To be cute – to be monkey
If you find someone cute you refer to them as mono if it’s a guy, or mona if it’s a girl.
Mono is also the word for monkey/ape or overalls/jumpsuit, but as an adjective it refers to something that’s pretty, adorable or beautiful, or if you’re talking about a person, it means you find them cute.
Example: Jaime is very cute but I like bad boys.
Jaime is very cute but I like bad boys.
To be handsome or beautiful – Be handsome
Handsome is a word beginner Spanish learners are quick to learn, and the good news is that it works just as well for guys or girls – Handsome if it’s a man, beautiful if it’s woman – as opposed to in English where attractive men are usually described as handsome and women as beautiful.
If you want to say someone is very attractive, the superlative is gorgeous.
In a more colloquial way, you can call someone handsome or guapete (male), or handsome (female).
Example: Sara is gorgeous but she’s also a bit self-confident.
Sara is very beautiful but she’s also a bit vain.
Handsome or beautiful is the ‘safest’ way to refer to someone you find attractive in Spanish. Photo: Freepik
To be hot – be good
If you want to comment on how hot someone is in the physical sense, a common way to express this in Spain is saying that ‘they’re good’. It’s important to remember that there’s a big difference between saying be good and be good. To be and be are both the verb ‘to be’ in Spanish (they’re used differently, however), but be good means ‘to be good’ whereas be good means ‘to be hot’. Careful with this, otherwise you may end up referring to your friend’s pet or child as ‘hot’.
This even applies to the expression be better than bread (as good as gold, but in the literal sense meaning ‘better than bread’); if the verb is swapped to be (be better than bread) it means to be super hot/sexy.
You can also just call them buenorro or goodalthough it’s quite a forward way or referring to someone as sexually attractive.
Example: It’s great! He looks like a model.
He’s so hot! He looks like a model.
Hot guy/hot chick – hot uncle/hot aunt
On the same note, calling someone a ‘good uncle’ or ‘good auntie’ in Spanish means that you find them attractive. Let us explain before you get the wrong idea.
Uncle aunt is also a very commonly used informal way to refer to a man or woman, similar to saying ‘a bloke’ or ‘dude’ in English if it’s a guy, or ‘chick’ or ‘bird’ if it’s a woman.
That, with the bueno to refer to someone as hot, has morphed into a very common way to refer to a hot guy or girl. If you actually wanted to say someone is a good uncle or auntie in the conventional sense, you can say ‘good uncle’ or ‘good aunt’, which can also mean ‘a good guy or girl’, as in ‘he’s a good guy’.
Example: What a hot chick just walked into the bar.
An absolute hottie has just walked into the bar.
So yummy I could eat him/her up – be to eat it
Not a lot to explain here, if you find someone so dishy you could put them on a plate and eat them up in one sitting, that’s exactly what Spaniards say.
Example: Mario is to eat it in that suit.
Mario looks so yummy in that suit I could eat him up.
If Spaniards find someone very attractive, they express their desire to eat them. (Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP)
He/she turns me on – It gives me disease
Disease is a great Spanish word that refers to all manner of things ‘of unwholesome interest’ according to the Spanish dictionary.
So logically, if you say someone me from diseaseit means they turn you on in the sexual sense.
There’s a forbidden fruit element to this expression, almost like saying that you can’t help being attracted to someone that you shouldn’t be.
Example: I can’t resist it, with that gold chain and hair on my chest it makes me very horny.
I can’t help myself, with that golden chain and hairy chest he turns me on.
He/she makes me horny – makes me horny
Makes mewhich can loosely be translated as ‘he/she turns me’, alludes to sexual attraction too.
Sometime it’s completed with puts me to a hundred (he/she turns me on 100 percent), makes me like a motorcycle (he/she turns me on like a motorbike), or in the case of turned-on men, makes me hard (he/she makes me hard).
Then there’s saying makes me horny, this being an adjective meaning horny or sexually aroused.
Example: It turns me on, I see her with that piece of cleavage and even though we’re talking about work it makes me horny.
She turns me on, I see her with that incredible cleavage and, even if we’re talking about work, she makes me horny.
Unless you’re sure it’s going to be reciprocal, you shouldn’t tell someone you’ve just met that they make you dog (horny). (Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP)
As sexy as cheese, a train or cannon – To be like a cheese, a train, a canyon
English speakers may not consider cheese or trains to be sexually appealing (for the most part), but in Spanish these metaphorical comparisons are used to emphasize that someone is extremely attractive.
Example: Serena is like a train, damn the man who marries her.
Serena is as hot as hell, damned be the man who marries her.
Hottie – Pibón or a glimpse
Here are two nouns with exactly the same meaning, used to refer to a very hot person, although more often than not it’s used to talk about women.
Example: Monica Bellucci is a babe no matter how old she gets.
Monica Bellucci is such a hottie regardless of how old she gets.