Our top 5 Spanish sayings to learn today!

Learning a new language doesn’t have to be all verb tenses and correct word order. Here are our five funnest sayings to learn (and use) today!

  1. Por si las moscas

Literal translation: For if the flies

What it actually means: Por si las moscas is actually another way of saying ‘just incase’. The phrase comes form in the days of long ago when people used to cover their food between mouthfuls in case the flies, a source of disease in those times, came and landed on it.

  1. Costar un ojo de la cara

Literal translation: To cost an eye out of the face

What it actually means: Spanish people use this phrase to express when something is expensive. Whereas in Britain you would say that something ‘costs you an arm and a leg’, the Spanish take it a little further and say that it will cost you an actual eye out of your face.

  1. Ponerse las pilas

Literal translation: Put your batteries in

What it actually means: When your are told or are telling someone to put their batteries in, you are asking them in no subtle way to get their act to together. As you may imagine, it’s a phrase widely used by schoolteachers and parents.

  1. De tal palo tal astilla

Literal translation: From the same stick comes the same splinter

What it actually means: Whereas in English we would say ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ (or words to that effect) to express a similarity between a parent and their child, in Spanish sticks and splinters are used to suggest the same.

  1. No tener pelos en la lengua

Literal translation: To not have hairs on your tongue

What it actually means: Probably the most unusual of the five, the Spanish phrase that literally translates to ‘not having hairs on your tongue’ refers to someone who doesn’t think before they speak.

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