivalent phrase is “como moscas a la miel” which means “like flies to the honey”.
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11Jan
Categories: Food, Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
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23May
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“Olla de grillos” literally translates to a dish that I’d rather not eat: “pot of crickets”. The idiomatic meaning is “madhouse” or “bedlam”.
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19May
Categories: Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
“Meterse en un avispero” means “to get oneself into a hornet’s nest”. The equivalent in English is “to stir up a hornet’s nest”.
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11Feb
Categories: Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
Here’s yet another saying involving “pulgas”, which means “fleas”: “cada quien tiene su manera de matar pulgas”. This translates to “each one has his manner of killing fleas”. In English we might say “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”.
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14Jan
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When someone is running around in frenetic fashion we might use the phrase “to have ants in your pants”. A Spanish equivalent raises the ante: “tener avispas en el culo”, which means “to have wasps in the butt”.
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08Jan
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Here’s another Spanish idiom involving “fleas” or “pulgas”: “persona de malas pulgas”. The literal translation is “person of bad fleas”. The idiomatic meaning is “curmudgeon”. One must ask oneself whether there can be such a creature as a person with good fleas.
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06Nov
Categories: Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
“No aguantar pulgas” literally translates to “not to tolerate fleas”. The idiomatic meaning is “to stand for no nonsense”.
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31Jul
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“Buscarle a uno las pulgas” literally means “to look for fleas on someone”. The idiomatic translation is “to taunt someone” or “to pick a fight with someone”. I suppose that this is what ensues when one starts to “nit pick”.
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27Feb
Categories: Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
A couple of idioms using “telarañas”, which means “cobwebs”. “Mirar las telarañas” is “to look at cobwebs”. The idiomatic translation is “to stargaze”. “Tener telarañas en los ojos ” translates to “to have cobwebs in the eyes”. The colloquial meaning is “to be blind”.
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03Oct
Categories: Insects, SPEAK Like A Spaniard... Comments: 0
When we see that something is bothering a person, we might ask “what’s eating him?”. In Spanish, an equivalent colloquial phrase is “?Que mosca le ha picado?”, which literally means “what fly has bitten him?”.