Toco madera

All cultures and languages have expressions about good and bad luck so it's not surprising to find similar phrases in different languages. Let's take a look at some Spanish expressions used to express good and :( bad wishes and talk about fortune in general.

The best and most common way to wish luck in Spanish is simply that: desear suerte (to wish luck). You can say: te deseo buena suerte (I wish you good luck) or omit the adjective buena (good) and simply say te deseo suerte (I wish you luck). In the following example, the Mother Superior is addressing Father Manuel formally, and that's why she uses the pronoun le instead of te.

Muy bien, le deseo suerte.

Very well, I wish you luck.

Caption 23, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta
Play Caption

You can also omit the verb desear:

OK, buena suerte al aprender español.

Okay, good luck learning Spanish.

Caption 29, Cabarete - Escuela de trapecio
Play Caption

Or omit both verb and adjective and emphatically say just ¡suerte!:

¡Suerte!

Good luck!

Caption 4, Fruteria "Los Mangos" - Vendiendo Frutas
Play Caption

Other common expressions are ¡Qué buena suerte! (How lucky!) and ¡Qué mala suerte! (How unlucky!). It's also common to just say ¡Qué suerte! (literally "Such luck!"); whether the person is referring to bad or good luck is left to be inferred from the context.

¡Qué suerte encontrar a Gustavo!

How lucky to find Gustavo!

Caption 46, Eljuri - "Fuerte" EPK
Play Caption

Now, we wouldn't like to be the ones teaching you how to wish bad luck. Besides, apart from expressions that involve the verb maldecir (to curse), it would basically consist of substituting the adjective buena (good) with mala (bad). For example, te deseo mala suerte means “I wish you bad luck.” Guess bad-luck-wishers are less creative than good-luck-wishers!

But there's an expression about bad luck that’s very common, and very superstitious in nature: echar la sal (literally, "to throw salt at," to jinx). So you would say ¡No me eches la sal! (Don't jinx me!), or Lucía me echó la sal y por eso me caí (Lucía jinxed me and that's why I fell). We don't have an example yet of this particular expression in our catalog of videos, but we have something even more interesting. The belief that salt is associated with bad luck is a widespread superstition in many cultures, Spanish- and English-speaking cultures included, of course. According to this superstition, spilling salt is bad luck and throwing a pinch over your shoulder reverses that bad luck, right? Have you ever seen a chef doing this? If you haven't, check out our chef Tatiana, who is very much into magic thought, when she is preparing her salsa:

Preparamos una super salsa.

We make a great salsa.

Caption 25, Tatiana y su cocina - Chilaquiles
Play Caption

Finally, if you prefer more linguistic ways of protecting yourself from bad luck, there's the expression tocar madera (knock on wood). You need to conjugate the verb to use it properly. Here's a made-up example, along with several other colorful Spanish expressions all put together, to contribute to your research on the topic of bad luck versus good luck.

¿Y si te resbalas? Sería muy mala pata, ¿no?
And if you slip? That would be really unlucky, no?

¡Cállate, no me sales! Toco madera.
Shut up, don't jinx me! Knock on wood!

¡Qué la boca se te haga chicharrón!
I hope it won't happen! (Literally, "May your mouth turn into a pork rind!")