Shut Up in Spanish: 4 Ways to Say Polite and Rude Phrases + Audio for Calláte Alternatives
Admit it: sometimes we hear someone rambling, or nagging, or just talking too much, and we REALLY want that person to just…
| SHUT UP! |
In Spanish, just like in English, there are polite and less polite ways to communicate this to someone.
“Cállate” is a direct and impolite way to say “shut up” in Spanish. It is an imperative command used when addressing someone informally, like saying “be quiet” or “shut up.”
We’ll teach you 4 phrases for shut up in Spanish. We’ll start calmly, but go stronger (and ruder) with every next one…
1. Other words and chunks to ask someone to STOP talking
When you find yourself in a situation where you need someone to stop their conversation, there are other expressions to use – apart from the ones we will talk about soon.
Other chunks to ask someone to shut up in Spanish
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Be quiet | |
| Close your mouth | |
| Enough | |
| Say no more | |
| Calm down! | |
| Stop talking! | |
| Silence, please! | |
| Don’t speak! | |
| Everyone, be quiet! | |
| Enough chattering! |
If you want to learn more chunks, we have the ideal course for you. You can take your Spanish to the next level with our Story-Based Chunking Course, “Los cazadores de tormentas”!
Click the button below to learn more and get a special offer now!
2. Say shut up in Spanish in a polite way: ¡Ay, qué cosas dices! – Oh! The Things you Say!
So, let’s say you’re meeting someone, they start talking… talk more until they say something that makes you be like WTF?! You can use this alternative for saying shut up in Spanish like this:
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
So, you politely, with a full smile on your face say:
This is a good way to let people know that they just said something that you didn’t appreciate. It means: Don’t say these kind of things.
Pay attention to the feeling you put in the ¡Ay! Remember: in Spanish we use the interjection ¡Ay! as you might use Oh!
Let’s use it one more time, to emphasize its importance:
- ¡Mira, qué bien te ves con esos kilitos menos! (Look at that! You look great now that you’re thinner!)
Pay attention when you say:
¡Ay, ay! ¡Qué cosas dices! (Oh! The things you say!)…
You’re pointing to the fact that something wrong was said, but you’re still willing to have the conversation — granted the person stops saying these kinds of things…
PERSON 1
[You’re getting a bit more annoyed already… pero cuentas hasta diez, y te calmas (but you count down to 10, and you calm yourself down)… and you say another alternative for shut up in Spanish:
- Mejor cuéntame de ti. (Tell me about yourself.)
- Hay que cambiar de tema. (Let’s change the subject.)
3. Instead of shut up: Hay que cambiar de tema – Let’s change the subject
We can use this phrase when we are sure that the conversation will go to places where we don’t want it to go…
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
Or maybe it’s a more serious matter, like:
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
We love this chunk, “Hay que cambiar de tema”.
It is quite direct, yet still very polite…
Learn this phrase by heart, and you would have learned not only a great phrase to make people shush it, BUT you’re also helping your brain in using the Spanish equivalents of both “let’s” and “we have to” and a familiar way to bypass the harshness of an imperative…
All of that without having to think about any of the grammar terms. This is how chunks work! If you want to learn more about them, sign up now and get our Essential Spanish Chunking Kit!
✔️ 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…)
Okay, time to see what happens with our conversation…
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
4. Say shut up in Spanish in a more direct way: ¡Ya, güey, ya! – Stop it, dude!
Since the first two didn’t work, we have to get a little more direct… Inside, you really want to say: Shut up! But you don’t say it; instead, you say “¡¡ya, güey, ya!!”…
What exactly does that mean?
Ya means something like “enough already!” and güey… Well, that’s Mexican slang, equivalent to saying “dude”, “mate”, “brotha”… You get the drill, right?
You can use this when a friend of yours is teasing you, you know? Like, when we were in primary school and we would say stuff like:
PERSON 1
PAULÍSIMA
The best part of this chunk for shut up in Spanish is that you can also use it to ask someone to stop it already!
You can make this chunk even stronger by adding en serio (seriously) at the beginning or at the end of the sentence. You’d be making sure they know that now you are getting serious. You were since the beginning, but now you’re even more serious!
PERSON 1
PERSON 2
Now, at this point, your friend – who probably won’t be your friend after this encounter – notices your hostility, and says:
- ¡Ay! ¿Por qué tan agresiva? Si solo decía que hace un tiempo, pues, estabas más cachetona… y ahora te veo… ¡diferente! (Why so aggressive? I’m just saying that a while ago you were kind of more “chubby in the cheeks” and now you look, well…different!)
You’ve had enough now… Your blood is boiling… You can’t hear a another word, so you say:
- ¡Ya cállate! (Shut up already!)
5. The rude way: ¡Cállate! o ¡Ya cállate! – Shut up! or Shut up already!
Straight up: Shut up already!!! And yeah, sometimes you just have to say it… The direct way to say shut up in Spanish!
But let’s say you’re in a situation where somebody really deserves to shut the F up… you can add this phrase at the end of Cállate or
Uff, these are the Major Leagues, mi gente! This literally translates as “shut your snout”.
You’re calling the other person an animal… Even though there’s no vulgar language, literally, this is quite offensive.
6. All of the alternatives for shut up in Spanish in one place
Let’s check all of these phrases in real Spanish sentences!
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| ¡Por favor, calla! | Please, be quiet! |
| ¡Cierra la boca ahora mismo! | Close your mouth right now! |
| ¡Basta, no quiero escuchar más! | Enough, I don’t want to hear more! |
| ¡No digas más, ya entendí! | Say no more, I got it! |
| ¡Cálmate, no es para tanto! | Calm down, it’s not a big deal! |
| ¡Deja de hablar, por favor! | Stop talking, please! |
| ¡Silencio, por favor, estamos trabajando! | Silence, please, we are working! |
| ¡No hables, necesito concentrarme! | Don’t speak, I need to concentrate! |
| ¡Cállense todos, estoy tratando de escuchar! | Everyone, be quiet, I’m trying to listen! |
| ¡Basta de cháchara, hay trabajo que hacer! | Enough chattering, there’s work to do! |
With these chunks people will stop talking for sure! But what if you actually want them to talk MORE… and clarify what they’re saying? You could just ask “¿qué?”… but come on, that’s a bit boring!
So, read the article where we teach you 5 ways to tell someone you don’t understand without saying “¿qué?”, meaning what in Spanish.
