Categories Learn Spanish Phrases

More great, Real Spanish phrases

You’ve probably heard the phrase, ‘Estás en Babia’, to mean that you are dreamy, distracted, or ‘on another planet’. It comes from times gone by, when the kings of the region of León would go to the nearby area of Babia to hunt.

Someone was telling me this story again the other day, and commented, ‘Los reyes se quedaron allí ensimismados.’ – The kings were there (in Babia) lost in themselves, lost in their own thoughts. What a great word! Ensimismados!

Ben está ensimismado – Ben is in a dream

Here’s one more great one from our kitchen table…

I was sitting at the table the other day, ‘ensimismado’, while we were preparing supper. Marina, wanting my help, said ‘No te sientes ahí como un zero a la izquierda’ – Don’t sit there being useless.

Como un zero a la izquierda’ means something is useless – it literally means, ‘like a zero on the left’. When you put a zero on the left of a number, e.g. 023, that zero does nothing, hence the origin of the expression!

No quiero trabajar más con David, es un cero a la izquierda – I don’t want to work with David anymore, he’s useless.

More cool Spanish like this!

Remember, there is so much more cool Spanish like this in all our free Spanish-learning audios! We also highlight this type of phrase specifically in the worksheets for each level, available in our store.