# tv show, I Love Lucy.... question for bilinguals **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 26, 2001, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997 "2001-09-26T21:37:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MagicalSilverKey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@MagicalSilverKey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicalSilverKey)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2001, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/1 "2001-09-26T21:37:39Z")
To our Spanish-English speaking Dopers: When Ricky Ricardo gets going on one of his temper tantrums and is babbling a bunch of stuff in Spanish, at 1000 words per minute, is he REALLY saying anything, or is it just a bunch of nonsense? ---
**Author:** ![caircair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@caircair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caircair)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2001, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/2 "2001-09-26T22:37:32Z")
I vaguely remember reading in a biography of Desi Arnaz that his favorite phrase was “miraquetienecosalamujereste!” Based on my high school spanish, I’m guessing a rough translation would be “Look what your mother created!” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/3 "2001-09-27T00:15:39Z")
If you have the phrase right, it would be more like “Look at that thing that woman has!” but with the grammar all screwed up (possibly deliberately). ---
**Author:** ![saudade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@saudade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saudade)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/4 "2001-09-27T01:30:00Z")
Cubans can speak pretty fast, so even knowing some Spanish (I’m Brazilian-Portuguse, so if someone speaks slowly, I can follow) isn’t much help. But I remember seeing “Lucy” with the closed captioning on, and they wrote out the Spanish phrases. I don’t think Desi Arnaz would say fake Spanish. He just talks superfast. ---
**Author:** ![bafaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bafaa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bafaa)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/5 "2001-09-27T02:30:07Z")
Yeah, he was really speaking Spanish. I don’t exactly remember what he said but it was about what you’d expect “Crazy redhead!” and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/6 "2001-09-27T04:35:30Z")
I had a quote from a Lucy book and a Puerto Rican friend of mine said it was idiomatic and roughly ment “Oh you crazy lady.” or “Oh you lady look what she does” She said there was no exact translation more like a phrase of exshasperation (Sp?) ---
**Author:** ![MagicalSilverKey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@MagicalSilverKey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicalSilverKey)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/7 "2001-09-27T18:41:37Z")
Hmmmm… interesting… thanks everyone 😉 ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/8 "2001-09-27T18:49:22Z")
Bilinguals? People with 2 tongues? I bet they get a LOT of dates:D… oh - two languages? Sorry… ---
**Author:** ![Cyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@Cyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyn)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2001, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-show-i-love-lucy-question-for-bilinguals/83997/9 "2001-09-27T21:35:58Z")
What he said was appropriate for tv at the time—“look at the things this woman does”, that type of thing.