Category Archives: Clothes

Munchkins, pañaleras y hasta más – Medical Spanish 1/2

Posted on January 2, 2013 | 14 Comments

I frequently toy with the idea of starting a separate blog just for medical Spanish, pues, that’s the area of Spanish where I spend the vast majority of my time these days. I like the idea of sharing words I come across while interpreting, both words that patients use and English words whose translation I’m not certain of. I also get a lot of visits to this blog from people searching for something like an assessment of Spanish fluency for the medical field. It’s certainly not even close to enough to just know all the body parts, symptoms, and diseases– I have the most unexpected words and topics come up on a daily basis. There are also so many different ways to say certain things, and I love to keep and share organized lists to try to keep track of all the nuances. It’s fascinating to me. So, I’m going to do that soon. This post will be somewhat of a trial run, then.

I’ll probably just share one word at a time– I feel like vocabulary is best learned in small sips. That way, you can really savor it. Gulping down vocab can be exhilarating, but in my experience, it rarely sticks. Today, though, I’ll share all the words I wrote down today while working. Some were new to me, some were words or phrases I felt I probably could have translated more naturally or idiomatically, and others were just interesting or cool.

How’s the munchkin? - The nurse was chatting with the patient, who had just had a baby. She was doing fine with the basic questions and didn’t need me until the nurse asked, “How’s the munchkin?” That’s when she drew a blank, turned to me, and had me interpret for the rest of the appointment. Munchkin– haha, what a funny word. I definitely did not rack my brain to try to find the “right” translation for it. I knew it wouldn’t be there, nor did it matter. Was it truly necessary to explain to this woman the offhand reference to singing, dancing dwarfs from The Wizard of Oz? Of course not. (I didn’t even know until now that the word Munchkin was invented by the author of the book, Frank L. Baum.) I also associate them with doughnut holes thanks to Dunkin’ Donuts. I just said, ¿Cómo está su bebecito? Surely nene or chiquillo would have worked just as well. Any other suggestions?

Glucola - The name of the sweetened drink for the oral glucose tolerance test used to screen for gestational diabetes.

Incubadora - incubator

Pañalera - diaper bag (but can also be a diaper store [that also has related accessories], or a diaper changing pad) (In case you didn’t know, diaper = pañal)

I love the idea of little diaper stores! Look how cute they are. I would totally move back to Latin America in a heartbeat just to have a neighborhood pañalera to patronize one day. 

I’d just love to know how native Spanish speakers pronounce “Huggies.”

Isn’t it adorable? I miss all the little specialty stores in Latin America. The big-box stores just don’t have any charm to them.

A pañalera servicio a domicilio! What’s not to love?

Tosco, rústico - Rough, coarse. A mom used these words to describe socks that her infant son had worn that had given him a blister, contrasting them with other softer pairs that he wears. I probably would have said áspero, but I’m glad to know that these words are used as well. Before, I mainly associated tosco with a coarse, vulgar type of person, and rústico more with simple, handmade furniture. (I remember going to store after tiny store of muebles rústicos with my mom in Bogotá, looking for furniture for my apartment.) Now that I’ve looked into it a little more, I also see burdo and basto for rough in regards to material/fabric. Native speakers? What say you?

To slough off - Desprenderse, descamar/se

To step aside (figuratively) - Hacerse a un lado, dar un paso al costado

If you have any better suggestions or corrections, please let me know! Don’t be shy. There’s almost always a better way to say something, and I love learning from people, not books or dictionaries.

So, what did you learn today? Don’t hog the knowledge and keep it all to yourself; share with us! The whole point of learning a language, after all, is to have an intercambio and dialogue. ¿O no?

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Posted in Body, Clothes, Medical, Places, Verbs

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Dirty laundry, second load

Posted on October 8, 2012 | 2 Comments

We did a load of laundry a while back, but we didn’t quite finish. There’s still another pile in the hamper, still a few more laundry vocab terms to go over. OK, so maybe more than a few. There’s no excuse for each and every one of you to not be fluent Spanish laundry speakers after these two exhaustive lists. I charge ye to go forth and launder, my little bats. But first a word from one of our Colombian sponsors, Shakira, who, as you can see by her tattoo, is just as enthusiastic about laundry as I am (and probably much better at selling it).

