What you can tell your ex-favorita when she asks "What will I do now ?"

"Has lo que tengas que hacer,
Has lo que siempre has hecho."
(You do that which you have to do,
You do that which always you have done)

(This is definitely not polite, but in this context means "go back to selling yourself" - The phrasing is courtesy of Sal, a chicano from Guadalajara - mi maestro)

Pauncho

Thanks Señor Pauncho,

What you say makes sense. I had been told that the most similar sounds in english to the español rr are the tt in better and the dd in ladder.

A cab driver in Cozumel gave me a children's limerick to practice.

Rapido corriendo el tren por ferrocarril.

It helps a little.

Gitano - Initial "R"s (like the "R" in "Rapido") are pronounced as "RR".
Also "R"s following "N", "L", & "S" are pronounced like "RR".

Pauncho

Thanks Señor Pauncho. I was aware that at the beginning of a work one should double trill the r, but couldn't remember the n,l,s part, not that I would say it right in that circumstance anyway.

Oh, one minor obeservation. In your post above you used la palabra "has". I believe that you were using the informal command form of hacer. The correct spelling is haz althought that sounds almost identical to has. Actually, when I am speaking español they sound exactly alike.

Gitano, I have used the verb "haber" ("B" intentional) in two ways here: 1st as "has lo que" (the 2nd person singular - familiar) meaning "you have that which..." (as in "you gotta", or maybe better "you can always...) then, secondly ("has hecho") as a as a "helping verb" with "hecho", the past participle of "hacer", meaning "have done". What I had originally asked mi maestro is how to say "All you gotta' do is.......", and he came up with these, there being a difference between languages.
Pauncho

Señor Pauncho,

I am hardly a linguist of great depth, but I was under the impression that that haber functioned exclusively as a helping verb. Don't mean to quibble, especially since the transalation originated from a native speaker, but it makes more sense to me as:

"Haz lo que tengas que hacer,
Haz lo que siempre has hecho."
(You do that which you have to do,
You do that which always you have done)

I noticed that substituting "s" for "z", and "b" for "v" (and vice versa) appears to be a hip thing to do in email and chatroom communication to sound cute. Kinda reminds me of how some people like to wRiTe LiKe tHis sOmEtImes. It catches me off guard since I think I'm looking at a new word. Like "beremos." One girl was writing to me and left the "s" off every word to express her accent. drove me nuts.

As an aside, I thought I read somewhere that some people are actually physically unable to trill an "r"--sorta like how some people can't curl their tongue. Is this true?

I like this discussion area and I'm glad I ran into it. Thanks for the new phrases!

Gitano's use of 'z' in 'haz' is grammatically correct. He is simply using the 2nd person imperative for 'hacer'.

BTW, I am physically unable to trill.

Explorer8939 wrote:
>BTW, I am physically unable to trill.

Have you tried Viagra?

When I try to trill I can't do it. From time to time I lapse into it without thinking about it. Fav laughs, and I give her a quizical look, and she says haces rr ahora, pero solo cuando no estás tratando. I have found it pops out easiest when the rr sounds occurs at the beginning of a word. It comes kind of naturally when saying Costa Rica.

I got my spellings from "501 Spanish Verbs". But I claim no expertise. Just for your phrase book, I heard a young woman from Veracruz (understandable accent) say "Me canse' " for "I got tired", so I know yet another proper usage.

Pancho
p.s. "501 verbs" says that "haZ" is the imperative form of "haCer", and "haS" is the familiar singular indicative (present tense) (capitals for emphasis) of haBer. haBer and haCer are two different verbs.

Gitano, I have noticed that even educated (my teacher has two years of college in accountancy) mexicans often can't spell. I'll check with him again.

Pauncho

. "haBer and haCer are two different verbs."

That's correct and the correct verb in this case is hacer ie to do and not haber.

More tidbits on trilling your rrrrrrrs.

In Puerto Rico they don't pronounce the double R, as in arroz or carro, as an R sound. It is a very obnoxious gutteral sound as if you were hawking up something in your throat. It comes out like ajoz or cajo. I never cared for Puerto Ricans.

In the central section of the Dominican Republic there used to be (and may still be) a regional dialect among the non educated people were they would drop the R sound altogether. It would become like our I (eye). Tarde becomes taide, compadre becomes compi (the D gets dropped also here). This would screw up even people native to the country when they would travel to this area.

Very true about the Puerto Ricans not pronouncing the double R!

I learned from later girlfriends that my Puertoricania wasn't teaching me Spanish, she was teaching me Puerto Rican!

