History UsefulNotes / SpanishLanguage

* ''Pajero'' = Wanker/douchebag/jackoff. Mitsubishi fortunately avoided [[BiteTheWaxTadpole biting the wax tadpole]] on this one.

In the United States, meanwhile, there is a native Spanish dialect spoken in New Mexico and Colorado by ''neomexicanos'', descendants of Spanish settlers who lived there before the annexation of the Southwest by the States. Generally called New Mexican Spanish, it preserves several features of Early Modern Spanish lost in most other varieties, such as ''ser'' being conjugated in the first person as ''yo seigo'', rather than ''yo soy'', and ''haiga'' rather than ''haya'' being the subjunctive of ''haber''. It suffered a decline in the 20th century as English came to dominate, but the recent influx of Latino immigrants has ensured the dialect's survival.

Another potentially hilarious false friend is ''embarazar'', the opposite situation of ''molestar''; it means "impregnate," not "embarrass," which in Spanish is ''humillar'' (lit. "humiliate"). This led to a rather famous case of BiteTheWaxTadpole where a pen company advertised their product with the slogan, "It won't leak in your pocket and get you pregnant." One has to wonder [[{{Squick}} exactly what sort of ink such a pen would be using...]]

* ''tú'': habl'''as''', com'''es''', viv'''es''' / ''usted'': habl'''a''', com'''e''', viv'''e'''[[note]]You may notice that these are identical to the third person conjugations; this is because ''usted'' arose from ''vuestra merced''--"Your Grace"--and took a third person conjugation, rather like English's "Is Your Majesty pleased?" It condensed into a real pronoun, but the conjugation stuck. The same principle applies to ''ustedes.''[[/note]]
* ''él/ella'': habl'''a''', com'''e''', viv'''e'''

* ''vosotros/as'': habl'''áis''', com'''éis''', viv'''ís''' / ''ustedes'': habl'''an''', com'''en''', viv'''en'''
* ''ellos/ellas'': habl'''an''', com'''en''', viv'''en'''

* ''Joder'' = Fuck (used rather like it is in English; ''estamos jodidos'' means "we're fucked."). Almost never conjugated in anything but past participle (The expletive "fuck!" would simply be ''joder!'' and "That fucking test" would be ''Ese jodido examen'', although most would say ''puto'' or something similar instead). "Fuck you!" would be translated as ''¡Jódete!'' or ''¡Que te jodan!''. It is also a vulgar word for ''bother'', specially in Latin América.

One thing that ''does'' present occasional problems (for English speakers primarily) is the gender. It's mostly an arbitrary attribute of the noun (''el coche'', "car," masculine; ''la mesa'', "table," feminine; it depends on usage, too: a hair dryer is masculine ("secador de pelo"), while the clothes dryer is feminine ("secadora de ropa")); however, when it comes to things that have actual gender they cling to that; you don't have that ridiculous business like in [[GermanLanguage German]] where the word for "girl" is neuter. Spanish actually doesn't have a neuter gender at all; everything is either masculine or feminine.

Finally, a few words actually have different meanings ''depending'' on the gender assigned to them. For example, ''el capital'' means capital as in money, but ''la capital'' means capital as in a capital city. However, there are a few words where gender doesn't matter: ''el mar'' and ''la mar'' both mean "the sea."

