Word of the Day: Putada

This is indeed a word I've chosen to apply to our nation's capital.

WORD OF THE DAY: PUTADA (noun)

Means: A bitch, a pain in the ass, a f*ck-up
In a sentence: “Escribir este ensayo es de verdad una putada.” (Writing this essay is truly a bitch.)

Let’s be honest: everyone’s favorite Words of the Day are the swearwords. I wish this particular palabrota hadn’t come up in relation to my summer living situation, but así es la vida, eh?

I found out on Monday that, as of June 7, I’ll be living and interning in Washington, D.C. — a city that I currently have very little love for. The announcement was something of a surprise (read: it was a profound and aggravating shock) and I’ve been pretty bummed about it for the past three days.

“Es una mierda (shitty),” I told a friend.

“No, es una putada,” he replied — explaining that this fantastic word is basically una mierda on steroids.

All things considered, that’s suitable, I guess!

Word of the Day: Becario

Un becario in action? Wah wahhh.

WORD OF THE DAY: BECARIO (noun)

Means: Intern
In a sentence: “¿Dónde está el becario? Necesito un café.” (Where’s the intern? I need a coffee.)

I went for drinks with a friend yesterday, who suggested I read the free papers around Madrid to practice my Spanish.

“They’re easier than El País because they’re mostly written by becarios,” he said. “Do you know what a becario is?”

I didn’t. He explained.

“Oh — an intern. I get it. Like beca?” Beca is the word for scholarship or grant.

“Yeah, like beca,” he said. “Well, actually, no — the funny thing is that most of them don’t get any money or anything. They’re practicing for school.”

… hmm. So it would appear that the media’s exploitation of hapless journalism students is one of the world’s great universal truths.

Word of the Day: Dar la chapa

Among the things annoying me today: spaghetti, Spanish indie rock...

WORD OF THE DAY: DAR LA CHAPA (verb)

Means: bother, annoy
In a sentence: “Te dejo de dar la chapa.” (I’ll stop annoying you now).

This word of the day comes to you courtesy of P. Roberto J., my editor at Hipersónica. While I expect he knew it would make an appearance on this blog — teaching me any funny Spanish slang is pretty much a guarantee you’ll get a dedicated blog post — he could not have known that this Monday would me da la chapa, several times over.

Why does SU have two midterm weeks? Why is Croatia Air charging me an extra 50 euros? Why doesn’t eMusic have any Los Planetas albums? Why am I such an embarrassingly bad pasta-eater that Luisa insists on cutting my spaghetti for me?

These are real life mysteries, my friends. Right up there with why-doesn’t-Spain-have-any-plaques, a Culture Shock! that’s coming at you mañana.

Word of the Day: Molar

Nothing says molar like a picture of Val with uncomfortably flirty fishermen.

WORD OF THE DAY: MOLAR (verb)

Means: to be great, according to Word Reference. I think the connotation is old-fashioned and a little bit stronger, more like “to rock.”
In a sentence: “La semana pasada molaba, aunque no escribí algunos posts.” (Last week rocked, even though I didn’t write any posts.)

Hey guys, remember me? My name’s Caitlin. I have a blog!

… Okay, glad we’ve got that settled.

My sincerest apologies for being away from La Expatriada for so long. As you know, I typically sacrifice sleep/sanity/Pasapalabra to bring you daily posts from Spain. If I’m not updating, it means my life mola mucho at the moment (or, alternately, que no me mola nada).

Luckily, we’ve got the former this time around: In the past week, I’ve traveled to Barcelona and Valencia, saw what has to be the coolest festival in the world and interviewed one of my favorite bands for Hipersonica.

Give me a couple days to get back in the groove — I have a lot of photos and videos for you guys, so this blog will begin to molar again soon!

Word of the Day: Dospuntocerista

The best WotD ever will be ironically accompanied by Twitter's fail whale.

WORD OF THE DAY: DOSPUNTOCERISTA (noun)

Means: Literally a “2.0-er,” a person who uses Web 2.0 technologies. I think the closest one-word translation would be something like “techie.”
In a sentence: “Acabo de encontrarme al nuevo fichaje de Hipersónica en twitter. Qué dospuntoceristas somos.” (I just found Hipersonica’s new signing on Twitter. What techies we are.)

Man. If I had a penny for every time I had to look up a word used on/by Hipersónica, I would probably be loaded by the end of this trip.

I learned this one from one of my coworkers via Twitter this morning – that tweet is actually the “in a sentence” example you see above. Apart from being comically techy and fun to say, it also has the advantage of ending in –ista, pretty much the coolest Spanish suffix.

In other news, can someone please confirm to me that “twitterar” is a verb?

Word of the Day: Guarro

Well, I wouldn't mind if my homework looked like this.

WORD OF THE DAY: GUARRO (noun and adj.)

Means: pig (noun); dirty, disgusting (adj.)
In a sentence: “Ese tipo es un guarro, no lo soporto.” (That guy is a pig, I can’t stand him.”)

My phonetics professor caught me rewriting my homework toward the end of class today. Since she obviously thought I was cheating — which, for the record, I was not — I approached her post-class to explain that my original homework was messy and I wanted to copy it over.

Being a stereotypical long-winded, middle-aged Spanish woman, she took this opportunity to teach me an alternative word for dirty, which I suppose she thought better described my original assignment.