First things first. Where is all this exciting laundry action going down? In the laundry room, of course. Most homes in Latin America don’t have a laundry room como tal, but more modern ones sometimes do. Whether they have a washing machine or just a washtub/sink (or both), it’s very likely in the kitchen, just off the kitchen, or in some other nook in the house. That room or area can be called one of a million things depending on the country. Possibilities include lavadero, área de ropas, lavandería, zona de lavandería, cuarto de la lavadora, cuarto de lavar, área de lavado, zona de lavado, cuarto de lavado, sala de lavado, pieza de lavado, and loggia. That last one, la loggia, is said in Chile, and I find it charming because it reminds me of one my favorite movies, A Room with a View. Though I don’t think a Chilean laundry room is quite the setting Eleanor Lavish had in mind for the characters in her novel . . .

Most Latin American households are fitted with one of these beauties. Behold.

Properly attired with a cepillo and a bar of jabón REY

The most common names for this double sink are lavadero and pila.

What’s our mission? To kill the dirt. That is, la mugre, la suciedad, la roña. 

We want to take especial care with items that are percudidos. Percudido? Percudir? I’m glad you asked. When your clothes get percudido, it can mean one of two things. One meaning is when the dirt gets really deep-set in your whites, producing an insidious grime that doesn’t come out just because you ask it to. It’s when your whites get grubby and dull and blah. That’s percudido. Men, you’ve probably noticed this around the collars and cuffs (los cuellos y los puños) of your shirts. Women, probably your bras. Watch this commercial, El misterio del brasier percudido, and it will all be made clear to you.


So, another one of our goals for our laundry session will be to despercudir la ropa percudida. As for the second meaning of percudido, it can also mean what happens to clothes when they’ve been washed too many times–little by little, the fabric gets worn out and starts to deteriorate.

We could just throw our clothes in a washing machine, but where’s the poetry in that? That’s right, there isn’t any. Let’s wash this tanda by hand and see what colorful laundry vocabulary we can’t coax out of the experience.

To sort clothes – clasificar la ropa, separar la ropa por colores (ropa clara/ropa blanca y ropa oscura)

To wet – mojar, humedecer

To soap up – enjabonar

For this, we’re most likely to use bars of soap. This can be called jabón en barra, jabón en pan, or a pastilla de jabón.

To scrub – restregar, tallar (Mex.), fregar, refregar

(Reggaetón is often called restregón by its critics – think about it)

To soak – remojar; to let soak - dejar en remojo, poner en remojo


(Just to mix things up around here a bit. If you know Spanish, I can almost guarantee you can read that Portuguese ad. Môlho is a cognate of remojo from above. How’d you do?)

To rinse – enjuagar

To wring out- exprimir, retorcer, estrujar

To drain, drip dry- (dejar) escurrir

Clothesline, clothes rack – tendedero

Here’s a famous Mexican commercial from back in the day for Rindex detergent. Notice the reference to a dove on a tendedero. I find it really beautiful, especially that last stanza, and I’ve watched it countless times. I’ve put the lyrics below (On the internet for the first time ever! Go me.)


La Lola y la Bartola se dieron un agarrón,
querían saber quién usaba el detergente más buenón.
De la Bartola su ropa quedó limpia y perfumada,
mientras que a la pobre Lola le quedó de la patada.
Al mirar los resultados, Lola se puso de llorona
por mal tirar su dinero y haber sido tan gastalona.
Vuela, vuela palomita, párate en el tendedero.
Diles a todas las señoras que Rindex es el mero mero.

If your Mexican Spanish is a little rusty, Rodney did a great job in this post explaining what el mero mero means.

As you know, some clothes can secar al sol (dry in the sun), while others should secar a la sombra (dry in the shade). Another verb for to air dry is orear.

To hang – tender, colgar

Clothespins – pinzas, ganchos, broches, palillos, palitos, horquillas, perros, prensas, and, well, you can look up the rest of them here. I’m worn out. Once again, Chile wins the award for the most interesting term with perros. But what else could be expected from Neruda’s homeland?

Oh, and how could we forget. An imprescindible part of the laundry experience is the soundtrack. There’s a whole genre of music for housewives called música para planchar, and I see no good reason why we can’t enjoy some jams during the entire laundering process in order to break up the tedium. As it’s pretty hard to beat Juan Gabriel, here’s a great song to set the mood.

Sometimes laundry goes haywire. Here’s some help in talking about it.

