From reflections on the matters of life and relationships to tongue twisting "trabalenguas" which challenge your ability to pronounce words correctly as well as being a lot of fun to try out for yourself, take a look at the following pages for all sorts of sayings, proverbs and tongue twisters from the Spanish language that you may come into contact with if you are visiting the country or talking with native speakers. With a few of these under your belt, you will be able to fit right in with any group of native Spanish speakers and sound as though you have been speaking the language for your whole life, using them in a natural way so that they fit right into the conversation!
It will only take for you to go for an afternoon walk along busy streets or plazas, to spend a couple of hours in a café with Spaniards all around you, or to pass a few minutes in a busy supermarket or shopping centre to realize through what you overhear that Spaniards love sayings and proverbs, using them all the time in daily conversation in a manner which might confuse someone who is not familiar with the turn of phrase or what it really means. We have various sayings for practically every situation and by using them we can simply express almost everything from the most basic idea to the most complicated thought, allowing others to understand the meaning of what we are saying even when we are saying something that would seem almost abstract if you did not realise that it was an idiom or proverb. The beauty of these phrases is that they can reduce the most strange or complicated situation to its simpler elements by showing that it is quite the same as other things you may have experienced when you get down to it; you can dismiss something out of hand, explain it as just a quirk of nature, or even express the fact that it will all be alright in the end by using one of our phrases that can present those ideas just by being spoken aloud in the right context.
We also like to play around with our phrases and with other words, so as a result we have a large number of challenging tongue twisters. Here you will find a list of common sayings with their meanings and the equivalent proverb in English so that you can see exactly what they equate to and how to use them in conversation to make yourself understood. You will also see numerous examples of the best plays on words in the Spanish language, so that you can challenge yourself by not only trying to translate them before reading what they mean, but also trying to memorise them and say them out loud without any errors. Do not miss out on these fun exercises, which could help you to sound like an authentic Spanish speaker before you know it!