Spanish trivia:

The superlative of 'bueno' in classic Spanish is:

Bonissimo.

NOT

Buenissimo.

Same with fuerte.

No one in Mexico seems to know this.

Gitano, I WAS WRONG (& I was right a little). Upon checking with my teacher, he really meant haZ (from haCer), it's just that he doesn't spell well, so it's;

" ! Haz lo que tengas que hacer,
Haz lo que siempre has hecho ! "
( Do what you have to do !
Do what you've always done ! )

HaBer can be, but seldom is used as a regular verb... ?

No soy perito traductor. I just fumble my way through...

Pauncho

The only use of haber, that I am aware of, where it is not used as a helping verb is in the "there is/was" sentences using haya or habia.

Hay mucho ruido en los bares de Zona Note.

Habia mucho trafico por la liña cuando la crusé.

I have never understood where the hay form comes from. Someone told me it was based on the subjunctive form haya. I am sure that there are other uses of haber, especially with the hubiera (imperfect subjunctive) form, but they are not in my limited working vocabulary.

Other than this haber is conjugated in front of a past participle to construct complex verb expressions simlar to the way we use have/has/had in front of another verb in english. You can conjugate haber in all 7 mood/tense patterns to affect those meanings. As I am sure that you are aware these are represented in the right hand columns in your 501 Verbs book.

There are some polished phrases you can use with hubiera and fuera with si clauses that I was studying last spring. I'll try and put a brief post together on that later today as they are a good way of saying what could have or would have or might have been.

Si fuera hombre rico, te habria llevado a Cozumel conmigo.

Learning a little about a language is 95% fumbling your way thru for most of us. The symbols we use to communicate don't always have one to one correspondences. It's more fun that way.

I totally envy you guys with so much exposure to dialogue. Since I live in a place completely deviod of latin culture (no tv, radio, latinos), my exposure to the spoken word is limited to the 30-45 second mpeg clips on univision.com. This leads to a strange exchange on vacations south. First, I can encode fine but I'm slow to decode. Second, it gives me a funky vocabulary. I have a harder time asking for directions than I do describing Thalia's marriage to Tommy Mottola.

Hermanos, I've been working very hard on my Spanish. I study at a unique learning center located on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where there are many teachers, some independents and some affiliated with various academies all conveniently located near each other. Here's a report of a recent evening there, written to an ambitious friend of mine who lives overseas and is now learning Thai by similar methods (we frequently compare notes):

Well, just got back from a nice trip to language school, nice especially because my Spanish seemed to be quite "on" last night. I only did actual work with one teacher, but had a lot of conversations because, being a Tuesday, it was an evening that is normally relatively dead but since it's summer vacation, a lot of teachers seemed to have time on their hands and showed up anyway. At Escuela Papagayo there was quite a number of teachers from Acapulco who were there for several weeks (and their Spanish, to my ears, is slower and easier to understand than the local varieties); plus the usual gaggles of maestras de la calle As for the actual work I did-- I went directly to Escuela Tamyko when I got in--lately it's seemed to have a lot of interesting-seeming teachers, plus I had given up seriously avoiding Marisol , my teacher there from last winter, who also had become less insistent about asking me why I had abandoned my work with her. Anyway, there were about 10-15 teachers hanging around and maybe TWO students, so I sat down and kind of watched for a while. Neither of the two I'd worked with the last two times were there but that was fine. Because yes, both were great --one of them, L., excelled with the Electronically Assisted Drilling Method (using the battery-operated instructional tool developed by Dr. Johnson) and both of them excelled with the so-called Lengua-Panocha method, which I much favor--guess LP much have been some famous language teacher). But no one I'd studied under in the last 3 months had really been interested in doing much (or any) bilingual-quadrilabial work, which to me is at the heart of the so-called RLTE (Regular Language-Teacher Experience") and is important for my maintenance.

