More or less married
After a month of Spanish lessons, my friend joined a Mexican firm in a small town where the office workers only spoke Spanish and a little broken English. One of the Mexican secretaries asked: ¿Estás casado? - meaning "Are you married?", to which my friend replied Más o menos - meaning 'More or less'. He had mistranslated the word casado as cansado, the Spanish for tired. We all had a good laugh.
Editor's note: Many of us are thrown by this one! Estar cansado/a means to be tired, while dropping the 'n' - estar casado/a - means to be married.
Sent by: N.J.Srinivasulu
Comments
In a similar, "ito" is added to the end of a word to imply "little" to the meaning.
Momentito is perhaps understandable but what is a little hour as in horito.
I am a Spanish teacher and the way I teach my students to make the difference with a bit of humor is to say: estoy cansada de estar casada ("I am tired of being married").
A common mistake - I always have to think about which of these words to use!
I remember that cansada means tired rather than married by thinking of the n in cansada standing for (k)nackered!
I did something similar when my Spanish exchange partner came over. I was telling her about a friend of my Dad's who was married to a Spanish woman, but ended up saying 'tired'. Needless to say she did not understand!
I caught out with the same casado/cansado trap A little tip that someone taught me was to think of a house (casa). Married people live in houses... So you think of casado for 'married' and cansado for 'tired'. I've never made the same mistake since.
I was in Chapultepec Park in Mexico City, admiring the colourful fruit stands. I then asked the flirty young gentlemen at the stand if I could take pictures. They agreed, and while I was snapping I thought one of them said ¿Está cansada?
Well, it was 10am, but tourists are always tired, so I replied Un poquito. As I went on down the street, I realized they had actually asked ¿Está casada? So someone in Mexico thinks I'm a 'little bit married'!
Casado (married) effectively means 'to be housed'.
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