* ''Coger'' = Literally "get or take" but has evolved into "fuck" in most Latin American countries. ''Recoger'' is the non-profane version. In Spain, however, it has maintain the literal meaning, which sometimes can cause missunderstandings between Spaniards and Latin Americans.
* ''Cagar'' = The verb form of "shit". Often used to construct colorful oaths like ''¡Me cago en la leche!'' ("I shit in the milk!"). ''Cagada'' means "shitty" or "full of shit".
* ''Coño'' = CountryMatters. Although it's not nearly as offensive as that word is English (ESPECIALLY in North America), and it's never used to describe a person, but rather as an interjection. "¿Qué coño ___?" equates to "What the fuck ___?" in peninsular Spanish (see note below on profanity in Spain). Saying that a person is "un coño de madre/un coño de su madre" means not that they're ''that'' part of their mother anatomy, but that the person is a bastard, and the expression "¡El coño de tu madre!" ''is'' a direct insult, in some places being even worse than calling the person "Hijo de puta". There is also the derivate word "coñazo", that in Spain means something among bothersome or annoying (as in "esa persona es un coñazo", that person is very annoying) but in Venezuela means "beating" (Te voy a meter un coñazo = I'm going to hit you hard). Nowdays, Spain is the only country that still uses the word on its original sexual context: the rest of the Spanish speaking countries simply see it as another vulgar interjection.

* J: Same as ''g'' above, except in all cases. If you ever see Hispanics on {{Facebook}} typing "jajajaja", this is why.
* LL: Its ''canonical'' pronunciation is rather like the Italian ''gl'' as in ''figlio''. However, in all of America and most of Spain itself, the pronunciation has become like the ''y'' in ''year'' (oddly enough, the only strong hold-out of the primitive pronunciation is Catalonia, where the same sound is an important part of the Catalan language and its standard accent). In Argentina, instead, it's pronounced as the ''sh'' in ''show''.

* R: Flapped, as in the d's in ''pudding''. Except when beginning a word; then it reads as...

* Y: Pronounced like LL in most dialects, and like "sh" in Argentina. When ending a word, like a semiconsonantal i. ("rey" (king) is read as "ray")
* Z: Pronounced, again only in Spain, as a "th." In Latin America it's a s.

There is a special pronoun that is used in some areas of South America, however, which is amusingly ''derived'' from ''vosotros'', ''vos''. This dialect is known as ''voseo'', and is used primarily in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Colombia. The conjugation of the ''vos'' pronoun is a modified form of the ''vosotros'' conjugation, resulting in ''tú puedes'' becoming ''vos podés'' (compare ''vosotros podéis'')[[labelnote:*]]The stem doesn't change from o->ue here because the stem only changes if the stress is on that syllable; the stress is moved here to the second syllable and thus the stem change doesn't occur[[/labelnote]].

* RR: The famous "rolled r," as in the ridiculously exaggerated ''[[TrrrillingRrrs ¡Arrrrrrrrrrrriba!]]'' Think making a machine gun noise with your mouth. If you don't get it right, don't worry too much. This is one of the most difficult sounds for nonnatives, and natives usually understand that.

* Y: Pronounced like the ''y'' in "year". When ending a word, like a semiconsonantal i. ("rey" is read as "ray")
* Z: Pronounced, again only in Spain, as a "th."

Besides the acute accent, Spanish is also famous for the ''eñe'' letter, "ñ." This is pronounced approximately[[labelnote:*]]You make the ñ by pronouncing a n and a y simulataneously. It's easier than it sounds, really.[[/labelnote]] like "ny," so "ñaña" above would be pronounced "nyanya." (This happens to be a sort of cutesy word for "crap" in a few dialects.) For another example, the English word "canyon" is derived from the Spanish "cañon."

->''"El inglés es ideal para hablar de negocios, el alemán se hizo para las ciencias, el francés es la lengua del amor y el español... Ah, el español, es el idioma para hablar con Dios…"'' [[hottip:*:"English is perfect for talking business, German is just the thing for science, French is the language of love, and Spanish... Ah, Spanish, it is the language one speaks with God..."]]

* ''tú'': habl'''as''', com'''es''', viv'''es''' / ''usted'': habl'''a''', com'''e''', viv'''e'''[[hottip:note:You may notice that these are identical to the third person conjugations; this is because ''usted'' arose from ''vuestra merced''--"Your Grace"--and took a third person conjugation, rather like English's "Is Your Majesty pleased?" It condensed into a real pronoun, but the conjugation stuck. The same principle applies to ''ustedes.'']]