ANYWAY, a number of the teachers looked interesting but one more so than the others, and I kept eyeing her while at the same time making a sort of repeated mental note to myself, hmm, it's not Marisol but sure LOOKS like Marisol and is sitting where Marisol usually sits. I knew it wasn't Marisol because I'd spotted her just 2 weeks ago--and anyway this one was dressed entirely differently, had longer hair, etc. Well then she comes over to me and--oops! It IS Marisol. !Well, I felt she had caught me looking, plus in the past she did superb bi-quad work, so I asked her to sit down and got her a copa. She asked me why I had quit earlier and I started to make something up but then I just told her I had felt I was getting a bit too attached (she said oh no problem if we get attached we can just get married...). Anyway, I don't plan to repeat this anytime soon but it was an excellent session--I got the room for an hour, lots of bi-quad work along with the rest. Marisol is definitely an "icon" for me, kind of like where just a single look at her face, while we're drilling hard, makes paradigms run up my spine and my vocabulary throb in my head. Btw, right while we were working very strenuously on copular constructions, she told me her name is actually C., so in a sense we are namesakes--that really was kind of intense. Anyway as I say a very good lesson but probably best not to repeat for a while. She asked for my e-mail address, which I gave her (although I haven't heard anything). I thought it would be interesting to have e-mail contact in Spanish with a real language teacher. She doesn't have a computadora but must use a friend's--she said she didn't have an e-mail address of her own.

Anyway, that's my story. I'm dead serious about this as a way of learning Spanish.

Doesn't have an e-mail address of her own. Has she never heard of Hotmail (etc,) ?

HABER = to be, have

its a impersonal verb used to imply existence.
HAY comes from HA plus Y meaning 'there'

so therefore.....Hay una fiesta esta noche
There is a party tonight

Hubo una fiesta anoche
There was a party last night (used for events)

Había mucha gente a la fiesta
There were many people at the party (descriptive)

Habrá una fiesta esta noche
There will be a party tonight

Haya mucha gente a la fiesta
(Present Subjunctive) There may be many people at the party

Hubiera mucha gente a la fiesta anoche
(Past Subjunctive) There might have been many people at the party lastnight.

Also used to form perfect tenses....helper verb.
We use HAVE in English not in the sense of a possession, but as a helper (auxiliary verb) to form perfect tenses.

I have eaten
He comido.

You have eaten
Ha comida

He/she has eaten
Ha comida

We have eaten
Hemos comido
etc.

I had eaten
Había comida
etc.

I may have eaten
Haya comida
etc.

I might had eaten
Hubiera comida
etc.

See 501 Spanish Verbs...It does a pretty good job.

Mike

Zorrofox, nice but I think you have made a few mistakes on how you changed comido to comida in your phrases.

You have eaten
Ha comida:it suppose to also be Comido not Comida

He/she has eaten
Ha comida: it's also Comido

I had eaten
Había comida, here in spanish your really saying "There had been food" so change it also to Comido to make your translation work.

I might had eaten
Hubiera comida: your really saying "There might have been Food" I believe. change to Comido.

Nero

Zorrofox - more on haber

Two uses that sound okay, but are not in textbooks.

"No hay que . . ."

and

"En cuestion de amores
Nunca he de ganar
Porque es bien sabido. . ."

The first I take as "There is no reason for . . ."

The second phrase the "he" seems to function like "tengo" or "alcanzo"

Any experience with these uses?

Nero...

Youre absolutely correct....damn...I made a mistake, no wonder my spanish still sucks.

Mike

Elcodo..

HABER is also used as a verb of obligation...so

HAY QUE (do..something) is an impersonal expression meaning that ...One has (to do something)

NO HAY QUE then means that One does not have to do something.

The present tense conjugations of HABER (He, Has, Ha, Hemos, Han) are also used as an mild obligation, so therefore..

He de ganar, means I am supposed to win
Ha de comer means YOU/HE/SHE is supposed to eat..
that kind of thing.

Mike

Zorrofox...

i am more comfortable with deber as in "debo comprarle lonch." As a means to extinguish an obligation.

should I rephrase it as "He de tomarle al almuerzo?"

It just doesn't flow for me but I am still in the translate from English to Spanish mode.

There are several ways to express obligation.i.e.
TENER QUE ...have to do something
DEBER ...should/ought to
NECESITAR ...to need to
HAY QUE ....one should
ES NECESARIO ...it is necessary (impersonal)
HABER DE ...supposed/should do ..

These are the ones that come to mind, and each one infers a different level of committment

HE DE ESTUDIAR MAS ...just infers that I should study more....but not that I nesessarily will,
but DEBER kinda infers a moral obligation as if you made a committment to someone.

Hope this helps a little.

Mike

Yo tengo que irme a Tijuana este fin de semana, o si no, me muero de ganas.

Is that correct?

Explorer,

I think you are trying to say:

"I have to go to TJ this weekend, or if not, I will die of wanting to go"

I think your Spanish is off a little in 2 regards.

1. irme, the reflexive form of ir, means to leave. Since you want to go, not leave, it should only be ir.

2. I don't think morir should be reflexive. Something like "moriré de ganas" or "voy a morir de ganas" works a little better.