To fade – desteñirse, decolorarse, desvanecerse

To bleed, run – desteñir, despintarse (Mex.), soltar color, echar tinte

To stretch out - estirarse, agrandarse, ensancharse, dar de sí/darse de sí

To shrink – encogerse, achicarse

There are, of course, all different kinds of encogimiento.

Did I miss anything? Surely not! Believe me, I have scoured the internet, and these two posts form THE list of laundry vocabulary terms in Spanish, the mother of all lists, if you will. Would-be copycats are better off not even wasting their time trying to reproduce such a master file. I don’t think the internet’s big enough for two such lists, anyway. All right, batlings; you’re all set. A very happy and fluent laundering to you!

What about you? Got any laundry experience in Spanish-speaking countries? Did you already know these words? Which ones? If you’re a native Spanish speaker, anything to correct, clarify, comment on or concur with? Which of these words do you use in your country?

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Posted in Clothes, House, Realia, Themes, Things, Verbs, Video

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Dirty laundry, first load

Posted on September 20, 2012 | 12 Comments

Back in the day, there was this really great site for foreigners living in Colombia called poorbuthappy.com. I remember reading a thread one time where people were soberly discussing their Spanish levels, most of them pathetically dependent on their younger-than-them-by-30-years girlfriend to get through daily interactions. One guy, though, shared that his Spanish had gotten pretty damn good. No, it wasn’t perfect, but he was fluent enough to be able to have an argument with his girlfriend over which laundry detergent to buy. I remember being extremely impressed, and it seemed like as good a goal as any to aim for. At the time, the possibility of being able to opine on the finer points of laundry accoutrements seemed so hopelessly out of my reach. And then . . .

*Flash forward three years*

In the past week at work, I’ve had to talk very in depth about laundry in not one, not two, but three different appointments. Twice it was about allergic reactions on the skin and how to minimize that via laundry changes. Another time, the patient, who works in the laundry room at a hotel, had accidentally mixed bleach and a stain-buster, which then caused a chemical explosion that damaged her lungs. For all three interactions, I had to really get into the nitty-gritty about laundry and its paraphernalia. Ahhh! I did fine, but I want to know this subject like the back of my hand. Poking around the interwebs, I found a deplorable dearth of good info on Spanish laundry vocabulary. Well, count on me, your trusty blogging bat, to fill that void. Here’s the dirt.

Lavar (la) ropa, hacer la colada (Esp.) – to do laundry

Detergente - detergent (detergente líquido, detergente en polvo)

Did you know that this comes from the verb “to deterge”? (Deterger in Spanish) I deterge, you deterge, everybody deterge! Yo deterjo, tú deterges, ¡deterjámonos!

I used to like watching those little rings dissolve

Blanqueador, lejía, cloro – bleach (these are the most universal ones)

A popular brand of bleach in Colombia

Blanquear, decolorar – to bleach

Ha pasado

Quitamanchas - stain-buster, stain remover

Suavizante - fabric softener

Toallitas/hojas suavizantes para secadora - dryer sheets

Lavadora, lavarropas - washing machine

Planned obsolescence

(That comic features two phrases I’ve shared with you on Vocabat: del todo and a posta)

Secadora, secarropas - dryer (not at all common in L. A.!)

Limpieza en seco, lavado en seco - dry cleaning

Tintorería - dry cleaner’s (and they can also do many other clothing and fabric-related services including, notably, dyeing your clothes [tinturar, hence  the name], although this isn’t very common anymore)

An authentic tintorería from way back, more like a dyeworks

Lavandería - laundromat, laundrette/launderette

I have not found self-service laundromats to be common in Latin America. I remember my ex once telling me that for him it was a very “American” concept, something exotic they saw in our movies but couldn’t relate to. Sure, there are places that will wash your clothes, but you drop your clothes off with them. However, coin laundromats (lavanderías autoservicio, lavanderías automáticas) are becoming more and more common. ¿Por qué será?

Had any of you ever heard of a washateria? I hadn’t either. The things you learn from Wikipedia!

Prenda - garment, item of clothing

Ever wondered what a unit of clothing is called in Spanish? It’s a prenda, and sometimes that word can really come in handy. If you take clothing to be dry cleaned or to a seamstress or tailor for them to do alterations (hard to resist down there when it’s all so cheap), you’ll definitely want to be able to tell them how many prendas you have.