The biggest contrast among the dialects is between the Spanish spoken in Spain[[hottip:*:usually referred to as "Castilian Spanish", "European Spanish" or "peninsular Spanish," because "Spanish Spanish" just sounds stupid]] and Latin American Spanish. This is best seen in two features, ''ceceo/seseo'' and the ''vosotros'' pronoun and conjugation.

''Ceceo'' and ''seseo'' refer to how soft ''c'' and ''z'' are pronounced in various regions. As noted above, in Spain, those two letters are pronounced like an English unvoiced ''th'' ("ceceo"). In Latin America, they pronounced both as an ''s'' (seseo), which makes learning English phonology slightly more difficult, but also is more intuitive to English speakers learning Spanish. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some regions in Spain, specially in the South, where ''all'' "s" sounds are pronounced like ''th'', even standalone S's. So you get things like, ''"¡Por favor, Theñor Jueth, no mande uthted mi hijo a prithión!"'' [[hottip:*:Please, Mr. Judge, don't send my son to prison! It should be: "Por favor, Señor Juez, no mande usted mi hijo a prisión"]] Thus the famous "Spaniard lisp," that you see in lots of AntonioBanderas movies (being him from Málaga, in Southern Spain).

There is a special pronoun that is used in some areas of South America, however, which is amusingly ''derived'' from ''vosotros'', ''vos''. This dialect is known as ''voseo'', and is used primarily in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Colombia. The conjugation of the ''vos'' pronoun is a modified form of the ''vosotros'' conjugation, resulting in ''tú puedes'' becoming ''vos podés'' (compare ''vosotros podéis'')[[hottip:*:The stem doesn't change from o->ue here because the stem only changes if the stress is on that syllable; the stress is moved here to the second syllable and thus the stem change doesn't occur]].

Besides the acute accent, Spanish is also famous for the ''eñe'' letter, "ñ." This is pronounced approximately[[hottip:*:You make the ñ by pronouncing a n and a y simulataneously. It's easier than it sounds, really.]] like "ny," so "ñaña" above would be pronounced "nyanya." (This happens to be a sort of cutesy word for "crap" in a few dialects.)

But the most irritating false friends have to be the troll pair of ''atender'' and ''asistir.'' They sound like English "attend" and "assist" respectively, so you'd think this would be easy, right? Wrong. ''Atender'' means "to assist"...and ''asistir'' means "to attend"![[hottip:*:Although you can follow the logic of atender = assist if you keep in mind the secondary meaning of "attend," as in, "attend to the injured."]]

Now for the good stuff, though: profanity! We've saved the best for last. Here are all the expressions you need to know to know when to hit someone (when they're said to you) or duck (when you say them). Also convenient for use in non-Spanish-speaking circles.

* ''Cojones''[[hottip:*:Not "cajones", although non-native speakers sometimes confuse the two. Saying that someone has a lot of cajones means that they have a lot of drawers.]]= Balls (likewise)

An interesting note about Spanish is the frequency of ClusterFBomb in common speech, particularly in Spain. Spanish speakers tend to use stronger swear words and use them more often. The prevalence of this in Spain is said to be due to the Franco regime's oppressive enforcement of clean-mouthed-ness; when that regime fell in the late 1970s, people began cussing left, right, and center. By far the most common word is "joder", the proper inflection and placement of which takes practice, said by everybody from chavales (boys, preteens), to abuelitas (little old ladies). Truly offensive peninsular profanity relies on blasphemy and creativity. ''Hostias'', or "host" (as in sacrament) is somewhat more offensive than "joder", while ''Me cago en Dios y las tetas de la Virgen'' (I shit upon God and the Virgin Mary's tits) means you probably just amputated something. [[VulgarHumor Overly agressive or profane]] swearing ([[UpToEleven even moreso than these latter examples]]) is possible, but rare and mostly used in derivative works for comedic effect, such as "Te voy a sacar los putos ojos y me voy a mear en los agujeros para que te escueza"[[hottip:*:"I'm going to gouge your fucking eyes out and piss in the holes till it burns]]. Spaniard are perceived as more profane than Latin Americans, not because this is fundamentally true but because there is more swearing on Spanish TV (even on family-oriented shows), while most Latin American countries [[MoralGuardians enforce cleaner language]] on media to very ridiculous extremes (where even GoshDangItToHeck can be considered too much).

