UKC

Dear UKC,
I've got myself a place on the magical Erasmus scheme, which EU give me money to spend a year living and maybe studying in Murcia in the south east of Spain. Life is so hard. I'm brushing up on my AS level Spanish before I head out, and I wanted to ask if anyone has any advice for general Spanish climbing vocabulary. Words or phrases like 'route', 'crag' and 'belay' would be good, 'crimp', 'gaston' and 'mono' would be better, and 'what's the easiest route here', 'take' and 'just resting' would be stellar.

I've Googled around for some sort of online dictionary, but everything I've found so far is a bit fiddly or useless. Directions to anything of this sort would be handy, but individual phrases would also be appreciated, mainly so I can distinguish between an off-colour colloquial congratulation and i.e. a slight against my haircut (imagine the face of a European who was just congratulated with 'dog's bollocks mate' at the top of a route.)

Thanks UKC,
Love Alex
PS. No trolls please, I do have a dictionary which I am unafraid to use.

Scorchio!

Sorted.

In reply to cookacat: just shout "venga" a lot. You'll be fine.

In reply to cookacat: when we were in Spain earlier this year we used "Escalada Vamos" instead of "Climb when ready"... not strictly a climbing term but the locals seemed to understand - think it translates as "CLIMBING - GO!!!". My spanish is limited as you can tell...
Also - most spanish climbers knew the english words - especially things like belay and 'Below'.

In reply to tspoon1981: yeah there were a lot of 'vengas' flying around in Font last Easter.

In reply to cookacat: well done on getting a spanish erasmus placement - i did mine 4 years ago and it was amazing, can't remember loads but here are a few (excuse spelling)

Da me la cuerda (give me the rope - for threading belays)
Abajo/bajo/bajame (j bit like the k in lock) - below/down/lower me
listo - are you ready?
cinta - quickdraw
chapa - bolt
mas, mas, un poco mas, un poquito mas - more, more, a little bit more, a tiny tiny little bit more
Piya! (spelling awful i know) - take!
Seguro - safe
Casca - helmet
Pieds de gato - climbing shoes (literally - cats feet) (gatos for short)
Magnesio - chalk
Vamos - lets go!
Venga - go on! (like Allez in french)
Romo - sloper
dedo - finger
monodedo - one finger pocket.
puenta roca - a thread (rock bridge)
Asegurar - to belay
Reunion - lower off/belay
Piedra! - Rock! (below!)
toprope (in a spanish accent! "torrope")
diedro - corner
fissura - big crack
grieta - little crack
chiminea - chimney
grado - grade

In reply to cookacat:
>

I have a friend who was deployed with a few others as a civilian to Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf War, to fly targets for air defence missile practice shoots.
As they sat in their trench in Saudi, looking in the direction of the Kuwaiti border they got to thinking that it might not go to plan and Saddam Hussein and his army might come the other way first. They found an interpreter and asked him how to say in Arabic ‘I am a non-combatant. Please treat me fairly’. He told them and they duly practiced their phrase every morning.
At the end of the war, and out of curiosity, they found another interpreter. They asked him what their phrase meant. They said, in fluent Arabic, ‘Come on Rag Head! Let’s fight to the death!’