5 Mexican Pranks Locals Will Play On You: How To Be Prepared
Hello, dear students!
Welcome to Spring Spanish’s edition on Mexican pranks!
Paulísima, your Spanish teacher is going to talk about 5 Mexican pranks that tourists and Spanish students should know before visiting this beautiful country.
1. An innocent Mexican prank: do you like “chile”
Mexicans love to make double entendre jokes.
One of the most common jokes played on foreigners is asking them if they like “chile”… which one might understand as: do you like spicy food? And one might innocently respond by saying yes, but it’s better not to do so.
In general, be careful with all mentions of phallic shapes.
If a Mexican mentions:
- El chile (pepper)
- El chorizo (sausage)
- El palo (stick)
- La longaniza (long sausage)
- El pepino (cucumber)
Most likely, they’re “albureando” you (making a double entendre joke).
Check out this video where I tell you more about the art of “albur“:
If you’re with young people, especially men, and in your conversation you need to mention: El chile, chorizo, palo, longaniza or pepino, the best thing you can do is to say the lexical chunk: “sin albur”, immediately after mentioning them.
If you don’t know what a chunk is, chunks are common phrases in Spanish that can help you advance quickly with your Spanish.
In the link in the description, you can download our Essential Spanish Chunking Kit for free. When you use the chunk “sin albur”, you’ll be preventing them from making a joke. And if they didn’t intend to make a double entendre joke, it will surely make them laugh.
✔️ Cheat Sheet with 54 essential Spanish Chunks you’ll hear and use yourself in ANY Spanish conversation (and example sentences). Taken from our YouTube Teacher’s most popular videos!
✔️ 2 Bonus Cheat Sheets with Travel Chunks and Dating/Relationship Chunks
✔️ A Spanish Chunking Tutorial showing you the 1 technique that’ll help you make 100% of the Spanish from our videos roll off the tongue in just 5 minutes a day (you’re probably only using 50% of our lessons’ potential right now…)
2. A sexual Mexican prank: careful with the verb “coger”
In Spain, the verb coger is used to say: to take, to grab.
But in Mexico it means: to have sexual intercourse. So be very careful when they ask you to use the word coger.
- ¿Te gusta que te cojan… de la mano? (Do you like to be… taken by the hand?)
- ¿Que me cojan de la mano? Sí, es muy romántico. (To be taken by the hand? Yes, it’s very romantic.)
Don’t fall for it!
Just laugh… Whenever a Mexican says a phrase with the word “coger” you can say: “Ay qué chistocito”.
That way you’re communicating that you understand the intention, but that you’re not going to fall for the joke.
3. The ultimate of Mexican pranks: “No pica” is a lie!
As you know, in Mexico we love to eat spicy food.
We use chile in a lot of things, not just in food. We also put chile on fruits, vegetables, and we even have sweets, candies, and treats that children normally consume, with chile.
It’s part of our culture.
Something very typical that we do is tell foreigners that something is NOT spicy when it actually is. They want to see your reaction when eating something too spicy.
I don’t like to make these jokes, but they exist. The best thing you can do is ask:
¿Pica? ¿Pero en serio pica? Es que de verdad no puedo comer picante. Es que tengo gastritis y además ando mal del estómago. (Is it spicy? But seriously, is it spicy? I really can’t eat spicy food. I have gastritis and I’m also having stomach problems.)
If you say that, they’re most likely to tell you the truth.
Because if there’s something Mexicans can empathize with, it’s stomach disorders.
It’s because we eat so much chile, gastritis is a common disease.
4. The birthday cake is another Mexican prank
In Mexico, many people have the custom of smashing cake in someone’s face after singing the “Happy Birthday” song.
The song that is usually sung at birthdays, by the way, is called “Las Mañanitas“.
If you ever celebrate your birthday with Mexicans and they start saying “¡Mordida! ¡Mordida!” (Bite! Bite!), it’s better to move away immediately.
You can also respond by saying: “No puedo dar mordida porque el pastel tiene palillos” (I can’t take a bite because the cake has toothpicks). Which could be true.
Many times cakes have toothpicks inside. To hold the structure or some decoration of the cake.
5. No se apene… (Don’t be shy vs…)
This phrase literally means: Don’t get shy, don’t be shy.
For example, they invite you to enter a house and they say: Pase, pase, no se apene (Come in, come in, don’t be shy).
Or they invite you to eat: Come algo, no se apene, no se apene (Eat something, don’t be shy, don’t be shy). BUT, really… again, they’re making a double entendre joke! No se apene is a play on words.
Observe:
- No se APENE. (Don’t be shy)
- No SEA PENE. (Don’t be a penis.)
If they tell you “no se apene”, you can continue the joke and say: Ay no, yo no me apeno. ¡Usted no se apene! (Oh no, I’m not shy. You don’t be shy!)
Oh, oh, oh!
These Mexicans are something else! We have so much to learn from the curious way of being of Latinos.