One thing that ''does'' present occasional problems (for English speakers primarily) is the gender. It's mostly an arbitrary attribute of the noun (''el coche'', "car," masculine; ''la mesa'', "table," feminine), though when it comes to things that have actual gender they cling to that; you don't have that ridiculous business like in [[GermanLanguage German]] where the word for "girl" is neuter. Spanish actually doesn't have a neuter gender at all; everything is either masculine or feminine.

Gender is quite a bit more intuitive than in many languages as well; in most cases, a noun's gender is clear from its ending; ''-o/-an'' is almost always masculine, whereas ''-a/-ción/-idad'' is almost always feminine...not to say that there aren't exceptions, like "mano" ("hand") which ends in ''-o" but it's a femenine word. Masculine nouns are more common than feminine ones, so if you're really lost guess masculine. On the same note, for nouns in plural that refer to groups that have both masculine AND feminine elements, we always use the masculine. For example, the Spanish word for "cat" would be "gato" for a male cat and "gata" for a female cat. However, if we want to refer to a group that includes cats of both genders, we use "gatos".

Of course, like any other language with gender, Spanish has its own headache-inducing part of it, and that would be the fact that some ''feminine'' nouns take the ''masculine'' singular article, while still being feminine grammatically (e.g., declension of adjectives), mostly for "flow" reasons. This occurs exclusively with feminine nouns that have a stressed ''a'' sound at the beginning. Thus, though still grammatically feminine, ''águila'' (eagle) takes the masculine article as ''el águila''. With plurals, however, they do take the feminine ones, and thus ''las águilas'', as the flow is not interrupted in this case with the feminine article.

Finally, a few words actually have different meanings ''depending'' on the gender assigned to them. For example, ''el capital'' means capital as in money, but ''la capital'' means capital as in a capital city.

* LL: It's ''canonical'' pronunciation is rather like the Italian ''gl'' as in ''figlio''. However, in all of America and most of Spain itself, the pronunciation has become like the ''y'' in ''year'' (oddly enough, the only strong hold-out of the primitive pronunciation is Catalonia, where the same sound is an important part of the Catalan language and its standard accent). In Argentina, instead, it's pronounced as the ''sh'' in ''show''.

* LL: Usually pronounced like the ''y'' in ''year'', though in Spain it's ''supposed'' to be pronounced like an Italian ''gl'' as in ''figlio''. In Argentina it's pronounced as the ''sh'' in ''show''.

* ''Carajo'' = An interjection roughly equivalent to damn, fuck, or in some cases hell. In Venezuela, along with the interjection use, is also used as a sightly more vulgar equivalent of "dude", even having a female and a diminutive version to refer to women and small children.

* ''Pendejo''= "pubic hair", roughly idiot or jackass, with an added connotation of willful incompetence. Rarely used in Spain, and much, much stronger in Puerto Rico. Also a derogative word for a young person.

* ''Maldito/a'' = (God)damn (again, rather used like in English; can be either an interjection or adjective). Soft enough to be used in Television for the youth slot in most Latin American countries.

