“Estar un poco cargado” literally means “to be a little loaded”. Although we use the term “loaded” to mean “inebriated”, the equivalent phrase in English would be “to be tipsy”.
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30Jun
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27Jun
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Here’s a saying with the same meaning, but using different animals: “to put the cart before the horse”. In Spain, one puts the cart before the mules, as in “poner el carro delante de las mulas”.
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26Jun
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When a person imitates someone we call him a “copycat”. In Spanish they use a “monkey”, as in “mono de imitacion”.
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25Jun
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“Entre gallos y media noche” literally means “between roosters and midnight”. In English, we would say “at an ungodly (unearthly) hour”.
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24Jun
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“Queda el rabo por desollar” literally translates to “there remains the tail to skin”. The colloquial translation is “the worst is yet to come”.
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23Jun
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“Ser el último mico” literally translates to “to be the last monkey”. Equivalents in English include “pipsqueak”, “lowest of the low” and “not to count”.
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20Jun
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Here are two idioms using “rabano”, which means “radish”. “me importa un rabano” literally means “it doesn’t matter a radish to me”. The colloquial translation is “I couldn’t care less” or “it doesn’t mean anything to me”. “Tomar el rabano por los hojas” literally translates to “to take (grab) the radish by the leaves”. The idiomatic equivalent in English is “to get hold of the wrong end of the stick”.
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19Jun
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In English, when we find someting to be stunning we might use the phrase “to take one’s breath away”. In Spanish, the equivalent is “quitar el hipo”, which means “to take away the hiccup”.
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18Jun
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“Rana”, which means “frog”, appears in several Spanish idioms and sayings. One of them is “salir rana”, which literally means “to come out frog”. The colloquial meaning is “to fail”, “to misfire” or “to fall through”.
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17Jun
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Here’s an idiom for which it is important to know the difference between “ser” and “estar”. In a previous posting we discussed, for example, the difference between saying a woman “es muy buena” and “esta muy buena”. The first phrase, using “ser” means the woman is good, a permanent attribute. The second version, using “estar” has a colloquial meaning of “she’s looking really good”. If you want to say something is wide, the phrase woulkd be “es muy ancho”. If you say someone “esta muy ancho”, the meaning changes to “he’s smug”.