A fleet of 3-wheeled trucks standing by in Bogotá to deliver your clean clothes to you

Tanda - load of laundry

I still remember my delight when my ex taught me this word. Its usefulness just can’t be beat. A tanda is a unit, a group, and its uses are extensive. It could be a load of laundry, a batch of cookies, a round of questions, a commercial break, etc. Basically one part of a series. You can also say carga for a load of laundry.

These are the tools that most people use to wash their clothes in the 21st century. Here’s what I used to wash mine during most of my stay in Colombia.

Yes, I was a martyr and I washed my clothes by hand during my first year in Bogotá and my entire time in Medellín. I used a big bucket (a ponchera) and the long handle of . . . for shame, a toilet brush. Plus detergent, of course. At first it was kind of fun. I felt like a pioneer woman out on a prairie somewhere. Then I just got used to it, even though it was a drag. Now it’s simply become another memory embellished by nostalgia. What I wouldn’t give to be crouched over that bucket again in that ant-engorged laundry room, my arms exhausted, stirring those clothes around and around in the blurry water.

Second load of laundry vocabulary coming soon!

As you can see, I’m now overqualified to have that discussion about laundry detergent. Tide or generic? ¿Ariel o Fab? Believe me, I’ll win any argument you throw at me. All I have to do now is go out and find a partner to pick this fight with. Or, he could always come to me.

What about you? Got any laundry experience in Spanish-speaking countries? Did you pick up any words while you were at it? Did you already know these words? If you’re a native Spanish speaker, anything to correct, clarify, comment on or concur with? Are there self-service laundromats where you live? How common are dryers?

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Posted in Clothes, Culture, House, Themes, Verbs

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Slippery Spanish: Fashion, history and language

Posted on June 8, 2012 | 17 Comments

Nerd alert: I love to read the dictionary. I don’t mean English-Spanish dictionaries (although those are cool too); I mean single language dictionaries. Not translations; meanings. Etymologies, literary references, pictures. There’s just one little setback, though: I don’t currently own a dictionary, alas. Solution? Go visit my best friend, Anna Laura, and her husband, Marshall. In lieu of a baby, they have this dictionary that weighs somewhere around ten pounds, and it’s chock-full of word goodness. I went and visited them a few weekends ago and had a ball scanning that thing for interesting and bizarre words. Here’s one that caught my roving eye, jumping out at me because I immediately associated it with its Spanish counterpart, and then the ensuing rabbithole it led me down. Would you have made the connection? That is to say, are you as adroit a nerd as I? A ver.

Pabouch 1687. [See BABOUCHE, PAPOOSH.] A heelless oriental slipper.

Babouches in Marrakesh

Babouche 1695. [ a.F., ad. (uH.) Pers., pa foot + posh covering.] A Turkish or oriental slipper.

Shoe store in Copenhagen, Denmark

Papoosh, papouch 1682. [ a. Pers. paposh slipper, shoe, f. pa foot + posh covering.] A Turkish or Oriental slipper.

I immediately thought: babuchas! What are babuchas? Why, they’re one way to say slippers in Spanish. I’ll come back to this in a minute.

Then I got curious about trying to find some sort of equivalent for pantuflas, which is the more common and standard word for slipper in Spanish. Expecting to be disappointed, I made my way in that direction to find:

Pantofle 1494. [ a.F. pan-toufle. Origin unkn.] A slipper; formerly applied esp. to the high-heeled cork-soled chopines; also to out-door overshoes or goloshes, sandals and the like.

Modern reproduction of overshoe-style pantoufles

That dictionary was revised in the 50s. It looks like modern lexicographers have been able to take a stab at its origin, though: [from French pantoufle, from Old Italian pantofola, perhaps from Medieval Greek pantophellos shoe made of cork, from panto- + phellos cork].

A little Internet sleuth work has confirmed that pantofles came in two styles–a medieval protective, outdoor overshoe or a slipper for indoors which could be high-heeled or Oriental style. They were very delicate and could be highly ornate.

Slipper-style pantoufles

Naturally, I then became curious about chopines.

