Today an expression I just learned a few weeks ago here in Spain. It’s an expression that (especially young) people use, and they generally use it on the street (that means; I’ve never heard anyone using this expression on television). The expression in question is ¡qué fuerte!.
You might translate this expression literally to “what strong!”, but that’s (of course) totally wrong. It’s not in the dictionary so I’ll give you a general definition of it: “The expression ‘qué fuerte‘ is often used as an exclamation to say ‘wow!’, ‘oh my god!’ or ‘no way!’, or just to express surprise”. I personally would add “holy shit!” to the definition, but the expression is often not that “fuerte“.
It’s a bit difficult to give an exact translation of the expression and I doubt if it’s really possible. The upside is that it’s an expression you can use even if you don’t like swearing, while on the other hand it can be quite harsh (for example: both “no way!” and “no f*cking way” would translate to ¡qué fuerte!).
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
That’s interesting!
In Catalan, they say ‘qué fort!’.
It seems to be used in exactly the same way.
Jim
lo he aprendido en una pelicula que se llama 20 centimetros
me gusta tanto la expresion, y lo utiliso siempre cuando me puede
I was just watching Física o Química and I heard the expression being used. It’s on the second episode of the first season, about 14 minutes in, when they’re starting to read that book in the fidgety teacher’s class.
Oh yeah, and that TV show is, by the way, both f**ked up and awesome.