# Can any Spanish speakers out there translate this for me? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 21, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449 "2010-07-21T11:20:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/1 "2010-07-21T11:20:44Z")
“Ay, ay, ay, no mames, wey! No entiendo la comida Mexicana pero me gusto mucho apprender las linguas.” It’s a comment from this [Mexican restaurant review](http://www.cincinnatibites.com/reviews/el-pueblo/). Color me curious. ---
**Author:** ![nikonikosuru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f8ce5/32.png) [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/2 "2010-07-21T11:43:05Z")
“No entiendo la comida Mexicana pero me gusto mucho apprender las linguas.” “I don’t understand Mexican food but I really like to learn the language/the tongues.” ---
**Author:** ![Ionizer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5daacb/32.png) [@Ionizer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ionizer)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/3 "2010-07-21T12:00:00Z")
FYI, and not snarky to ya -\> there’s number of websites (including a [Google-based one](http://translate.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wT#)) that will let you copy/paste things for translation. My experiences have been generally positive, but I’ve heard that accuracy can be off at times as to the exact usages, etc. Quick, though, and really easy… Just sayin’ if future interp is ever wanted, especially if “Need answer fast” is part of it. “Ay, ay, ay, no mames, wey! I do not understand Mexican food but I liked the lingua apprender” is what I get at the Google link (and above poster’s interp), but the ‘lingua apprender’ gets me going “huh???” I guess that is telling about my accuracy comment above. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/4 "2010-07-21T12:24:25Z")
Yeah, I tried it in Google Translator, but that first part remained untranslated (slang?). I was hoping that a SFL Doper might be able to give me the correct translation. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/5 "2010-07-21T12:34:27Z")
Yeah, between the slang and the typos I wouldn’t try to get anything decent from a machine. “Ay ay ay” is one of those exclamations which are hard to translate, its meaning depends on the tone and on whatever else goes with it. The two sentences don’t really make much sense together; then again, the second line doesn’t make much sense by itself: what’s there to understand about food? You like it or you don’t, but you don’t have conversations with your burritos. “Hey hey hey, don’t fuck with me, man! I don’t understand Mexican food but I like learning languages.” The first sentence could also be translated as “you’ve gotta be kidding me”, but neither version makes sense unless you get Mr Cuervo involved. mamar: (lit) to breastfeed; (fig) to drink; (slang) to give BJs; (slang) to pull someone’s leg ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/6 "2010-07-21T12:36:08Z")
Clearly written by a gringo. _mamar_ means “to suck” so the reviewer is trying to say it doesn’t suck (I think). “_wey_” is not a Spanish word as the letter ‘w’ is foreign to the romance languages. From there, one year of high school Spanish should get you through the next sentence, mistakes and all. “_No entiendo la comida Mexicana_” they got the stem-changer “entender” right as well as choosing it over the more commonly heard “comprender” to indicate “I don’t understand Mexican food” (should be lower-case ‘m’ as nationalities are not considered proper adjectives in Spanish). “_Me gusto_” should be “me gusta” to indicate “I like” (I know, I know it doesn’t really mean that) and then “_apprender las lenguas_” -only one ‘p’ on aprender (to learn) and “las lenguas” should probably be singular for the “the language” unless they’re talking about other languages of Mexico such as Nahuatl. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what the reviewer had in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/7 "2010-07-21T12:39:12Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > Clearly written by a gringo. That, too. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/8 "2010-07-21T12:50:06Z")
The end of the first sentence almost makes me think some slang French was thrown in with the attempt at slang Spanish. I sometimes heard surly Parisian teens substitute “wey” (pronounced just like “way”) for “oui” back in the day. Amusingly, my ex-mother-in-law also started saying it as a joke, but then got in the habit of it and would accidentally throw it into serious conversations. “Ma bonne-maman dit ‘wey’” was the only thing I’ve ever said in French that got huge laughs. So that makes the first sentence potentially “Ay, ay, ay, don’t pull my leg, yeah!” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/9 "2010-07-21T13:40:20Z")
Nah, I’ve encountered wey or güey (same pronunciation, more standard spelling) used to mean “dude”, mostly in Central America. RAE has güey as “(Mex.) silly person” and has the expresion “álzalas, güey” (lift 'em up, silly) as “used to address someone who has tripped”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/10 "2010-07-21T14:18:40Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Nah, I’ve encountered wey or güey (same pronunciation, more standard spelling) used to mean “dude”, mostly in Central America. RAE has güey as “(Mex.) silly person” and has the expresion “álzalas, güey” (lift 'em up, silly) as “used to address someone who has tripped”. In Southern California, güey / way can mean “white person,” sometimes more specifically “blond(e),” as well as “dude.” ---
**Author:** ![minlokwat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minlokwat/32/2844_2.png) [@minlokwat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minlokwat)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/11 "2010-07-21T14:49:16Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > The end of the first sentence almost makes me think some slang French was thrown in with the attempt at slang Spanish. I sometimes heard surly Parisian teens substitute “wey” (pronounced just like “way”) for “oui” back in the day. Never seen it spelled as “wey” though it does sound like that. It is the informal derivative of “Oui” and the English equivalent of “yeah”. I’m pretty sure it is written out as “Ouais”. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/12 "2010-07-21T15:33:21Z")
Going back to the linked restaurant review, I think the comment is referring to this: [QUOTE=Linked Article in OP] The first of our group to order, Ed #1, chose the Enchiladas Verdes along with a side of guacamole. An Englishman, he’d spent the last five minutes asking us what the difference was between a quesadilla and an enchilada, then floored us as he proceeded to converse with the waiter in near-fluent Spanish. [/QUOTE] So the writer, username also **Ed#1** , was not a Gringo in the classical sense, but not a native speaker of Spanish, either, by a long shot. **Nava** ’s translation makes perfect sense in context. Perhaps he meant “don’t make fun of me”: I suspect the connotations of _mamar_ will depend a lot on where and how he learned the language. ---
**Author:** ![No\_Me\_Ayudes\_Compadre](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/no_me_ayudes_compadre/32/5224_2.png) [@No\_Me\_Ayudes\_Compadre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Me_Ayudes_Compadre)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/13 "2010-07-21T20:19:26Z")
Actually wey/wei/we is a common way young people write güey, for example in text messages or facebook. It’s like if a commenter wrote “that sux”, you wouldn’t assume it wasn’t a native speaker of English. No mames güey is very certainly “no shit, dude” or the like. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-any-spanish-speakers-out-there-translate-this-for-me/547449/14 "2010-07-21T20:38:09Z")
In South America, it was “buey,” which translates directly into “bull” or “ox,” but means, something closer to brother or dude. I’d assume the first sentence would be like, Hey, back off, dude! Then, I don’t get Mexican food, but I like to learn new languages.