Chopine, chopin A kind of shoe raised above the ground by means of a cork sole or the like. Nearer Heauen . . . by the altitude of a Choppine. Hamlet II. ii. 445

An Italian chopine

They apparently let women protect their dresses from mud and muck as well as denoted social status. The taller the better, desde luego. They’ve been described as what was possibly the first clothing fad, becoming all the rage in Italy and then spreading to Spain, France, and Switzerland. The dainty stride (read: hobble) they subjected women to apparently became quite attractive to men, assuring them that their wives wouldn’t go a-wanderin’ on them. Italian clergymen were also keen on women tottering on the shoes, giving them the thumbs up because they kept the wearer from indulging in lascivious activities such as dancing. There is also speculation that they were a favorite of prostitutes in order to make them more visible to potential clients.

A Spanish chopine

That didn’t ring any bells, but Wikipedia tells me here and here that chopines in Spanish are chapines. Perhaps I shall one day find myself on a date with someone doing a dissertation on 16th century feminine footwear in Spain, in which case being able to whip out the word chapines just might come in handy, er, footy. Otherwise, I think I can safely relegate that to the useless knowledge section of my brain. Unless, of course, I’m talking about Guatemalans. They’re also known as chapines. Well, maybe I’ll be on a date with one of them someday and can ask for the backstory.

So, why all the fuss about some old shoes? Am I just your typical woman with a clichéd and boring shoe infatuation? Not hardly. However, this little trip through the shoes of yesteryear all too predictably led me back to Spanish, as so many of my mental meanderings are wont to do. The big takeaway was learning a little of the history and etymology behind two words I was already familiar with: pantuflas and babuchas.

Pantuflas are slippers. For some reason, there’s something about the sound of that word to me that makes it sound especially fitting for big, floppy, fuzzy bunny slippers (it must be the “tufl” sound), but the word covers all varieties.

Pantuflas par excellence

I have no idea why, but for some reason the DRAE directs you to pantuflo when you try to look up pantufla. One of us must be out to sea, and I don’t think it’s me. Slippers are so clearly and divinely feminine; just look at them! You can safely use the word pantuflas in all Spanish-speaking countries and rest assured that your meaning is caught. Pantuflos? I’d be prepared for some head-scratching.

PANtuflas

So there I was teaching my eighth graders in Bogotá a few years ago, and I said the word pantuflas. I know, I know; I wasn’t supposed to use Spanish with them. Every once in a blue moon, though, a Spanish word me salía, what can I say? One of our vocab words at the time was “shuffle,” and I was explaining how it’s typical to shuffle when wearing slippers. And then pantuflas simply slipped out of my mouth and into their delighted ears. They always got a kick out of me speaking Spanish. One girl yelled back, “Oh, you mean babuchas!” Babuchas? The girls all nodded sweetly, unaware of the meltdown taking place in my brain at that moment. So, yeah. There you have it. At least in Colombia, you can also call slippers babuchas, although it seems that pantuflas is much more common. (Maybe babuchas is more rural/old-fashioned?) I’ve pressed a few friends up against a wall and tried to demand that they explain the difference to me, and they simply couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. I suppose no culture wants to give away all of its secrets after all.

I know that they mainly say zapatillas in Spain for slippers.

A word to the wise: do not walk around barefoot indoors in Colombia unless you want people to think you’re crazy as a loon and you take pleasure in causing high blood pressure in those around you. In my experience, people generally take their shoes off inside and then immediately slip into a pair of pantuflas/babuchas or house sandals- chanclas, chancletas or arrastraderas (I learned that last one from Blasina, my dear ex-suegra, when she once lent me a pair). Big emphasis on immediately. This is not one of those ahora/ahorita kinds of things you get around to three hours later. Seeing you flaunt your naked, unprotected feet in front of their very friolento sensibilities will not only cause them shock, it will produce extreme discomfort and anguish on their part. You see, for Colombians, bare feet = impending death. I wish I were making this up. You going around with your feet au naturel will keep them up at night. They will go to additional mass services just to pray for your health and to beg God to be merciful when the terminal disease is dealt. They will suffer. Don’t be cruel and insensitive; wrap those feet up.

There are a few more tricks I could teach you about shoes in Colombia, but I think this is plenty for now. Many thanks to Francis Classe for the permission to use images from his website! An amazing shoemaker/cobbler/cordwainer, he even teaches you how to make your very own pantoufles and chopines. Check him out.

What about you? Did you know about pantuflas and babuchas? What other words for shoes in Spanish do you know? Do you find dictionaries as fun as I do? If you’re a native Spanish speaker, anything to correct, clarify, comment on or concur with? What word do you say for slippers?

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Posted in Clothes, Cognates, English, Things

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