Spanish Word of the Day: ese

“Hey, why do you have “that one” as word of the day? It’s a freakin’simple word and everyone knows its meaning!“. Ehh, yeah, everyone knows its meaning. But does it really mean “that one” or “those” (in the case of esos)? Well, it does, but there’re always people who add a colloquial meaning to is (like always *sigh*).

If you live in the US of A – and then I mean in an area with many latinos – you’ve probably heard it once or twice. Yes, it can mean “that one” (in the sense of a thing), but it’s also used to refer to men (so, like in English, in the sense of people). In Spanglish, for example, there’s the exclamation: “Hey ese! ‘Sup?!“. Roughtly translated it means: “Hey dude. What’s up?!“.

So ese is used to refer to men, mostly young men, while esa refers to (young) women. Another thing that you may see once in a while is that some people spell it as ése or ésa. This doesn’t change the meaning nor the pronunciation, it’s simply to make things clearer.

Sentences

Colloquial

¿Quién es el gordo ese?
Who’s that fat guy?

¿Quién es ese?
Who’s that (guy)?

Esa no sabe lo que dice.
She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Non-colloquial

Ese es el tuyo.
That (one) is yours.

Ese es el que me gusta.
That’s the one I like.