* ''Coño'' = CountryMatters. Although it's not nearly as offensive as that word is English (ESPECIALLY in North America), and it's never used to describe a person, but rather as an interjection. "¿Qué coño ___?" equates to "What the fuck ___?" in peninsular Spanish (see note below on profanity in Spain). Saying that a person is "un coño de madre/un coño de su madre" means not that they're ''that'' part of their mother anatomy, but that the person is a bastard, and the expression "¡El coño de tu madre!" ''is'' a direct insult, in some places being even worse than calling the person "Hijo de puta". There is also the derivate word "coñazo", that in Spain means something among bothersome or annoying (as in "esa persona es un coñazo", that person is very annoying) but in Venezuela means "beating" (Te voy a meter un coñazo = I'm going to hit you hard)

* ''Gilipollas'' = One of the most common insults in Spain and nowhere else. It doesn't have a literal translation, but the "-pollas" at the end comes from where you think it comes from. It would be a rough equivalent to "dumbass", although somewhat more offensive. This word also has an UnusualEuphemism version in "gilipuertas", which subtitutes "pollas" ("dicks") with "puertas" ("doors"). In Catalonia (North East of Spain) it's also used the short form ''"Gilí"'', which is considered a kinda "softer" version of the word.

Spanish's sound system and especially its orthography aren't that hard to get used to. Spelling gives all the info needed for pronunciation (the opposite also holds true) and each letter has one pronunciation (with the exception of c and g); you don't have the long vs. short vowel distinction that can cause a minor fiasco in some other languages like English.

* ''Carajo'' = An interjection roughly equivalent to damn, fuck, or in some cases hell. In Venezuela, along with the interjection use, is also used as a sightly more vulgar equivalent of "dude", even having a female and a diminutive version to refer to women ans small children.

* ''Maldito/a'' = (God)damn (again, rather used like in English; can be either an interjection or adjective)
* ''Maldición'' = Literally "malediction" or "curses", but more commonly translated as "damnit" or similar.
* ''Malparido/a'' = Something like saying the person wasn't born right or in the right way. Similar in the usage to the english word "Bastard".

* ''Puto/a'' = The female form "puta" means "whore", or more generally "bitch"; "hijo de puta" equates to "son of a bitch." Beware of this in Spain, since it's the worst insult you can say to a person. The male form "puto", on the other hand, is a very offensive word for "gay".

* ''Coño'' = CountryMatters. Although it's not nearly as offensive as that word is English (ESPECIALLY in North America), and it's never used to describe a person, but rather as an interjection. "¿Qué coño ___?" equates to "What the fuck ___?" in peninsular Spanish (see note below on profanity in Spain). Saying that a person is "un coño de madre/un coño de su madre" means not that they're ''that'' part of their mother anatomy, but that the person is a bastard, and the expression "¡El coño de tu madre!" ''is'' a direct insult, being even worse than calling the person "Hijo de puta". There is also the derivate word "coñazo", that in Spain means something among bothersome or annoying (as in "esa persona es un coñazo", that person is very annoying) but in Venezuela means "beating" (Te voy a meter un coñazo = I'm going to hit you hard)

* ''Gilipollas'' = One of the most common insults in Spain. It doesn't have a literal translation, but the "-pollas" at the end comes from where you think it comes from. It would be a rough equivalent to "dumbass", although somewhat more offensive. This word also has an UnusualEuphemism version in "gilipuertas", which subtitutes "pollas" ("dicks") with "puertas" ("doors"). In Catalonia (North East of Spain) it's also used the short form ''"Gilí"'', which is considered a kinda "softer" version of the word.

->''"El inglés es ideal para hablar de negocios, el alemán se hizo para las ciencias, el francés es el lenguaje del amor y el español... Ah, el español, es el idioma para hablar con Dios…"'' [[hottip:*:"English is perfect for talking business, German is just the thing for science, French is the language of love, and Spanish... Ah, Spanish, it is the language one speaks with God..."]]

