EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

"This is how I make all my errands. Spiderman would be jealous." When we say in Ecuadorian Spanish that we have to HACER UNA DILIGENCIA, that means we have something to do somewhere. It is usually a small thing: something to buy, a check to cash, or just a bill to pay. The English term for that is TO RUN AN ERRAND, though you may also say TO DO AN ERRAND or TO GO ON AN ERRAND.  

You can only wonder if they ever really need to light those candles on the MANTELPIECE. This is another example of what in English is called a False Cognate or more commonly a False Friend. So, the translation surely is not Mantel. In English, a MANTELPIECE is a ledge, some structure made of wood, stone or sometimes marble that is built over the fireplace. There is not one word in Spanish to serve as the translation of MANTELPIECE, but we can always say REPISA DE LA CHIMENEA.  

"Brave? Well, not right now. I'm mad. I can't find my comb. Darn!" BRAVO is not necessarily the best translation for BRAVE, not at least if you are in Ecuador. Here BRAVO is mad, angry. Un hombre BRAVO is a bad-tempered person. How this came to be is a mystery. Nevertheless, in other Spanish-speaking countries, BRAVO is indeed valiente which is valiant, or BRAVE. So, yes, BRAVE is BRAVO in Spanish, only not in Ecuador

"No WISECRACKS about my hair. At the moment, I am a WISECRACK ." A joke is a WISECRACK, but a joke is not always a WISECRACK. A joke can be a funny story that at the end causes laughter, but it is also a sarcastic and funny remark. If it is a sarcastic remark then it is called a WISECRACK. As such a WISECRACK can be translated as BROMA or CHISTE, but if you want to be more precise then it is neither.  There is not a one-word translation for WISECRACK,  but  we can say SALIDA GRACIOSA or SALIDA INGENIOSA.

"See? It's magic. It was not there ten seconds ago." CASPA is how we call in Spanish that white dust that appears in our shoulders when we have a condition in the scalp. It is particularly annoying because is usually accompanied by itching and sometimes also redness. Different factors may produce the appearance of CASPA and the disappearance of those factors may also mark the end of this problem.  CASPA is commonly an unusual amount of dead scalp cells, Then using shampoo appropriate to our scalp may be the solution. The word used in English is a little bit odd: DANDRUFF.  

"If I bark many times, is that a PET WORD?" A PET WORD or a PET PHRASE is a resource we use when we do not have anything better to say so we keep repeating the same word. It is like having a favorite word, one we use inadvertently one time too many. Well, OK, All right are the most common PET WORDS, but in general any expression used unnecessarily more than two or three times can be considered a PET WORD.  PET WORDS are called MULETILLAS or COLETILLAS in Spanish with Este and Bueno being the most common ones. 

Forests look great during the day, but in the SMALL HOURS... You can't, not at least using one word. MADRUGADA is specifically the time between midnight and sunrise.   Dawn and Sunrise are good alternatives, but they are not necessarily what we know as MADRUGADA in Spanish. A better choice would be EARLY MORNING, or more informally the SMALL HOURS, or the WEE HOURS.