I recently heard a Zumba instructor translate the title of the song “Aguafiestas” as “water party”. I chuckled as I conjured up images of the celeb pool parties and glam yacht soirees I assumed this person imagined when she said this. After all, she’s from Miami, where water and parties are inherently intermingled.
But that’s not what the word means at all. The compound noun is made up water + parties, but the meaning is far more complex. An “aguafiestas” is someone who ruins the party, aka a “party pooper”—another doozey of a term. Try translating that literally into another language and see how that goes.
This party pooper faux pas brought back memories of my father, who was himself a very literal person. One day, while watching TV he asked me about the word “friendship”. You see, he had interpreted it to mean “amistad de barco” or a “friend you made while on a boat or ship.” I didn’t just chuckle then, I cackled. I figured he was joking. I mean, after all, “friendship” is a pretty common word. And he was a smart man with plenty of friends, none of whom he’d met on a boat. So, after a few good laughs—he actually had a great sense of humor and didn’t take things very personally—I proceeded to utterly fail at explaining in clear and credible terms why “friendship” didn’t mean “friend from ship”. Following several minutes of debate, “It’s just another language” was the best I could come up with.
Although on that day my dad learned that friendships need not be borne at sea, I never let him live it down. And when my parents became US citizens, I ordered a cake to celebrate the auspicious event. It was decorated with a giant ship flying the American flag, and a couple of stick figures standing on the bow holding hands. The name: Amistad.
There are a myriad of everyday words, compound and simple, that make language rich and colorful and sometimes downright muddled, especially—as in these two cases—when they’re taken out of context or translated literally into another language. Why, imagine trying to translate party pooper to an alien who loses control of his spaceship and literally crashes your Super Bowl party. I’d love to see your responses below.
For wholesome debate on compound words, a good laugh over something that just cannot be literally translated but is, or to find out how you can improve awareness and sales with the right messaging in either English or Spanish, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .