The (language of) rain in Spain-- Fun with Spanish, 2

(This entry is the second in an occasional series on fun/interesting discoveries I've made while blundering my way through Castilian Spanish.)

The school year is over, and I'm taking advantage of a block of free time before my flight home to do some traveling through northern Spain. This area--which includes the provinces of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and Basque Country (Pais Vasco)-- is famous for its beautiful, wild coast; fantastic seafood; rich regional cultures; and spectacular, spectacularly green mountainous scenery.

Emphasis on the green and on the way it gets that way. Much like its Celtic and British cousins, northern Spain is impossibly green, thanks to copious amounts of rain.

It follows, then, that there is plenty of wordplay in the language when it comes to wet weather.

1) Pouring
As a language nerd, I always love to teach my students English idioms. I think idioms in general are pretty fascinating. One that has always been popular with my classes is "It's raining cats and dogs." I guess I can't blame them for enjoying it-- it's a pretty silly image.

The Spanish equivalent is "Está lloviendo a cántaros," which means literally, "It's raining vases" (the closest translation in this case would be, I guess, "It's raining buckets.")  In this case a cántaro is a large clay vase or pot, usually terra cotta and with two handles. In years past cántaros were used to collect drinking water, which makes the meaning of the phrase clear and gives it an optimistic tone ("Hooray, we'll have water to drink!") that's absent in any of our commentary about pets.

2) The silliest rain
Legend has it that the Inuit have 200 words for snow; it follows that the perpetually moist Asturians would have a number of words for rain. My favorite so far (which applies here in Asturias but which I have heard used in other parts of the country, as well) is mojabobos.

To understand this term, we need to split it into two parts. The first, moja, comes from the verb mojarse, which means "to get wet." The word bobo is a slang term that means something like "foolish person," "idiot," or (to reach for a term in yet another language) schlemiel.

Mojabobos is a fine rain, really a mist-- the sort that foolish people think doesn't call for an umbrella or a jacket. The way a friend described it to me, the bobo gets ready to go out to a bar, sees it's raining ever so slightly, and decides he can't feel the rain enough for it to merit any kind of protective gear. So he walks down the street, whistling or humming a tune... but by the time he reaches the bar, he has paid the mojabobos price and is completely soaked. Silly bobo, next time bring an umbrella.

Fun with Spanish, 1: At the beach

While I've focused generally on cultural adventures in this blog, the truth is that language is culture. There's a great deal to be learned about a country or a people through its language. It's true that I go to Spanish classes two to three times a week at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (Official Language School), but my real classroom is in Calle Mayor, in the bars and theaters of this city, in the grocery stores and train stations and in the new friendships I've made. So, my thought is to add a new language feature here, mini blog posts to teach you some small Spanish somethings I'm picking up here in my daily life.

Today's iteration has to do with the ocean--well, sort of.

1) Scrambled sea
Let's say you're at the beach on a blazing hot day. Your sailboat-owning friend invites you on a tour around the bay. That sounds good, you say-- but just as you are preparing to depart, a couple of threatening black thunderheads roll in, and a stiff breeze kicks up. You hear peals of thunder, and even the water in the marina is roiling. Going on this boat ride would be a one-way ticket to seasick central. You turn to your friend and say sadly, "El mar está revuelto."

Strictly speaking, you're calling the water "choppy" the way we would in English, unsettled or uneven. The interesting thing here is that the direct translation is "The sea is scrambled"--the same sort of "scrambled" that shows up to describe eggs on bar menus all over Spain, usually accompanied by an assortment of cheeses, chorizo, or mushrooms. No "choppy" equivalents here-- Spaniards prefer a different kitchen metaphor for their seas.

2) Hangover or undertow?
I first learned the word "hangover" from a couple of Columbian students who attended the school where I taught in Boston. "Una resaca" was an all-purpose excuse for them, explaining lateness, distraction, or exhaustion. Las resacas are topics of much discussion here in Spain as well--mostly as a point of pride if one can survive a particularly difficult morning after last night's festivities, or else if one never gets a hangover at all. (These individuals are particularly to be envied by those of us who hangover after half a glass of wine.)

The concept gets linguistically more interesting when you find out that the word for an undertow at a beach is also "una resaca." Not only does it make the age-old admonition not to swim when there's an undertow doubly wise-- it also creates a much more evocative description of the experience of a-morning-after. Who among us hasn't felt like he or she was being sucked into a deep, dark void after a night getting especially friendly with tequila or rum?