Spanish Words of the week

“Ir viento popa” To cruise along. Popa means the stern of a boat and if the wind’s (viento) coming at you that way then you’re making good speed. I’d not heard this phrase before but it was in a review in today’s Ocio (events listings magazine). Ocio itself means leisure, hence non-social scientists’ chide to sociologists, “Ociologos“.

Another word I liked, new this week, is “Sonsacar”, primarily for the alliteration of the S. Wordreference.com has it as:

sonsacar: verbo transitivo
1 (una información) to winkle out: se lo sonsacó a María, he coaxed it out of Maria
2 (dinero, un regalo, etc) to wheedle

But the times I’ve heard it here in Mexico, it seems to mean to lead someone astray. As in when you’re dragging someone away from their studies to take them on a pub crawl… They may protest “No tengo ganas” (I’m not in the mood), then you answer “Pues, las ganas se hacen!” (You create your own mood).

Ganas is a tricky one to translate… Depending on the context it has all kinds of meanings. I find translating it over literally as “urges” delivers the meaning well albeit in a semi-comical form.

No tengo ganas: I haven’t got any urges. (I’m not up for it).
Se me quitaron las ganas de comer: My urges to eat were taken from me. (I lost my appetite)
Tengo ganas de ver esta pelicula: I have urges to see this film. (I fancy watching this film)

As you can see, the day-to-day translation you use when living in a foreign country is a completely different system to formal translation…

Plans for tonight? Well, I wanted to go to the cinema, but there’s bugger all on. Even “Serpientes Abordo!” isn’t playing in the local megaplex. A cursory glance at the paper shows that over round the Pabellon Frances there’ll be live acordeon music at 5pm then later in the evening an “Electro-French” DJ… Let’s call that Plan F. Tomorrow at 5pm there’s a free tequila tasting (Cata) but at 7 I’m off round V & J’s for a sophisticated soiree of repartee and fine foods, so maybe not… Ay, so many options. I can feel a night of scrabble coming on…