What would you do if someone gave you pumpkins? Soup them? Pie them? Put them away for Halloween? In Spain, you’d probably kick down a door and sulk. Dar calabazas a alguien, to give someone pumpkins, means to reject them, to turn them down. It used to be only hapless Don Juans who got the [...]
No-one is ever going to persuade me that a cock goes quiquiriqui or kikiriki, no matter what its nationality. After years of beratement (yes, I know this word doesn’t exist but I feel it should) from my students, however, I am prepared to admit that cock-a-doodle-doo is also pushing it a bit. Perhaps the Japanese [...]
We all know what a Garlic Moment is. Send us yours and we’ll post the best: they should not only be amusing but also helpful and instructive. To kick off, here’s Georgina Tremayne from Barcelona with – what else? – a telephone problem. Fatal Construction Moving from one apartment to another apartment in the same [...]
Animals ‘speak’ different languages. An English dog responds to “Sit!” a Catalan dog to “¡Seu!” and a Spanish dog to the long-winded “¡Siéntate!” Of course, what they are responding to (or not, as the case may be) is the tone, not the word. My cats don’t care what I call them as long as I [...]
Browsing Catalan idioms the other day in search of the quirky, the bizarre, the downright weird – well, the bloggable - I came upon a list of food-related ones and – oh, how could I have forgotten: s’ha acabat el bròquil. The broccoli has finished. Which means – said in a voice that brooks no [...]
