Spanish Help

I speak some Spanish and those seem... clunky. But I'm far from fluent. I pinged a friend and her husband, who is Costa Rican, and her suggestion:

I would say that there isn't really a specific term to define a "deadly" spirit, you would treat it like you do in english... just describe the ghost. Fantasma mortal would be a deadly ghost, or fantasma malvada, or fantasma maléfica... or esperitu, or vampiro..what ever you want to use there.

Click to expand...

Malvada seems like a good one.

There's also brujo or bruja for "witch". Another term I remember from Mexican-dialect is hechi to describe a malignant spirit, but this may be a localism and not valid for what you want.

You could use ánimo malvado for "evil spirit."

"Vampire" of course is chupacabra.

Noah Body said:

I'm ashamed to say that, while a born Texan, my high school Spanish is failing me. I need a term that illegals from Mexico might use when referring to evil or deadly spirits or ghosts or vampires that are allegedly preying on them when they try to come across the border. Babelfish gives me such terms as bebidas espirituosas mortales or fantasmas mortales which certainly sound good to me, but would they be accurate?

A thousand thanks.

Click to expand...

ROFL! bebidas espirituosas mortales means ghostly fatal beverages. That's spirits as in vodka, rum, and tequila

fantasmas mortales is deadly ghosts. or spirits. That works.

The word I always knew for ghost was espiritu. Check out: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/evil I'd say espiritu malo or espiritu maligno. But maybe wait for an actual spanish speaker to come through

Deb Kinnard said:

"Vampire" of course is chupacabra.

Click to expand...

Chupacabra is goat sucker! That's a very specialized form of vampire (chupa=suck, cabra=goat) Vampiro for your regular vampires who don't exclusively attack goats.

I'd go with fantasma or espiritu [sp?] but I'm not a native speaker.

Bruja always struck me as literally 'witch,' as in not a spirit at all.

My husband (whose Mexican and knows a thing or two about this) says he has no idea what you would call that. He says if anything it would be "angels looking out for us" and the evil spirits, or devils, are what's waiting across the border.

Here's a link on the terms I mentioned themselves:

http://espanol.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080122184519AAtOPM2

So, I'm getting that espiritu might be too much like alma - it might not seem scary at all but more spiritual.

El cucuy or something similar might be more culturally specific, while less accurate to the needs of your story. If the characters don't know what it is, they would assume it's the devil they already have a word for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuco

MattW said:

El cucuy or something similar might be more specific culturally, while less specific to the needs of your story. If the characters don't know what it is, they would assume it's the devil they already have a word for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuco

Click to expand...

Ooh, that's a good one. I've heard that described as the Mexican equivalent of the Boogeyman.

If you are near a river, La Llorona is nice to use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona

She's only dangerous to wandering children.

Ghosts are fantasmos.

I'm Mexican (but not illegal!)

Unsure of whether what you're looking for is a specific legend/belief of crossing wetbacks, I can tell you what some of the words already suggested mean, and how to spell them correctly:

demonio - demon
espiritu - spirit
fantasma - ghost
bruja - witch
vampiro - vampire
monstruo - monster
diablo - devil

La Llorona - she's a wailing lady pining for her kids
El Chupacabra - an allegedly real 'monster' or animal which sucks the blood of cattle and sheep at night

Feel free to ask me more specific stuff, I'd be happy to help.