3 Meanings Of Acelerado

Just like in English, words in Spanish can, and often do, take a figurative meaning that is entirely different from what it literally means depending on the context. This is the point today’s very simple yet grammatically rich Spanish-language sentence is going to illustrate. What we are going to dissect today is a construct commonplace in real conversations in Mexican households yet not endorsed by mainstream grammar books. This is exactly what this site aims at anyways – Helping you speak Spanish as spoken by real Latinos and not necessarily as always prescribed by grammar books and constructed by literary characters.

So, here’s the Spanish sentence whose anatomy this post revolves around:

Mija Eldorita es de naturaleza acelerada y en el trabajo esta semana está acelerada con varios proyectos (My daughter, Eldorita, is by nature hyper and this week at work, she is swamped with various projects).

The nuts and bolts

Is your child acelerado too?
Photo credit: anarchivist licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Let’s break this long sentence down to chewable morsels and discover how effortlessly Spanish just flows in! As always, we will do this word by word, phrase by phrase, assimilating new vocabulary as well as relevant grammar on the fly.

Mija – This one’s a bit interesting. You won’t find this word in any official dictionary and yet hear it everywhere you go. It means “my daughter” in English. Now, if you are familiar with the actual Spanish for “daughter” (hija), you would have probably guessed by now that mija is simply a colloquial contraction of mi (my) hija (daughter). No points for guessing that mijo, in a similar fashion, stands for mi hijo, or “my son”.

Eldorita – Just another female Hispanic name, in this case, the name of the daughter in question.

es – This is the third person singular present tense form for the verb, ser, which means “to be” in English. The English verb, “to be” has actually two translations in Spanish and ser is one of them. The other one is estar. Confused about which one to use when? Well, that’s an entirely different topic of discussion that calls for a post of its own. For now, as a rule of thumb, just remember that ser is used when we are talking about one’s character, traits, or anything that’s more or less permanent in nature while estar, on the other hand, fills in whenever something temporary is being discussed (such as, location, temporary physical condition, temporary emotional state, etc.). Of course, this statement is overly simplistic and there do exist quite a few if’s and but’s to this rule. Hence, you’d be better off just remembering the context set by example sentences such as this one and forget about the grammatical modalities. Just go with the flow and eventually your ears will evolve to be able to tell which one of the two sounds correct in any given context. Let this evolution be organic and don’t force-feed your brain by memorizing the rules right now.

de naturaleza – No questions asked, this phrase simply means, “by nature”. If you have been learning vocabulary as taught in schools, i.e., memorizing lists of words with their English meanings devoid of any context, you would probably be scratching your head right now over whether this should mean “of nature” instead because you learned that de means “of”. That’s the disaster you invite if you ever try cramming up word-lists. So, take this as an illustration of how important context is when you are learning Spanish, or any language for that matter. Here, de naturaleza is just a phrase and not requiring any further autopsy, just means “by nature”.

acelerada – Something funny is happening here. Literally, acelerada or acelerado (if used for males) means “accelerated” or “speeded up” in English. However, colloquial Spanish has a way of altering the meanings of recognized words beyond recognition. In this context, acelerada means “hyper” or “hyperactive”. Luckily to aid your memory, this contextual meaning does hold a semblance to the literal meaning because usually, if you are hyper you would tend to do things quickly or faster. Why? Because you are hyper and impatient! Since we are talking about my daughter, we are using the feminine form, acelerada and not the masuline form, acelerado.

y – this one is perhaps the easiest. Y stands for “and”; nothing more, nothing less. However, just in case you are feeling a tad adventurous, here’s a fun fact: The Spanish for “and” becomes e if the following word starts with an /i/ sound as in e higiene (and hygiene).

en – Spanish for “in” or “at” when the sense being implied is that of something happening or being situated in a location.

el trabajo – This one means “work” and, to be more precise in this context, “the workplace”. Needless to say, it draws from the Spanish verb, trabajar (to work). El is the Spanish “the” when followed by a masculine noun (if feminine, the el becomes la).

esta – This means “this” in Spanish, only when the following noun is feminine, otherwise the word is este.

semana – The Spanish for “week”. Don’t miss out the feminine -a ending; most Spanish nouns ending with “a” are feminine and most ending with “o” are masculine. This is precisely why semana takes esta and not este.

está – This is the third person singular present tense form of estar, the verb that, along with es, translates into “to be”. As discussed above, estar is used only when talking about temporary conditions or locations. Why estar in this context? we will soon see. Also note the complete absence of the subject here. In Spanish it is perfectly fine, rather appropriate, to omit the subject unless there’s any ambiguity. Here, since the context indicates that we are talking about my daughter, está comes to mean not just “is” but “she is”.

acelerada – In this context acelerada takes on yet another meaning which though similar in origin, has a slightly different ring to it. This time, it means “to be swamped” or “to be flodded”. Again, were we talking about a guy instead of my daughter, the word would have been acelerado.

con – This means “with” in all contexts; usage examples include con gusto (with pleasure), con carne (with meat), etc.

varios proyectos – Perhaps the easiest bit for an English-speaker, this phrase means “various projects” where varios means “various” and proyectos means “projects”.

The two ways to be

Finally we come to an end of this interesting autopsy! We are sure this simple sentence has loaded you with enough grammar and vocabulary to make you feel one step closer to being Spanish-enabled! Did you notice how we used ser (the form, es) when talking about my daughter’s hyperactive nature and estar (the form, está) when talking about she being swamped with a lot of work during this particular week? Since her hyperactive nature is a permanent attribute, her trait, we used ser which is used while talking about all things permanent. However, when we talked about her hectic week, we know that it was temporary, only for one week. That’s why the temporary verb, estar, had to step in.

Once again, please refrain from cramming up these rules and just learn the sentence, the context. If you learn a single sentence and just “understand” the grammar it uses, you will be comfortable making hundreds of sentences more within a similar context without memorizing any grammar. Our two cents, just add these sentences to your flashcard deck.