Today I want to talk about the different colloquial ways of saying “no” Spanish people have.
One of the ones we use more is “give something a miss”. For example, if someone suggests to go to the cinema and you don’t want to go you say “paso”. Another common way of saying it is simply “I don’t want to”. And the way teachers and parents don’t like at all, “I don’t feel like…”. For example, when you tell a child, because it is normally a children expression, as our parents make is learn it the hard way. Well, as I was saying, when you tell a child “eat the spinach”, he can answer “I don’t feel like eating them”. Be careful when using this expression as it is not polite at all.
And talking about children, another expression that we cannot fail to get a mention is “tururú”, something like a “no” with a bit of mock.
I guess you all know the expression “no way”, another way of saying “no”, although you may not know, and I have to write them in Spanish because in English it’s the same (no way) “ni hablar del peluquín” or “ni hablar de la peluca”. We cannot forget to mention “qué va”. For example when you’re asked things like have you ever been skiing? You can answer “qué va” or “no, qué va”. More? Here you have another one: “nanay de la China” (or “Chinese oranges”), which means “no way” (or “no way, Darling”).
As you can see, there are many ways of saying an “emphatic no”, something that soldiers identify with “negative” (or “negative, end”).
Another situation, when you’re told something and you don’t believe it at all (expression commonly used by posh), you’ll say “that can never be true” or “that can never in my life be true”.
Well, to finish with, something that my mother says it’s rude is to say no before someone has even started to speak. But sometimes we have no alternative but to say no, so here you have this “negations collection”.
Vocabulario/vocabulary:
Paso: give something a miss (EN)/
no quiero: I don’t want (EN)/
no me da la gana: don’t feel like… (EN)/
manía: obsession (EN)/
a base de palos: (to learn) the hard way (EN)/
en absoluto: not at all (EN)/
quedar en el tintero: to fail to get a mention (EN)/
tururú: no (used by children) (EN)/
burla: mock (EN)/
ni hablar: no way (EN)/
ni hablar del peluquín: no way (EN)/
ni hablar de la peluca: no way (EN)/
qué va: come on, no way (EN)/
nanay de la China: no way (EN)/
naranjas de la China: come off it, no way (EN)/
de eso nada: no way (EN)/
de eso nada, monada: no way, Darling (EN)/
rotundo: emphatic (EN)/
negativo: negative (EN)/
negativo, fin: negative, stop (EN)
para nada: not at all (EN)/
pijos: posh (EN)/
jamás: never (EN)/
jamás en la vida: never in my life (EN)/
poner el no por delante: say “no” before someone has even started (EN)/
no haber más remedio: to have no alternative (EN)/
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