El tranque de la mañana
Seven in the morning on Vía España: two cousins wait for a bus that is not coming, watch somebody jump the queue, remember the painted buses that used to run the city, and get to the office before the boss does.
Reinforces vocabulary from Panamanian Spanish: A Survival Guide.
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The Scene
A morning commute is the fastest tour of Panamanian Spanish there is. In one bus ride Kevin and Josué use xopá, mopri, tranque, buco, arroz con mango, chuleta, juega vivo, offi, fonda, rankiao, fren and raspao — the narration supplies the pelao who jumps the queue, and doña Yara the diablo rojo, which is the only thing in the story that has actually disappeared. Note how much English is in there without anybody quoting it: fren, rankiao, and the buses themselves.
Vocabulary Highlights
- ¿qué xopá? / mopri — the greeting and the mate, both with the syllables reversed.
- el tranque — the traffic jam. Every Spanish-speaking country renames its own.
- buco — loads, and it never agrees: buco, from French beaucoup.
- arroz con mango — a shambles: arroz con mango.
- el pelao / la pelá — the kid — or, with a possessive, your other half: pelao / pelá.
- ¡chuleta! — the exclamation for everything: chuleta.
- juega vivo — cutting the corner and not getting caught: juega vivo, and a national argument in two words.
- offi — agreed, understood: offi, from oficial.
- el diablo rojo — the painted bus that used to run the city: diablo rojo.
- la fonda / el raspao — the cheap kitchen and the shaved ice, in that order.
- fren / rankiao — friend and doing-well, both straight from English by way of the Canal.
Read the Panamanian Spanish survival guide for the sound system and the Canal loans behind all of this, or the Panama hub for how the capital and the interior differ.
This scene only scratches the surface — the full chapter is in Daily Life and Culture, part of our Speak Spanish Like a Native book series.