¡Hola amigos!
Every Spanish learner should know at least one riddle (adivinanza), one tongue twister (trabalenguas) and one Spanish joke (chiste), so here are a handful of our favourites at home (and at the bottom of the post, a favour to ask by Ben!)
¡Una adivinanza!
Oro parece,
plata no es;
el que no lo adivine,
bien tonto es.
Translation – It looks like gold, it isn’t silver, whoever doesn’t guess it is really stupid! (But don’t be fooled by the translation, the answer is hidden in the actual Spanish words!)
And here’s a bonus one!
Con una gran boca
Y un solo diente
Desde lo alto
Llama a la gente
(Translation – with a big mouth and only one tooth, from on high it calls to the people.)
Do you know the answers to these two riddles? Find the solutions at the very bottom of this post!
Un trabalenguas – A Spanish Tongue Twister
Try saying this as fast as possible in Spanish without getting your tongue in a twist!
Tres tristes tigres
tragaban trigo
en tres tristes trastos
sentados tras un trigal.
Sentados tras un trigal,
en tres tristes trastos
tragaban trigo
tres tristes tigres.
(Meaning: Three sad tigers swallowed wheat in three sad utensils sitting behind a wheat field).
Un chiste – A Spanish joke!
The only Spanish joke Ben has ever been able to remember is this one:
Dos peces en el mar. Un pez dice al otro pez, “¿Qué hace tu padre?” Y el otro pez contesta: “¡Nada!”
Do you get it? If not, it’s a play on words. In answer the the question, “What does your dad do?”, the second fish answers “Nada” – which means both “nothing”, and “he swims” – top quality humour! Spanish people will laugh at this joke!
Here’s one more:
¿Por qué comes caracoles?
Porque no me gusta la comida rápida.
(Why do you eat snails? Because I don’t like fast food!)
We hope you enjoyed these!
Un favor…
If you are one of the wonderful people that bought my book ‘Notes on the Internet Dream’ I’d be very grateful if you could take two minutes to leave an honest review of the book on your Amazon page (.com, .co.uk etc) it would help me enormously when I publicise the book further afield after Easter (so far NIS listeners are the only people that know about it!)
More about the book and the Amazon links are here.
Solutions to the riddles:
The first one is…. Un plátano – a banana. Look at the words again – Plata-no es = Plátano es – it is a banana!)
The second one (Con un gran boca…) is…… A bell!
Here’s a bonus one in the same vein as the first:
Por un caminito adelante
va caminando un bicho
y el nombre de ese bicho
ya te lo he dicho.
(Going forth along a path a creature is walking, and the name of that creature, I’ve already told you.)
The answer is… Una vaca – a cow. (Va Caminando = Vaca!)
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In episode 14 Ben and Marina discuss Paco de Lucia, the famous flamenco guitarist who took this very Spanish music onto the international stage.
¡Un abrazo desde Madrid!
Dear friends,
Queridos amigos,
