Le encanta el poder y le atrapa la noche
She loves power and the night ensnares her
Caption 6, Chayanne—Lola

The Spanish verb encantar literally means "to enchant" or "to delight greatly," so when Chayanne sings "le encanta el poder," he means to say that "power enchants her" or "power delights her." In English we would simply say "she loves power." If this looks a lot like the way we use gustar (to please) when we want to say someone "likes" something, that's because encantar belongs to a family of verbs known as "verbs like gustar." These verbs always take an indirect object pronoun, usually to refer to the person who in the English version would be the subject, and in this example the "le" is the indirect object pronoun (her), referring to "Lola."

Atrapar/"to trap; to ensnare" is NOT a "verb like gustar," but Chayanne, in the interest of lyrical flow, seems to be doing his best to set it up like one. First, notice he is putting the subject la noche/"the night," after the verb atrapa/"ensnares" (a bit unusual, but not incorrect). Secondly, he is referring to Lola using the indirect object pronoun "le," but in this case it is really acting as a direct object pronoun. You can tell because it answers the question "what?" about the verb ("The night ensnares 'what?' It ensnares her") rather than the question "to whom?" or "for whom?" which would call for an indirect object pronoun.

Note that, unlike indirect object pronouns, the direct object pronouns in Spanish DO have gender distinctions, "lo" for him and "la" for her. Chayanne could have expressed the same sentiment by putting the subject before the verb and using the proper direct object pronoun, making it clearer for most Spanish learners:

La noche la atrapa.
The night ensnares her.

Strictly speaking, "le" is not to be used as a direct object at all, but Chayanne, like a great many of his fellow Spanish speakers, IS using "le" as a direct object. The phenomenon of using the indirect object pronoun "le" (or its plural "les") where you technically should have used a direct object pronoun is known as "leísmo," and its use varies by region. It is common enough that it is not always heard as "wrong" by a great many Spanish speakers, and there are even a few cases where "le" is seen, even by the strictest grammar mavens, as an acceptable alternate to the "proper" direct object pronouns.

These "acceptable" cases of leísmo usually involve the substitution of "le" for the masculine direct object "lo," but Chayanne is substituting "le" for the feminine direct object "la"—which, while not entirely unknown in colloquial Spanish, is usually not considered "acceptable" by those with learned opinions on such matters (such as the RAE).

Further reading:
http://spanish.about.com/library/weekly/aa081301a.htm
http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=leísmo

Carambola: more than tricky pool


We already know Chayanne from Provócame, where he portrays a shy stable hand who also sings the show's sanguine theme song. Now we encounter his wilder side, singing about Lola, a jet-set party-loving socialite who might even be a bit dangerous:

Como disfrutas la carambola, Lola.
How you enjoy deceit, Lola.
Caption 15, Chayanne—Lola

But how does carambola translate as "deceit?"

The usage evolves from a billiards shot (known in English as a cannon), whereby the cue ball ricochets off its target and hits a third ball, seemingly by chance, in a way that's beneficial to the player. The word comes from a pocket-less type of billiards known in English as carom billiards, and in Spanish as billar de carambolas (or just carambolas) where these types of rebounding shots are standard and can be amazing to watch.

So when someone (like Chayanne's Lola) plays her hand to achieve some benefit and makes it look like an accident, she is doing una carambola. A skillful billiards player bounces off one ball to hit another, and a skillful conman sets a trap that does not directly point back to him.

Estoy seguro que los políticos están haciendo carambola.
I'm sure that the politicians are doing something illicit.

However, not all uses of the term have negative overtones. Because the carambola shot appears to be fortuitous by happenstance, de carambola can also simply refer to chance, good luck, or "dumb luck."

Vine a recoger unos papeles y me encontré con Camilo de carambola.
I came to pick up some papers and I found Camilo by chance.

Pateó al arco, el balón golpeó en un defensor y entró de carambola.
He kicked toward the goal; the ball hit a defender and went in by luck.

Spanish words that have an "s+consonant" near the beginning pretty much all start with an "e" as the first letter. Certainly you noticed that the language is "español" and not "spañol"? Or that the country from whence it all came is España (not Spaña)? Looking again to Calle 13 for clues, we hear:

Destápate, quítate el esmalte.
Show yourself, remove your nail polish.
Caption 3, Calle 13, Atrévete.

In the word "esmalte" (nail polish), there is an "s+consonant" near the beginning of the word, but, in line with norms of Spanish, it is preceded by an "e."

Modern life causes "stress" in English speakers but Spanish speakers experience "estrés." Why? It's because when this English word made its way into Spanish, it conformed to a typical Spanish pattern.  Likewise, when a shop that sells long bread rolls filled with meats and toppings opens up on Old San Juan, Residente and his buddies will no doubt be happy to grab "sandwiches" (or "saandweeches") at "Subway" (or "SOOBway"). The beginning "s" sounds in "subway" and in "sandwich" are no problem, because they are followed by vowels: "u" and "a", respectively --  a pattern Spanish speakers are well accustomed to. ¿Sí o no? -¡Supongo que sí!

Keep an ear open for Spanish words that begin with an "s" and with an "es." Does the theory fit? We hope so, or it will be an escándalo!

