EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

(Seconds before biting the cake) : "Why are their hands so close to the back of my head?" English lacks one specific term to refer to that person who is celebrating their birthday which means we will always need two words. If it is a CUMPLEAÑERO then we say BIRTHDAY BOY. If it is a CUMPLEAÑERA then we say BIRTHDAY GIRL. It is uncommon to say BIRTHDAY MAN or BIRTHDAY WOMAN. If we don't want to specify gender we can say BIRTHDAY PERSON, though. It is possible to say CUMPLEAÑEROS as BIRTHDAY FOLKS. In Spanish, we call those who celebrate their birthdays in the same month as LOS CUMPLEAÑEROS DE (name of month). In English something similar is said but the emphasis is on the days not the people, e.g. OCTOBER BIRTHDAYS would be translated as LOS CUMPLEAÑEROS DE OCTUBRE when it really means LOS CUMPLEAÑOS DE OCTUBRE.

You can't see them but the guards are inside sleeping...erm...watching over us. To put the word GARITA in Spanish is no easy matter because a GARITA can have several purposes and the name varies accordingly. If it is for military purposes then it is a WATCHTOWER or a SENTRY OUTPOST. If the idea is only to exert some sort of control on who gets in and who gets out of a certain place then it is called a CHECKPOINT BOOTH or just a CHECKPOINT. This is perhaps the closest in meaning to the common definition of what a GARITA is in Latin America where closed private neighborhoods are abundant and many restrict the entrance by placing GARITAS with hired guards to look after things (as shown in the picture).  There is also the term PORTER'S LODGE which is a good option as well. 

Trump. "Damn wind! I'm sure it was sent by the Mexicans!" More often than not there comes a time in the lives of some unfortunate men that their hairline starts receding too soon, too quickly. And then there is a bald spot where there used to be glorious and abundant hair. Some accept the coming of the inevitable with dignity and others despair. However, no shampoo or intense capillary method is going to regrow hair in those bald spots. They will only get larger and also people will start staring. But that's how it is. And yet the despairing men find that concealing the truth is an option and they go the TOUPÉE way. TOUPÉEs (yes, the word is originally French) are hairpieces either natural or artificial that try to cover that awful bald spot (in some cases unsuccessfully as the man in the picture).  Since a Toupée is essentially a Wig and Wig in Spanish is Peluca, it only makes sense that TOUPÉE in Spanish is PELUQUÍN. 

"Mmmhh... a DOORJAMB is a rectangle thing you put on a door, right?" A DOORJAMB or DOOR JAMB is a wooden piece that forms the frame of a door. They are usually placed vertically on both sides of the door to support the upper side of the door frame which is commonly known as the Lintel. These vertical sidepieces are also called Doorpost.  In Spanish this example of what we, English teachers call Passive Vocabulary, is BATIENTE or JAMBA.

AIDE-DE-CAMP: "if the president was an AIDE-DE-CAMP in the past, will I get to be president myself? Mmmhhh. .." There is no English word for that and yet there is a term for that in English. Confused?   Me, too. (kidding!) Let's begin by clarifying what an EDECÁN is and what he or she does. An EDECÁN is basically a military officer who assists another officer who is his or her superior in rank. Constitutional presidents usually have an EDECÁN at their side in all official presentations even though they are not part of the military. As in most constitutions, presidents are the heads of the Armed Forces and therefore they outrank any general or admiral which is why they are assigned their own EDECANES "to protect" them so to speak, though really EDECANES are more symbolic figures than anything else. EDECÁN  in English is AIDE-DE-CAMP, not an English word since it was obviously borrowed from the French language, but the only term in English to mean ...

If we can say LET'S GET GOING, can we say LET'S GET COMING? Though it looks like an uncommon expression it is not. VAMONOS YENDO is used by Ecuadorians, only occasionally.  It is another way to say ¡Vámonos!,  and it is not an Ecuatorianism. In fact it can be found in several expressions of the Spanish culture such as some song lyrics from which it was probably taken. The equivalent in English is LET'S GET GOING. This expression is more often heard in English than it is in Spanish. The meaning is pretty much the same with a slight difference: it has a stronger sense of urgency, something like Let's hurry up!

Minimalism at its best...or worst. A FLOP HOUSE or FLOPHOUSE (DOSSHOUSE in British English) is a house or also a hotel that offers very cheap accommodations at very cheap prices because the services you get are well...cheap.  The quarters are mere cubicles, beds are small and bedrooms are usually shared. FLOP HOUSES are usually occupied by homeless people or low-income travelers. These days FLOP HOUSES have gained low reputation and some people use them to smoke drugs among other things. In the past FLOP HOUSES were known as Lodging Houses. There is not a real translation for it in Spanish. The closest would be PENSION DE MALA MUERTE or ALBERGUE PARA INDIGENTES.