An interesting note about Spanish is the frequency of ClusterFBomb in common speech, particularly in Spain. Spanish speakers tend to use stronger swear words and use them more often. The prevalence of this in Spain is said to be due to the Franco regime's oppressive enforcement of clean-mouthed-ness; when that regime fell in the late 1970s, people began cussing left, right, and center. By far the most common word is "joder", the proper inflection and placement of which takes practice, said by everybody from chavales (boys, preteens), to abuelitas (little old ladies). Truly offensive peninsular profanity relies on blasphemy and creativity. ''Hostias'', or "host" (as in sacrament) is somewhat more offensive than "joder", while ''Me cago en Dios y las tetas de la Virgen'' (I shit upon God and the Virgin Mary's tits) means you probably just amputated something. [[RefugeInVulgarity Overly agressive or profane]] swearing ([[UpToEleven even moreso than these latter examples]]) is possible, but rare and mostly used in derivative works for comedic effect, such as "Te voy a sacar los putos ojos y me voy a mear en los agujeros para que te escueza"[[hottip:*:"I'm going to gouge your fucking eyes out and piss in the holes till it burns]]. Spaniard are perceived as more profane than Latin Americans, not because this is fundamentally true but because there is more swearing on Spanish TV (even on family-oriented shows), while most Latin American countries [[MoralGuardians enforce cleaner language]] on media to very ridiculous extremes (where even GoshDangItToHeck can be considered too much).

->''"El inglés es ideal para hablar de negocios, el alemán se hizo para las ciencias, el francés es el lengua del amor y el español... Ah, el español, es el idioma para hablar con Dios…"'' [[hottip:*:"English is perfect for talking business, German is just the thing for science, French is the language of love, and Spanish... Ah, Spanish, it is the language one speaks with God..."]]

** Subjunctive imperfect (''imperfecto de subjuntivo''): The subtleties of the subjunctive mood were explained above. This one is used when the preceding clause is in the imperfect, preterite, conditional, or the present, past, and conditional perfects. Also used to express the condition used to fulfill the conditional tense: "''Yo comería si '''tuviera''' hambre.''" (I'd eat if I were hungry.)

'''Pronouns'''

* ''Carajo'' = An interjection roughly equivalent to damn, fuck, or in some cases hell.

An interesting note about Spanish is the frequency of ClusterFBomb in common speech, particularly in Spain. Spanish speakers tend to use stronger swear words and use them more often. The prevalence of this in Spain is said to be due to the Franco regime's oppressive enforcement of clean-mouthed-ness; when that regime fell in the late 1970s, people began cussing left, right, and center. By far the most common word is "joder", the proper inflection and placement of which takes practice, said by everybody from chavales (boys, preteens), to abuelitas (little old ladies). Truly offensive peninsular profanity relies on blasphemy and creativity. ''Hostias'', or "host" (as in sacrament) is somewhat more offensive than "joder", while ''Me cago en Dios y las tetas de la Virgen'' (I shit upon God and the Virgin Mary's tits) means you probably just amputated something. [[RefugeInVulgarity Overly agressive or profane]] swearing ([[UpToEleven even moreso than these latter examples]]) is possible, but rare and mostly used in derivative works for comedic effect, such as "Te voy a sacar los putos ojos y me voy a mear en los agujeros para que te escueza"[[hottip:*:"I'm going to gouge your fucking eyes out and piss in the holes till it burns]]. Spaniard are perceived as more profane than Latin Americans, not because this is fundamentally true but because there is more swearing on Spanish TV even on family-oriented shows, while most Latin American countries enforce cleaner language on media to BadButt extremes.

