Spanish Word of the Day: 'Caliente'

Caliente means hot or warm.

Warm/hot:

• ¡Ten cuidado, el té está caliente!

        Watch out, the tea is hot!

• Mi comida no está caliente.

        My food isn’t warm.

You can also use caliente when talking about something that's new, just like we use 'hot' in English for exclusive or some breaking news.

• Es una noticia caliente.

        It's hot off the press.

You can also use the verb calentarse to talk about when someone gets hot tempered:

• Me calenté cuando me dijo que ya no quería ser mi amigo y le grité.

       I got mad when he told me that he didn't want to be my friend and I shouted at him.

Now we get into the more risqué examples. Caliente can get you into hot water if you don't understand when and how to use it. If caliente means hot then 'I am hot' (as in temperature) would translate to estoy caliente, right? Well, no.

• Estoy caliente.

        I'm horny (turned on)

As you can see, this false friend could lead to some rather awkward office small talk with Juan from finance, so make sure that you're using caliente right when talking about temperature. When using caliente to talk about being turned on, we use ponerse:

• Su voz me pone caliente.

       Her voice turns me on.

• Me pones caliente.

       You turn me on.

Pronunciation:

kah-lee-yen-te

READ ALSO: Five tricks to help you sound like a native in Spanish

This word of the day has been contributed by LAE Madrid, the leading Spanish academy in Madrid. Accredited by the Insitituto Cervantes, it offers Spanish courses for all levels and also has Spanish classes for kids and families.

Check out our other word of the day posts