Si me toca el gordo, qué hago?
If you translated this as:
¿Si me toca el gordo, que hago?
If the fat man touches me, what do I do?
You'd be wrong. Let's find out why.
OK, the truth is, whether or not your translation is wrong depends on context. "El gordo" does mean fat man, but it also has another meaning.
"El gordo" is a colloquial way of referring to "la lotería". And "lotería" means lottery in case you don't know. It's not uncommon for us to refer to the lottery as "the big one", and "El gordo" is the Spanish version of that. "El gordo" is universal, so you can use this with Spanish speakers from anywhere.
You may have wondered about the use of tocar in this sentence. Literally "si me toca" translates to "if it touches me", but we wouldn't say that in English. You could have easily said:
¿Si me gano el gordo, qué hago?
If I win the the big one, what do I do?
As you can see, using the verb ganar (to win) is more of a direct translation. But using the verb tocar is also a very common way of expressing this. It's also a good way of flexing your Spanish muscles and impressing your Spanish speaking friends.
And speaking of tocar, it's used in a few other ways you may find surprising. But I'm not going to tell you what they are in this post. In fact, I'm not going to tell you at all, because another fellow blogger has already written a great post about this, so why reinvent the wheel?
My new found internet friend and Spanish aficionado runs the blog Vocabat.com. Her blog focuses on Colombian Spanish and gives us some great insight on the language and culture of Colombia. What makes her blog even more informative is that she is reporting directly from the city of Medellin. I can't even begin to tell you how jealous I am. Anyway, it's a great blog, check it out.
Here's the link to her post on the verb tocar. If you're serious about learning Spanish, be sure to read it, because it's both informative, and amusing. Not to mention it may very well save you some embarrassment.
¿Me toca o me toco?
That's it for today, ¡hasta la próxima!
¿Si me toca el gordo, que hago?
If the fat man touches me, what do I do?
You'd be wrong. Let's find out why.
OK, the truth is, whether or not your translation is wrong depends on context. "El gordo" does mean fat man, but it also has another meaning.
"El gordo" is a colloquial way of referring to "la lotería". And "lotería" means lottery in case you don't know. It's not uncommon for us to refer to the lottery as "the big one", and "El gordo" is the Spanish version of that. "El gordo" is universal, so you can use this with Spanish speakers from anywhere.
You may have wondered about the use of tocar in this sentence. Literally "si me toca" translates to "if it touches me", but we wouldn't say that in English. You could have easily said:
¿Si me gano el gordo, qué hago?
If I win the the big one, what do I do?
As you can see, using the verb ganar (to win) is more of a direct translation. But using the verb tocar is also a very common way of expressing this. It's also a good way of flexing your Spanish muscles and impressing your Spanish speaking friends.
And speaking of tocar, it's used in a few other ways you may find surprising. But I'm not going to tell you what they are in this post. In fact, I'm not going to tell you at all, because another fellow blogger has already written a great post about this, so why reinvent the wheel?
My new found internet friend and Spanish aficionado runs the blog Vocabat.com. Her blog focuses on Colombian Spanish and gives us some great insight on the language and culture of Colombia. What makes her blog even more informative is that she is reporting directly from the city of Medellin. I can't even begin to tell you how jealous I am. Anyway, it's a great blog, check it out.
Here's the link to her post on the verb tocar. If you're serious about learning Spanish, be sure to read it, because it's both informative, and amusing. Not to mention it may very well save you some embarrassment.
¿Me toca o me toco?
That's it for today, ¡hasta la próxima!
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