Incidentally, guarro also means “pig” (the animal) and “pig” (the vulgar old dude who leers at you on the train).

Venga, hombre — was my homework really that bad?

Word of the Day: Homónimo

Incidentally, this is an awesome album. You should download it.

WORD OF THE DAY: HOMÓNIMO (adj.)

Means: Self-titled, homonymous
In a sentence: Broken Bells es el debut homónimo del último super-dúo de indie rock. (Broken Bells is the self-titled debut from indie rock’s latest super-duo).

Get ready to be inundated with music-related vocab, my friends — I just finished my first Hipersónica post, a review of the Broken Bells album that drops tomorrow. Some weird phenomena I noticed during the writing process:

1. Actually conceptualizing what I wanted to say, and how I wanted to say it, took about one-tenth of the time it usually does.
2. The English language is full of music writing conventions that absolutely do not translate to other languages. For instance, the word “wiry” to describe a sound, which I was very keen on using. Also hand-clap, spacey, bass line, grounded.
3. Sentences that would sound awesome in an English-language review sound wordy and ridiculous in Spanish.
4. I was glued to Word Reference the entire time. This is going to be a little trickier than I thought.

When all is said and done, however, I did crank out what I think was a pretty decent first review, and I learned a bunch of zany Spanish words along the way.

Gratuitous career-related P.S.: I found out today that I was accepted into the ASME program, which I’ve been agonizing over for days (make that months). Productive evening all around, yeah?

Word of the Day: Ligar

A man in need of some ligar ...

WORD OF THE DAY: LIGAR (verb)

Means: To make advances, to hit on (also ligarse – to make out with)
In a sentence: “Claro, el turco estaba ligando contigo.” (Of course the Turk was hitting on you.) – Luisa

Luisa had many, many ligar-ing stories after she heard that Meredith made a Turkish friend at some club last weekend. Luisa is not a big believer in platonic friendships, unless they are with gay men. She is especially skeptical of platonic friendships that begin at discotecas.

“¿Estaba ligando contigo?” She asked.

“¡No!” Meredith exclaimed. At this point, we had no idea what ligar meant – we had to look it up in the dictionary afterwards. But from Luisa’s demonical expression, we could tell that the answer should probably not be affirmative.

“¿Y tú?” She asked me.

“Yo no,” I replied.

“Bueno,” she said. And then she told us some story about a guy who hit on her in Germany. Like most of Luisa’s men stories, it ended well for her and badly for him.

P.S. In my search for a photo to start this post, I came across this gratuitous ligar blog. “How about a ligarse blog?” Meredith says.

Word of the Day: Aguafiestas

Don't despair, readers! I have a funny Spanish word for you!

WORD OF THE DAY: AGUAFIESTAS (noun)

Means: Party-pooper
In a sentence: “Ella siempre se queja de todo — es una verdadera aguafiestas.” (She always complains about everything — she’s a real party-pooper.)

Fortunately, this word has nothing to do with any of my experiences in Madrid. It’s a gift from Tuan, who taught me it on AIM yesterday.

minaharker (9:03:42 PM): i hate being such a funsucker
minaharker (9:03:52 PM): or what do they call it
minaharker (9:03:56 PM): aguafiestas?
theelysiansound (9:04:13 PM): is that a word?
minaharker (9:04:31 PM): its spanish for “wet blanket” or “party pooper”
theelysiansound (9:04:42 PM): wow! thank you so much.
theelysiansound (9:04:46 PM): i can’t wait to blog about that.
minaharker (9:04:48 PM): it better be your next word
theelysiansound (9:04:55 PM): it will be, i promise.

So, there you have it. This post is conclusive proof that Tuan is not an aguafiestas.

Word of the Day: Guiri

This dude is giving us all a bad name.

WORD: GUIRI (noun)

Means: Foreigner, tourist (of the obnoxious, stereotypical variety)
In a sentence: “Los guiris creen que parecen extranjeros por el color de su pelo, cuando en realidad lo que los delata es estar borrachos a las 11 de la mañana y vestir camisas de flores.” (Guiris believe they look like foreigners because of the color of their skin, when in reality being drunk at 11 in the morning and wearing floral shirts gives them away.)

Meredith and I were walking on Gran Via last night when two girls stopped us and asked for directions. When we said we weren’t from Madrid, they immediately dissolved into laughter.

“Son guiris?” One girl asked the other.

Okay, I guess it’s cool that we pass as madrileñas from a distance. But to be honest, I was cranky about this incident for the next two to three blocks: While guiri doesn’t seem to be a particularly derogatory term, it’s not especially flattering, either.

Consider these various Word Reference explanations:

1. Vaguely benign: “I think guiri is not a derogatory word anymore, it depends on the context, but young people in Spain use the word guiri for foreigners, specially if they really look as foreigner.”
2. Sort of appalling: “Guiris are a certain type of tourist … the sweaty, shirtless ones that invade your favorite bar with the smell of suntan lotion.”
3. Ambiguous: “It often regards the type Sun-Sea-Sex or Sun-Beer tourists but it sometimes is also used for foreigners, even if they live here.”

If a Spanish reader would like to give me an authoritative definition of the term, that would be awesome!

In the mean time, you guys can all avoid looking like guiris by reading this semi-comical guide from About.com.