* ''Coño'' = CountryMatters. Although it's not nearly as offensive as that word is English (ESPECIALLY in North America), and it's rarely used to describe a person, but rather as an interjection. "¿Qué coño ___?" equates to "What the fuck ___?" in peninsular Spanish (see note below on profanity in Spain). Saying that a person is "un coño de madre/un coño de su madre" means not that they're ''that'' part of their mother anatomy, but that the person is a bastard, and the expression "¡El coño de tu madre!" ''is'' a direct insult, being even worse than calling the person "Hijo de puta". There is also the derivate word "coñazo", that in Spain means something among bothersome or annoying (as in "esa persona es un coñazo", that person is very annoying) but in Venezuela means "beating" (Te voy a meter un coñazo = I'm going to hit you hard)
* ''Culo'' = Ass, used in pretty much the same situations as in English and then some more. ''De mi culo'' is "my ass" in some Latin American countries. A father of a teenage daughter, when she says where she goes with her date, may say ''"'Vamos al cine' de mi culo."'' ("'We're going to the movies' my ass."). In Spain it's also used in the construction "de culo" for "screwed"; ''"Vamos de culo"'' can mean "We're screwed." Venezuelan males also use the term to refer to a OneNightStand or someone they have a superficial sex-based relationship (but never saying it in front of the person); "ese un culo que me levanté anoche" means "a girl I picked up last night".

An interesting note about Spanish is the frequency of ClusterFBomb in common speech, particularly in Spain. Spanish speakers tend to use stronger swear words and use them more often. The prevalence of this in Spain is said to be due to the Franco regime's oppressive enforcement of clean-mouthed-ness; when that regime fell in the late 1970s, people began cussing left, right, and center. By far the most common word is "joder", the proper inflection and placement of which takes practice, said by everybody from chavales (boys, preteens), to abuelitas (little old ladies). Truly offensive peninsular profanity relies on blasphemy and creativity. ''Hostias'', or "host" (as in sacrament) is somewhat more offensive than "joder", while ''Me cago en Dios y las tetas de la Virgen'' (I shit upon God and the Virgin Mary's tits) means you probably just amputated something. [[RefugeInVulgarity Overly agressive or profane]] swearing ([[UpToEleven even moreso than these latter examples]]) is possible, but rare and mostly used in derivative works for comedic effect, such as "Te voy a sacar los putos ojos y me voy a mear en los agujeros para que te escueza"[[hottip:*:"I'm going to gouge your fucking eyes out and piss in the holes till it burns]].

* ''Coño'' = CountryMatters. Although it's not nearly as offensive as that word is English (ESPECIALLY in North America), and it's never used to describe a person, but rather as an interjection. "¿Qué coño ___?" equates to "What the fuck ___?" in peninsular Spanish (see note below on profanity in Spain).
* ''Culo'' = Ass, used in pretty much the same situations as in English and then some more. ''De mi culo'' is "my ass" in some Latin American countries. A father of a teenage daughter, when she says where she goes with her date, may say ''"'Vamos al cine' de mi culo."'' ("'We're going to the movies' my ass."). In Spain it's also used in the construction "de culo" for "screwed"; ''"Vamos de culo"'' can mean "We're screwed."

An interesting note about Spanish is the frequency of ClusterFBomb in common speech, particularly in Spain. Spanish speakers tend to use stronger swear words and use them more often. The prevalence of this in Spain is said to be due to the Franco regime's oppressive enforcement of clean-mouthed-ness; when that regime fell in the late 1970s, people began cussing left, right, and center. By far the most common word is "joder", the proper inflection and placement of which takes practice, said by everybody from chavales (boys, preteens), to abuelitas (little old ladies). Truly offensive peninsular profanity relies on blasphemy and creativity. ''Hostias'', or "host" (as in sacrament) is somewhat more offensive than "joder", while ''Me cago en Dios y las tetas de la Virgen'' (I shit upon God and the Virgin Mary's tits) means you probably just amputated something. [[RefugeInVulgarity Overly agressive or profane]] swearing ([[UpToEleven even moreso than these latter examples]]) is possible, but rare and mostly used in derivative works for comedic effect, such as "Te voy a sacar los putos ojos y me voy a mear en los agujeros para que te escueza"[[hottip:*:"I'm going to gouge your fucking eyes out and piss in the holes till it burns]].