Zorrofox -

You are right regarding deber versus haber de. While both can come across as should, deber has more oomph behind it.

My secretary is from Mexico, but I am not really comfortable having her translate bar-girl spanish into English. She's a Jehovah's witness that pretends not to really notice when I disappear all day and show up unshaven with the same clothes on the next day.

Today I asked her about the difference between "ha de llegar" and "debe de llegar" and finally got the idea that the first may or may not happen, but there is a good chance of the second occurring. She did say that the "ha de" construction is not a good one, but that it is used. Is it slang then or kind of like "ain't"?
I really wanted to ask the nuances of "cuando yo quiera has de volver" but realized I would be pushing the envelope too far.

As a side note. She cannot spell Spanish properly. She does not know which words have the silent "h" and always writes "hiba" for "iba". Que va?

Thanks for your posts

Don

A little translation help please...

que te vaya bien

[Something like: "Hope things are going along for you ok"?]

I think that literaly it is something like "That you go well...".

Chicanos and border mexicans often say " ......... que tenga un buen dia" (I imagine that the present subjunctive is used because it could be considered short for "Yo deseo que tenga un buen dia").

"Que tenga un buen dia" is used in place of (& equivalent to) the hackneyed english "Have a nice day.." in parting (and definitely marks you as a gringo or chicano).

"..que la vaya bien" is used in much the same way, but, to me, sounds nicer. An appropriate response might be "Igualmente" (more or less "You too!")

Of course (very) informally, you might say "Nos vemos" ("C-ya") (This is a level of informality - remember we're talking a usually very polite culture, here - of a similar level to the english "..t'sup.." (stylishly abbreviated "What's up ?" - which in itself is as informal as Bugs Bunny)

Disclaimer; I'm no expert, merely opinionated as to the above.

Pauncho

To Border Fox RE: Sept 6, 2001;

In this matrix of "Should, ought'a, must" where do we fit "Precisar" ?

I just discovered this word in my Spanish-English dictionary from the 99 cents only store (The red one with all the flags, not the gold one), which I freely recommend to all - decent coverage of many idiomatic phrases.

Bookie..

Its like..."that you go well"...or more english like...."that things go well for you"

Que te vaya bien!

Mike

Can anyone tell me how to tell my chica "Will you cut it out ! You are nickel-and-diming me to death.............."

Deja de este. Me estas matando poquito a poquito.

Or ... "Wait here, honey. Hello Tanya, wanna go upstairs?" As long as her name isn't Tanya.

Diego,
Thanks.
Pauncho

Deja de este? Don't be surprised if you get a blank look from your fav since this is something Diego has made up.

Tell her "no me chingas" she'll understand.

No seas asi!

That makes them feel a little guilty.

"que te vaya bien" literally translates as that it goes well for you.

Wait here is espera aquí for a friend. Informal "friendly" commands take the form of the 3rd person present indicative.

Dependent subjungtive clauses are introduced by
WEIRDO independent clauses.

W = will
E = emotion
I = influence
R = regret
D = doubt
O = opinion

when you get a stand alone que initiated dependent clause it is usually implying an independent clause of will or influence.

que les vaya bien

"Mamame la verga bien rico" That will always get a reaction.

Gitano:

Actually, I would translate 'que te vaya bien' as 'it should go well for you'.

I disagree Explorer, but not in a big way. Really the whole concept that there is a corresponding word to word translation breaks down as you begin forming phrases and particularly more popular ones like this. The tone of voice or what word is stressed can greatly alter meaning. To me this phrase is a nice way of saying "catch you later". Eh, what do I know ? I couldn't even spell wierdo correctly.

I spent a little time with my dictionary......:

Verbs for prostitution:

Putear

Prostituir

Names for whorehouses:

burdel = brothel

casa de citas (house of appointments/dates)

prostibulo

rameria

Words for whore:

buscona = searcher

una cualquiera (an "anybody who wants me..." ????)

floja = loose woman

golfa (from golfo = ragamuffin, vagabond)

hetaira (origin unknown)

meretriz (from the same root as the english "meretricious" [sex for money])

mundana (more or less "wordly woman" - from mundo for world)

pendanga (from the brightly dressed ["in glaring colors"] jack of diamonds
in the card game "Quínolas" / "Reversis")

Prostituta (or "prosti")

puta

ramera / ramerita / rameruela

sexoservadora

zorra / zorra corrida (fox / fox of the rounds)

Pintura = (overheard an elderly man addressing a prostitute thusly, probably means something like "painted one")

