Foreign Native

Febrero loco, a common Mexican saying, refers to the changeability of the weather in the second month of the year. So unpredictable is the weather this month, that it’s hard to know whether to take a coat, or an umbrella, or what, when you leave in the morning. Speaking of fickle, an alternative to the [...]

Modern conversations in Mexico are frequently interspersed with the word “güey” – pronounced “way” – which means several things and, just as often, nothing. The word it derives from - buey - means ox, and was in finer times considered vulgar and insulting when applied to anyone. Its figurative meaning is that of mug, or sap, a connotation it still retains [...]

The phone rings when you weren’t expecting a call, so you pick up the receiver and mumble the usual “bueno” into the mouthpiece. ¿A dónde hablo? (where am I calling?) comes a sharp, testy voice. The easiest way to clear up wrong numbers is to say where the person has called, but usually you don’t [...]