Hi folks!

As promised, here is a new idiom and we will try to make them more frequent. This is one of my favorites and I recently learned that it does have an equivalent in Spanish, thanks to my father who was visiting me in the U.S. at the time. We happened to be discussing what to do for Christmas Eve and he happened to use this idiom to express what we needed to do.

Care to give a guess?

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”.

Happy New Year to all! So sorry about the delay in discussing this one!

A backseat driver is, in fact, one who constantly tells the driver how to drive. He doesn;t have to be IN the backseat per se…he can be next to the driver too, but feels the need to tell the driver how to do it, whether it’s where to turn, when to stop, or what color the light is.

I guess our conclusion is that there is no equivalent in Spanish, at least language-wise, because I definitely know a few backseat drivers in our country, so maybe our job would be to come up with a term for them!

I’ll provide a new idiom shortly. Be on the look out!

Well congratulations, Carlos Augusto, Satuple One, Jorge, Olga, and Luis Guillermo, all these readers said that the idiom “cost an arm and a leg” means to be very expensive, which indeed it does.

Its equivalent in Spanish is, in fact, ”cuesta un ojo de la cara”. The only difference is that we use arms and legs in English, and in Spanish we use eyes.

We could discuss what costs more, an arm, a leg or an eye… but that would be an entirely different forum!

Here are some examples of how to use it in a sentence:

Everything in that store costs an arm and a leg…

Health insurance in this country costs an arm and a leg…

It cost me an arm and a leg to get my car repaired…

Let’s try increasing the difficulty a bit, why don’t you try

“To give someone props”

Idioms are those phrases that cannot be translated literally, but instead have a figurative meaning. As a part of most every language, idioms are likely to cause some trouble for those learning to speak the language.

If you are someone trying to learn to use English in an actual English setting, you’ll need to figure them out. The Idiom Corner will be a space to discuss them and see if we can match them with their Spanish equivalents.

I will post an idiom and wait a day or so to see how many of you can tell us what their Spanish equivalent is.

We can discuss them back and forth, or call my grandmother (she knows them all!), and I’ll post the names of the readers who get them right.