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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Spanish Word of the Day: ‘Espabilar’

This is the word you need to use if it's coffee that gets you going in the morning!

Published: 2 August 2019 08:45 CEST
Updated: 31 August 2020 15:00 CEST

Spanish Word of the Day: 'Espabilar'

Photo: nito103/Depositphotos

The word means to wake up, pay attention, or be more alert! There are lots of different ways to use it do let's get to it and see some examples.

El café me espabila por las mañanas.

Coffee wakes me up in the mornings

It can also mean to be more alert:

Espabila o te quedarás sin sitio en la mesa.

Watch out or you'll have nowhere to sit at the table.

Tuve que tomarme una bebida energética para poder espabilar y estudiar.

I had to take an energy drink to be able to wake up and study

It also means to get a move on:

¡Espabila, que llegamos tarde!

Hurry up, we are going to be late

Pronunciation:

Es-pa-bee-lar

Check out our other word of the day posts

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.

READ ALSO; How to speak the Spanish language of love

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Spanish Word of the Day: 'Chachi'

Chachi is a colloquial way to express approval for something or someone, in the sense of it/them being cool, awesome or great.

It’s mainly a word used by young people in Spain, so saying it to your bank manager or boss may raise an eyebrow or two, but it’s in no way derogatory or rude.

There’s even the expression ¡Chachi piruli Juan Pelotilla! that was popularised by a 90s’ kids show on TV called Telebuten, but it’s now a rather outdated way of saying ‘cool’ in Spanish.

Chachi is certainly a rather bizarre sounding word and Spain’s Royal Academy actually has it recorded as deriving from chanchi (which nobody uses).

Linguists are not 100 percent certain about the origin of the word but there are two very interesting theories.

The first is that chachi was first coined in the southern coastal city of Cádiz during World War II, at a time where hunger among locals and contraband at the port were both rife.

Smuggled goods from nearby Gibraltar were considered of the utmost quality as they came from the United Kingdom, and the story goes that Gaditanos (the name for people from Cádiz) referred to these bootlegged products as ‘charchil’, in reference to UK Prime Minister at the time Winston Churchill.

Over time, charchil became chachi, a slang word which (if the story is true) came to mean ‘cool’ across Spain.

Other philologists believe that chachi comes from Caló, the language spoken by Spain’s native gipsy or Roma population.

Chachipé or chachipen reportedly means ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ in this language spoken by 60,000 people across the Iberian Peninsula.

This could’ve been shortened to chachi and gone from being used like chachi que sí/claro que sí (of course) to chachi to mean ‘cool’.

Whichever theory is true, chachi is a great word to add to your arsenal of Spanish vocab.

There’s also the Spanish word guay, which has a very similar meaning to chachi; we reviewed it here.

Examples:

Carlos es un tío chachi.

Carlos is a cool guy.

¡Pásalo chachi!

Have a great time!

La verdad es que es juego de mesa muy chachi.

The truth is it’s a very cool board game.

¡Qué chachi! Van a hacer un concierto en la plaza.

How cool! They’re going to hold a concert in the square.

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