La primavera — spring — is one of the most poetic seasons, and the Spanish language has plenty to say about it. Whether you're looking to expand your spring vocabulary in Spanish, learn how to talk about the weather, or discover some beautiful seasonal expressions, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in!
Flores means "flowers" and florecer means "to flower" or "to bloom." But there are also other words such as the verb aflorar (to bloom), which is also used figuratively meaning "to pop up," "to emerge" or "to appear." You can even use it to say something as un-spring-like as: Su instinto asesino afloró de pronto (His killing instinct suddenly emerged).
Spanish also has the poetic adjective florido (full of flowers, flowery):
Luz y sonido, grande y florido
Light and sound, big and flowery
Caption 1, Aterciopelados - Al parque
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And the participle adjective florecido, also "full of flowers:"
Por la senda florecida que atraviesa la llanura
Along the flowered path that crosses the plain
Caption 9, Acercándonos a la Literatura - José Asunción Silva - "Nocturno III"
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There is also the verb florear (literally, "to adorn with flowers" or "to make look like a flower") with many, many different uses. For example, florear means "to compliment" or "to say beautiful things." From that come the expressions echar flores, decir flores, tirar flores (literally, to throw or say flowers):
Gracias, te agradezco mucho las flores que me estás tirando.
Thanks, I thank you very much for your compliments [literally "the flowers that you are throwing me"].
Caption 18, Muñeca Brava - 45 El secreto
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Enough of flores. The verb aparear (to mate or reproduce, literally "to pair") is a pertinent choice:
Las ballenas vienen a Gorgona a aparearse y tener sus crías.
The whales come to Gorgona to mate and to have their offspring.
Caption 52, Instinto de conservación - Gorgona
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Anidar means "to nest," and by extension "to shelter." You can use it figuratively as in: En su corazón anida la amargura (His heart harbors bitterness). The corresponding noun is nido (nest), a word that you can learn, along with many other palabras primaverales (spring words), by watching the trippy song Jardín (Garden) by Liquits:
De pronto una cigüeña me lleva de paquete bebé al nido
Suddenly a stork takes me as a baby package to the nest
Captions 14-15, Liquits - Jardín
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Spring weather can be unpredictable — one day soleado (sunny), the next lluvioso (rainy)! In Spanish, describing the weather involves a mix of adjectives and verb structures. For example, hace sol (it's sunny), llueve (it's raining), and hay viento (it's windy) are all expressions you'll hear constantly during la primavera.
Así que llueve un poco, pero los días suelen estar soleados.
So it rains a bit, but the days tend to be sunny.
Captions 19-20, Clara explica El tiempo - Part 1
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📌 Want to go deeper into weather vocabulary and expressions in Spanish? Check out our complete guide: [Talking About the Weather in Spanish: Essential Vocabulary and Expressions]
To finish this lesson, let's explore a beautiful figurative use of the word primavera (spring). Just like "springtime" in English, primavera in Spanish can denote the earliest and usually most attractive period of something's existence. By extension, it's commonly used as a synonym for "youth," or even "years," in expressions such as hoy ella cumple sus veinte primaveras (she is celebrating her twentieth anniversary). Here's a lovely example from Reyli's song Qué nos pasó:
¿Quién te llenó de primaveras esos ojos
Who filled with springtimes those eyes of yours
que no me saben mentir?
which don't know how to lie to me?
Captions 12-13, Reyli - Qué nos pasó
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From flowers and nesting to weather expressions and poetic uses of la primavera, Spanish offers a wonderfully rich set of tools for talking about this season. Keep practicing these words and expressions, and don't be afraid to sprinkle some palabras primaverales into your next Spanish conversation!
Got questions about spring vocabulary in Spanish or any other Spanish topic? We'd love to hear from you — send us your thoughts and questions, and we'll do our best to help. ¡Hasta la próxima!
Remember The Smurfs? Los Pitufos -as they are known in Spanish- are referenced among the trippy Liquits lyrics in this featured music video now on Yabla Spanish:
Pastel de pitufresa mezclado con peyote natural y mora
Smurfberry pie mixed with natural peyote and blackberry
Caption 10, Liquits - Jardín
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Huh?, you might ask. What's a pitufresa? Well, fresa translates as "strawberry." Adding the made-up prefix pitu[f]- in front of the word for this sweet, red fruit is akin to manipulating the English word "strawberry" to create the fictional food "smurfberry." (Remember this red-fruited cereal spun off from the cartoon?)
Like "Smurf," Pitufo is a made-up word in Spanish. But in both English and Spanish, the Smurf world -that is, Pitufolandia- follows some basic language rules that can be illuminating for students to note. For example:
"Smurf" + the suffix "-ette" = "Smurfette"
Pitufo + the suffix -ina = Pitufina
In both cases, the made-up root word is paired with a real-world suffix to name the cute, female character in the cartoon.
So, the Liquits' loopy reference to fictional pitufresas can help shed light on other pop culture references. Bonus points for anyone who can figure out how to say "Smurftastic!" en español....
For more, see:
Wikipedia > The Smurfs in other languages
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