Spanish exclamations

Well, this won't be useful and is barely relevant, but since when did that ever stop somebody from posting?

But I think it'samusing; i wrote it up some time ago

There are some phrases you see in bad movies or sitcoms that are never uttered in real life. Except, apparently sometimes they are.

I was shopping at Trader Joes the other day. The couple ahead of me at the checkout line, was a bit odd, to say the least. They asked the checker questions that were puzzling; the woman couldn't find her money, and when she finally did, counted out dollar bills slowly, one at a time. Then her companion realized he'd forgotten to get a bottle of water, and disappeared back into the store, for quite a while. Meanwhile, the line was growing longer.

When he came back, there was another discussion about the price of an item. Finally, they put all their groceries in the bag they'd brought, but decided to fill out some form, leaving the bag in the way of the checker, and refused to leave their position in the line. And there was more, but you get the idea.

The checker, a middle aged Hispanic woman, suffered through all this patiently. When the couple finally left, she looked at me and our eyes locked in mutual sympathy. I offered a faint smile, and she rolled her eyes and said:

"Ay, Caramba!"

My gf, whose mother was from Puerto Rico, laughed when I told her, but claims that her mom used that expression all the time. I wish I could get away with it. It sums up so many things so perfectly.

Disclaimer: Not fluent.

I don't know if this is more Latin American Spanish, but "No me digas!" is "You don't say!" and I've heard it from fluent speakers a fair bit. I've also heard "Que' ____!" as an exclamation a lot, where the blank is an adjective (that's an acute accent on the e). Frex "Que' bonito/a!" ("How beautiful!"), but there are plenty of different adjectives you could fill in.

Don't know if that's helpful; maybe wait for a native Spanish speaker.

Dios mio! - literally "My God." Could also be "Ay, Dios mio!"

(Still fairly fluent) My buds and I say "¡Rayos!" all the time. Also I've heard "¡Dios mediante!" or "¡Cielos!" a lot. My high school Spanish teacher used to mutter "¡Dios me de paciencia!" (God, give me patience) when we were acting up. No idea why, and of course I had no part in giving señora the fits.

(By the way, those are ¡, upside down exclamation points, not lower-case i. For some reason, in this font they look exactly the same).

To get Spanish diacriticals, hit ALT+ the numbers on the keypad. á is Alt+0225. é is 0233. í is 0237. ñ is 0241. ó is 0243. ú is 0250.

Were you looking for a swear word in Spanish? Maybe you could get away with saying "mier-a" (poop). If your story takes place in modern Mexico or Chicago I could suggest a lot of swear words. Otherwise what Deb suggest sounds good.

Ditto on Dios Mio.

And I too have some bad words if need be......

Ojala! is one of my favorites. I still remember it from Spanish class, love that it has origins from Islamic Spain.
http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ojalá

Que Lastima! is another fav. But it means 'oh, regret' instead.

I forgot to add "¡En tus sueños!" as a response to a lame idea stated by someone else. Its literal translation is "in your dreams" and fits in a hundred different places.