Idioms for what your face does
Spoken Spanish in Spain is full of these images. They are colloquial: perfect with friends, rare in a report.
| idiom | literally | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| quedarse de piedra | to turn to stone | to be stunned |
| ponerse como un tomate | to become like a tomato | to blush bright red |
| quedarse en blanco | to stay blank | to go blank |
| estar como una cabra | to be like a goat | to be nuts |
| irse por las ramas | to go off along the branches | to wander off the point |
The verb does the work
Only the verb changes, with its pronoun if it has one (me quedé, nos quedamos, se puso); the rest of the idiom stays frozen. Quedarse and ponerse describe a sudden change, so they are usually in the indefinido when you tell a story:
| When I saw the price, I was stunned. | Cuando vi el precio, me quedé de piedra. |
| He went as red as a beetroot in front of everyone. | Se puso como un tomate delante de todos. |
Estar como una cabra always takes estar, even when it describes someone's character: the idiom is fixed. It is affectionate more often than insulting:
| My uncle is nuts: he swims in the sea in January. | Mi tío está como una cabra: se baña en el mar en enero. |
Getting the picture, or not
Hacerse una idea is to get an idea of something you do not know first-hand. The pronoun changes with the person: me hago, te haces, se hace.
| With these photos you can get an idea of the flat. | Con estas fotos te puedes hacer una idea del piso. |
Someone who se va por las ramas never gets to the point:
| Don't beat about the bush, just answer. | No te vayas por las ramas y contesta. |
Sin querer
Sin querer is without meaning to. It is also the usual way to apologise for an accident:
| I'm sorry, it was by accident. | Lo siento, ha sido sin querer. |
