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Dirty laundry, first load
Back in the day, there was this really great site for foreigners living in Colombia called poorbuthappy.com. I remember reading a thread one time where people were soberly discussing their Spanish...
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How to give a piropo
First things first. A piropo is a flirtatious, admiring compliment in Spanish, they thrive on the streets of Latin America, and while some may consider them annoying or even verbal assault, others...
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Dirty laundry, second load
We did a load of laundry a while back, but we didn’t quite finish. There’s still another pile in the hamper, still a few more laundry vocab terms to go over. OK, so maybe more than a few. There’s no...
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Rosca
As you all know from the lists of funny search queries that I occasionally post, the sundry ways that people find Vocabat often make me chuckle. Sometimes, though, the specific Spanish questions me...
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Carolay
During the two years that I was in Colombia, my parents were kind enough to safeguard my many boxes of junk–mostly books, papers, and CDs–in their attic. When they sold their house and moved to...
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Spanish in the grass
Tu nombre me sabe a hierba de la que nace en el valle a golpes de sol y de agua. - Joan Manuel Serrat I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. - Walt Whitman Hierba...
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Thermostat
Is it getting super hot where you live, too? Ugh. Today and yesterday I went on walks that were more than an hour, and I got home absolutely drenched in sweat. It doesn’t help matters that I’m in a new...
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Popcorn quiz
Everybody knows that there are a lot of ways to say drinking straw in Spanish. And there are almost as many words for baby bottle as there are babies. But for my money, I think the word that might have...
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Celebrating Gabo
Last Thursday was a comedy of errors for me, but it also had some beautiful moments. For Semana Santa (Holy Week), I went to Huila, a neighboring department that Bogotá D.C. just barely nuzzles. We...
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Chespirito
Something sad happened a few days ago that has all of Latin America mourning: Roberto Gómez Bolaños passed away, famously known as Chespirito (little Shakespeare, a reference to his prolificness,...
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