Aventuras in Honduras: Spanish-English Translations

So I have been confusing some readers with using too much Spanish vocabulary in the blog lately. Sorry about that. I decided to put together a little list of some of the more common things I might use in the blog, things that are just easier to say in Spanish than explain in English. I’ll also put up a link on the sidebar of the main blog page so that you can always find this entry easily if I say something you don’t understand. I hope this helps and let me know if I forgot anything!

Aldea – a small village on the outskirts of a larger town, i.e. Cisco is an aldea of Senti
Atol – a warm beverage made mostly from corn but that is surprisingly good
Balleada – a big, flour tortilla with various things inside, I like mine with beans, queso, mantequilla, and avacado
Barrio – neighborhood
Biblioteca – library
Busito – small bus, like ones that can be privately rented or the one that goes between Cisco and Senti
Campesino – farmer, someone who works the land
Campo – a soccer field or a rural town/farm area
Centro Basico – technically an elementary school, but I’ll be using it mostly to describe my school here in Cisco, which has grades one through nine; Centro for short
Centro de Salud – health center
Charla – a short, informational talk/lecture, sometimes very formal and other times informally done, very common among YD volunteers
Cheque – good, yes, OK, I understand, got it, all fine, all well, great; frequently used with todo (which means all), as in todo cheque
Chocobananos – bananas dipped in chocolate then frozen, delicious and cheap but not found in my town
Comedor – small eatery, usually attached to someone’s house, less formal than a restaurant
Departamento – mostly equivalent to states in the US, there are 18 of these in Honduras, I live in Ocotepeque
Desvio – the entrance to something
Feria – fair, but each town has their own the same 1-2 weeks each year, lasts a long time, stops everything else in the town, and is a big deal
Finca – farm
Jalon – a ride from someone, usually free, technically what I guess is hitchhiking but extremely common place, accepted by everyone, and safe here
Lempira – the system of money here, one Lempira is roughly worth five cents, the denominations of Lempiras go 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500; there are also coins but they’re rarely used
Licuado – a frozen smoothie, very delicious
Mantequilla – a creamy sauce that’s a mix between sour cream and butter; has a very distinct flavor
Mercado – market, can be very big or tiny, depending on where you are
Merienda – snack, usually a given during any school day or important meeting
Municipalidad – the big area of a town; for example, the municipalidad of Senti includes Cisco and all the other bigger and smaller aldeas around it
Nancy – a gross fruit that I do not like
Parque Central – the main park in a town, weirdly enough is often located in the corner of a town (rather than the center), but usually a happening place
Pila – the big outdoor water basin used to wash clothes, pretty much every house has one
Pinol – a warm beverage with the flavors of cocoa and other spices, good if you add a lot of sugar to it
Pisto – slang for cash
Platanos – a fruit in the banana family but larger than a banana, delicious when fried, OK when baked
Profe – short for profesor or profesora, which means teacher (not necessarily a professor), but when capitalized I use it to mean my main counterpart
Puchica! – an exclamation that basically means “Wow,” can be good or bad
Pulperia – small, convenience-like store that is very common in Honduras, you can buy lots of different food products along with things like toothpaste, pens, and dish soap
Pupusa – meat and/or cheese inside of tortilla mix, fried and delicious
Que Le Vaya Bien – a very common expression said as a goodbye or when people pass in the street, literally means something like “That you go well,” basically comparable to “Have a good one”
Quesillo – yummy, melty cheese
Queso – a hard cheese you sprinkle on things, not delicious but not terrible
Rapadito – smaller, nicer, more expensive busses that make fewer stops
Saldo – the money you add to your phone, since everyone has prepaid here
Tranquilo – calm, relaxed, everything’s good
Vasitos – frozen treats, could be flavored with just about anything, usually delicious but again not found in my town
Vaya Pues – a common expression to use to say goodbye or to get off the phone, literally means “Well, go”
Yo Merezco – literally means “I deserve,” it is a girls’ empowerment program popular with YD and health volunteers; “Yo Tambien Merezco,” literally “I, too, deserve” is the newer program for boys that Matt basically created