Spanish Word of the Day: onda

I’ve watched Y tu mamá también last week. Again. For the third and fourth time. It’s a pretty weird movie, but the underlying story is good. Another nice thing is that it’s loaded with Mexican slang. Now, I’m not really the lover of Mexican slang, but  I can imagine that many of you might need it or just want to know some words and expressions.

One of the words that came along is onda, especially the question ¿qué onda?, which means ¿qué tal?. Of course this is a pretty easy expression, but there are more with the word onda.

Normally onda means “wave”. However, in the colloquial sense of the word it can also mean “fantastic” or “terrible” (depending on the adjective). In the more formal sense of the word it it pretty much “wave”. Anyway, the formal meaning is used in Spain as well where the colloquial forms are almost only used in Mexico/Latin-America.

Sentences

¡Qué buena onda!
That’s great!

¡Qué mala onda!
That’s terrible!

¿Qué onda?
What’s new?

Estar en la onda.
To be trendy.