Side note: On the other side of the coin, the "es + consonant" phenomenon runs so deep in Spanish-language phonetics, and so many English "s" words have a corresponding similar Spanish "es" word, that Spanish speakers learning English sometimes mistakenly that think that "es + consonant" is only a Spanish-language thing. This will lead them to say specially for especially, state for estate, and streme for extreme, thinking that the "e"s are a hangover from their Spanish pronunciation. You just have to remember Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy, the Cuban immigrant musician and band leader who was always ready to admonish Lucille Ball's character with "Lucy! You've got some splainin' to do!

Let's stop by the kitchen of the Di Carlo mansion, setting of preparations for the big gala in Muñeca Brava. The maids are very excited. They want to get a detailed description of how Mili looked as she made her Cinderella-like debut. Notice that Socorrito uses the imperfect tense of both ver (to look) and bajar (to go down, to lower, to descend) when she asks:

Contame, contame, ¿cómo se la veía cuando bajaba de la escalera?
Tell me, tell me, how did she look as she was walking down the staircase?
Caption 1, Muñeca Brava - Episodio 41 (La Fiesta) - Part 2

If you've ever heard anything at all about the imperfect tense, it's that it applies to past actions that are not completed or that are ongoing. We see that quite clearly above in the case of bajaba; Mili "was walking down," an action that was ongoing at the time. However, another rule of the imperfect, one less bandied about, also comes into play here: the imperfect is employed when describing two or more simultaneous past actions. Socorrito wants to know how Mili "looked" (using the imperfect veía) as (at the same point in time) she was going down the stairs. 

With her usual enthusiasm, Mariposa definitely puts them in the moment when she answers:

Socorrito, ¡no sabe lo que era! Parecía una princesa.
Socorrito, you can't imagine! She looked like a princess.
Caption 2, Muñeca Brava - Episodio 41 (La Fiesta) - Part 2

More well-known to the average student of Spanish is the use of the imperfect to refer to a habitual or repeated action in the past. We saw an example of this in an earlier episode of Muñeca Brava when Milena says to Louise:

Sí, antes nos veíamos siempre.
Yes, we always used to see each other.
Caption 58, Muñeca Brava - La Apuesta - Part 11  

The other simple past tense in Spanish (called "simple" because its conjugations are only one word long) is known as preterite and is used for past actions that are completed and non-habitual. We find an example in a recent music video from The Krayolas:

Cuando yo la vi por primera vez me enamoré en un dos por tres.
When I saw her for the first time I fell in love with her instantly.
Captions 1-2, The Krayolas - Little Fox

¿Hombres? Pero mirá que sos cínica, Martita, ¿eh?
"Men? But you're quite shameless Martita, aren't you?"
[caption 12, La muñeca brava - la apuesta - part 12]

Pero no lo hace de mala, eh. De bruta que es, lo hace.
"But she doesn't do it because she's mean. She does it because she's just stupid."
[caption 16, La muñeca brava - la apuesta - part 12]

Mili is having it out with her fellow domestica, Marta, in La Muñeca brava, La apuesta, part 12. Mili calls Marta cínica and bruta. But Marta doesn’t look like a "brute" and we really don’t know her philosophical affiliations. So, what gives?

The words bruto and cínico share Latin roots with their English cousins “brute” and “cynical,” but they don’t mean exactly the same thing. As a matter of fact, they usually mean something else when used in Spanish. If you look at how we translated these words, you will find “stupid” for bruta, and “shameless” for cínica.

Both are adjectives that, when applied to human beings, can also be nouns. No seas bruta or bruto translates into English as “Don’t be stupid” or “[…] dense,” the idea being “as stupid or dense as an animal, a ‘brute.’ ” In Spanish, on the other hand, if you want to call someone a “brute,” you’d say he's an animal (“animal”) or bestia (“beast”): Ese animal quiso propasarse con mi prima. (“That brute tried to go too far with my cousin.”)

In English, “cynical” usually refers to a person who believes in nothing or is generally distrustful of people. “That critic is a real cynic. He never likes anything!” But for this critic to be cínico in Spanish, he would have another quality entirely: Ese critico es un verdadero cínico. Escribió una buena reseña de la obra sólo porque la actriz principal es su amante. “That critic has no shame. He wrote a good review of the play only because the leading lady is his lover.”

There is a Yiddish word, frequently used in English, that nails cínico right on the head: chutzpah. In Spanish it only has the negative sense, though, which according to Leo Rosten is “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery”. That’s the Spanish cínico in a nutshell. “Talk about chutzpah, the nerve of that guy!” ¡Qué cínico!

Notes:
Bruto and "brute" both have a shared root in the Latin "brutus" ("heavy, dull, stupid," later came to mean "associated with lower animals/beasts"). The English "brute" tends to associate more with the physicality aspect (strong yet not graceful) while the Spanish bruto tends to associate more with the mentality aspect (simple minded, ignorant, stupid), but there does exist some crossover in both languages.

Similarly, the Spanish cínico does at times take on a meaning very similar to the meaning we usually ascribe to "cynical" in English, and the reverse is also true. Their shared ancestry goes even deeper than the Latin "cynic," all the way back to the Greek "Kunikas."

For further reading on cínico:
An excellent and very interesting deeper look at cínico and cynical:
http://life-in-translation.blogspot.com/2004/12/cynical-about-dictionaries.html

An expat in Chile discovers the cínico / cynical difference the hard way:
http://cachandochile.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/cynical-or-cinico/