Spanish Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, teachers, students and Spanish language enthusiasts in general wanting to discuss the finer points of the language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm looking for a phrase that would translate to "that sucks" or "aw man," but is more formal and not slang.
What would be a good expression in Spanish to respond to someone who says they're a little sick or tired?
I feel like "lo siento" isn't exactly what I'm trying to say, although that's the best I can think of for now.
Choices for "that sucks": choose a word from the first column and combine it with a word from the second (optional: end with a word from the third column):
qué | putada (strong) | ¿no? (asking for more information)
vaya | jodienda (strong) | ¿verdad? (expressing that you know the feeling)
menudo/a | fastidio (mild) |
| disgusto (formal) |
Choices for "aw, man":
vaya, hombre (formal)
jo (mild) | tío/a (colloquial)
joder (strong) |
¡coño! (very strong, this word can express it all by itself)
Yes, you can use "hombre" even if the other person is a woman, as in this case it is used as an interjection to express surprise or astonishment (see meaning 8).
Now you can chain it all together:
Vaya, hombre, menudo disgusto, ¿verdad? (formal)
¡Joder, tío, vaya putada! (quite informal)
I think
¡Qué pena!
would suffice in most circumstances.
There are many ways to say this, but in Spain I would use some interjections of surprise like:
¡Caramba!
¡Ostras!
And then you can add something like:
Cuídate / Que te mejores / Descansa
In a very slang way you can say something quite strong, that it is out of scope for this question but I say it anyways for the sake of completeness:
Qué putada
Another option is ¡qué palo!. It's informal, but not too much, and means more or less the same thing as ¡qué contrariedad!, although the latter is much more formal.
Palo
12. m. coloq. Daño o perjuicio. Dar, llevar, recibir un palo. [RAE]
A disclaimer though — qué palo is used in Spain, but I'm not sure it will be understood in other countries. What is worse, palo is slang por penis in a few countries so you might inadvertently put yourself in an awkward position if used in the wrong place!
In Chile and probably in other Latin American countries we would say ¡Pucha! which is informal but not slang.
Pucha, mejórate...
¡Te resfriaste?... pucha, qué pena.
But beware, the expression has other vulgar meanings in some countries, particularly in Mexico where (I think) means "penis".
