Burqueño slang, spoken by residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico, includes such expressions as umbers, said ominously when someone’s caught doing something wrong, as well as get down, meaning “to get out of a vehicle” and put gas for...
Who is she from home? meaning “What’s her maiden name?” is a construction common in communities with significant Polish heritage. It’s what linguists call a calque — a word or phrase from another language translated literally...
The Italian word ponte means “bridge,” as in the Ponte Vecchio of Florence. In Italian, ponte now also denotes the Monday or Friday added to make for a long weekend. Other languages, such as German and Spanish, also make a similar use of their words...
Alex from Los Angeles, California, remembers his Spanish-speaking grandmother using filibustero to mean “ruffian.” The term shares an origin with English filibuster: both trace back to Dutch vrijbuiter, meaning “freebooter,” a pirate who seizes...
The poetic Spanish phrase “nadie te quita lo bailado” expresses the idea that once you’ve made a memory, you’ll always have it, no matter what. Literally, it translates as “no one can take away what you’ve danced...
The early 20th-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado has a beautiful poem about finding one’s way. The translation in this segment is by Anna Rosenwong and María José Giménez. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Antonio...