I'd welcome additions. Thanks.
Pauncho

Here are a few more I've found somewhere out there on the internet:

abortion aborto
amateur amate(u)r, no profesional
anus ano
asleep dormido
ass culo, bufete
asscheck nalga
assfuck (to) dar por el culo, encular
asshole ojete, ojo del culo
asshole (some1) gilipollas, "dao pol culo",
tonto la higa
awake despierto
awake (to) despertar
baby nene (m), nena (f)
balls cojones, pelotas, huevos
bed cama
big grande, gran
bigamist bigamo
bigamy bigamia
bitch perra, zorra, puta, guarra
black negro
blowjob mamada
bondage bondage
bottom trasero
boy chico, tio
breast pecho, teta
bugger (to) encular, dar por el culo,sodomizar
butt culo, trasero
buttock nalga
caress caricia
caress (to) acariciar
cherry himen, virginidad
chest pecho
clit clitoris
clitoris clitoris
cock polla, nabo, falo, picha
come leche
consent consentimiento
couple pareja
cum (sperm) leche (never say pre-leche!!)
cum (to) correrse
cumshot corrida
cunt coño, almeja
curious curioso
deep profundo, hondo
dick picha, polla, verga
dildo consolador
dirty guarro, puerco
dirty old man viejo verde
dog perro
doggie style a cuatro patas, a lo perro
dyke tortillera, bollera
eat (to) comer
enema enema, lavativa
erotic erotico
fag maricon, marica, bujarron
fart cuesco
fat gordo
fill (to) llenar
finger dedo
finger (to) manosear, excitar, meter el dedo
fuck jodida, jodienda, follada
fuck (to) joder, follar, chingar
fuck! joder!
full lleno
gay gay
girl chica, tia
guy tio, tipo
hairless lampiño, sin pelo, calvo
hairy peludo, velludo
hand mano
hard duro
head cabeza
head (to give) hacer una mamada
heat (to be on) estar en celo, ir de perro
hole agujero
homosexual homosexual
horny salido, calentorro, caliente
horse caballo
hot caliente
hurt (to) doler
hurt (to) some1 hacer daño, lastimar
hug abrazo
husband marido, esposo
hymen himen
impregnate embarazar, dejar embarazada,
dejar preñada
inch pulgada (1 inch = 2.54 cm.)
inside dentro
jack off (to) pelarsela, hacerse una paja
jerk imbecil, pendejo
jerk off (to) pelarsela, hacerse una paja
kiss beso, morreo (french kiss)
knot nudo
lay (to) echarse, acostarse (reflexive)
leg pierna
lesbian lesbiana
lie (to) mentir
lie (to be) estar echado, estar acostado
lip labio
little pequeño, pequeñito
love amor
love (to) amar
lover amante
masturbate (to) masturbarse (reflexive verb)
masturbation masturbacion
moist empapado, calado, mojado
movie pelicula
nipple pezon
orgasm orgasmo
orgy orgia
pain dolor
pee pipi, meados
pee (to) mear, hacer pipi
penis pene
period periodo, regla
picture foto, dibujo (anime)
pimp chulo
pregnant embarazada, preñada
pregnant(to get)quedar embarazada
prick picha, polla, falo
pussy conejo, almeja
queer bujarra, bujarron, maricon
rectum recto
rip desgarrar
sadomasochism sadomasoquismo
shaft falo, nabo
shoot expulsar, lanzar
sleep (to) dormir
slit raja, rajita (little slit)
slut zorra, perra, puta
small pequeño
squirt eyacular, correrse (reflexive)
stalion semental
step (+ father, daughter...)padrastro,hijastra,...
story historia, relato
suck (to) mamar, chupar
sweatheart novio (boyfriend), cariño
swetie bombon, encanto
taste gusto
tasteless disgustante
testicles testiculos, huevos
thigh muslo, cacha
thin flaco (person), seco, estrecho
threesome trio, "menage a trois"
throat garganta
tie (to) atar
tied atado
tight estrecho, cerrado
tit teta, pecho
tongue lengua
vagina vagina
video video
virgin virgen
wet mojado, humedo
wife mujer, esposa
white blanco
whore puta, ramera
womb utero
young joven

cuckold = cabron
pimp = padrote
prostitute = jinitera (horseback rider)
to cum = salir
urinate = orinar

Cuckold is Cornudo (Horned one) Urinate is mear. A cabron cheats on his wife. a girl who "anda de cabrona" is looking to get fucked. To cum is venir or terminar.