Hola amigas y amigos!
Autumn is here! It’s freezing in Madrid! Marina found a funny Spanish phrase this morning, ‘Los únicos marrones que me gustan, son los del otoño’…
It looks like it means, the only brown colours I like, are the autumnal ones (the leaves, of course), but… did you know what else ’un marrón’ is?
It’s something which is a massive a pain in the neck! For example:
Me ha caído un marrón tremendo en el trabajo – I’ve been given a real nightmare to do at work
Tengo un marrón en casa, todos tienen la gripe y yo no puedo faltar al trabajo – Things are really tough at home, everyone has got ‘flu and I can’t miss work (You can also say, ‘tengo un marronazo en casa’ which sounds even more dramatic!)
Menudo marrón, me han pillado copiando en un examen – What a nightmare, I’ve been caught copying in an exam
So what’s the opposite of ‘un marrón’? how do you say something is really great? We asked our son, and he said, ‘¡Es la pera limonera!’
For example, ‘¡El parque de atracciones de Madrid es la pera limonera!’ – Madrid’s theme park is fantastic!
We looked up ‘pera limonera’ and found it is an actual type of pear. One Spanish fruit website I found made the following fantastic statement:
‘Las características de esta fruta, fresca, viva y positiva pero algo ácida y explosiva, también definen en cierta manera nuestra cultura española’ – The characteristics of this fruit, that it is fresh, alive and positive, but a little acidic and explosive, also define to a certain extent our Spanish culture’ – Spot on!
We’ve got a ‘pera limonera’ for you a week from today, on Monday November 5th, when the first of our brand new Advanced-level ’Notes in Spanish Conversations’ audios will be ready for you to listen to! We’ll be back with more details, more Real Spanish, and more big news, before the end of the week.
Until then, keep listening to our Real Spanish audios!
¡Un abrazo!
Ben y Marina
The photo at the top of this email: Autumn in Madrid’s Retiro Park, Palacio de Cristal, back in 2011, Via our Instagram feed.