Dirty Spanish Books
Teaching You to Insult, Swear, and Be Rude in Spanish

There are a surprisingly high number of dirty Spanish books on the market today. All of them are great for a laugh, but some of them can actually teach you how to insult, swear, and be so downright rude that you will be able to easily join in on that war of words and amaze the locals with your knowledge of the more colorful parts of the language. So, if you are looking to buy a dirty Spanish book to learn about all the words your teacher isn't about to teach you, but are unsure of which one you'd like to pick up, then perhaps the following guide will help you decide.

First off, we'll discuss the Dirty Spanish series. This series includes the original Dirty Spanish book that contains everyday slang from "What's up?" to "Fuck off!" This book by Juan Caballero will teach you the insults, sex terms, and swear words you've been dying to learn. Basically, it's 180 pages of all the stuff your teacher refused to teach you in Spanish class.

The book itself is broken into nine sections including Party Spanish, Horny Spanish, and Angry Spanish. Each of these sections contain relevant and useful words and phrases, translated between both English and Spanish to get you speaking like a native in no time. There's also a short pronunciation guide at the front of the book, which is helpful if you are unsure about the basics of Spanish pronunciation.

Just be warned – not all of the dirty Spanish in this book will work for all of the specific Spanish-speaking locations around the world (this is true for all the books, however). As the book itself states, "Spanish is not universal. Colombian slang is quite different from Spanish or Mexican slang." Not to worry, however, because they've included country-specific information next to any of the non-universal dirty words and phrases.

All-in-all, I'd give Dirty Spanish 4/5 stars because, though you can learn a lot about the real Spanish spoken in many Spanish-speaking countries, the book could have been a little better organized and some of the translations aren't entirely correct.

To go along with the Dirty Spanish book, there is also a Dirty Spanish Workbook and a set of Dirty Spanish Flash Cards that are soon to be released. The workbook will be released on December 25th, 2012 and contains 200 exercises covering the basics of slang, sex, and swearing. The flash cards, which are being released on February 5th, 2013, promise to help you memorize the various dirty words and expressions that are spoken in the Spanish language. Both of these resources are already available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

As I don't yet have a copy of these, I can't yet rate either the Dirty Spanish Workbook or the Dirty Spanish Flash Cards. I will update this part of the guide once I've had a chance to check them out for myself later on.

Beyond the Dirty Spanish series, there are other great resources for learning Spanish insults and swear words like the book, 100 of the Best Curses & Insults: Spanish: For When You Need Just the Right Word. This new book, which was released in June of 2012, is an updated version of the original 100 of the Best Curses and Insults in Spanish book by Rachel Perez that was originally released back in 2009. Though the older version contained an audio device (which unfortunately was notorious for not always working properly) the newer version does not. It still has the same black and white illustrations, however, by artist Chuck Gonzales and a second author, Antonio Martinez has been added to the list of authors this time around.

Another book I'd like to discuss is Talk Dirty Spanish: Beyond Mierda: The Curses, Slang, and Street Lingo You Need to Know When You Speak Espanol by Alexis Munier and Laura Martinez. Like the Dirty Spanish book I've mentioned above, this book also tells you when a word or phrase is location-specific. It's filled with plenty of translated vulgarities to keep you going for a long while and I feel that it's both laid out and written fairly well.

There is one thing that really bugged me about this book, however, which is why I'm only going to give it 4/5 stars – the cover claims that it is uncensored, yet when you get to the final pages of the book, there is most certainly censorship going on. To me it makes no sense to write, "XXX: Too Dirty to Translate" in a book about talking dirty Spanish. The book is about being dirty, so why are they censoring it? But really, that's my only gripe and the book is still a great resource when you forget about the "too dirty to translate" crap they pulled at the back of the book.

Before I finish, I'd also like to mention a couple more books I happen to have, just in case you're considering buying them for yourself. The books are Mierda!: The REAL Spanish You Were Never Taught in School and it's sequel, Mas Mierda!: More of the REAL Spanish You Were Never Taught in School. Be forewarned that these books by Frances de Talavera Berger and Michael Heath weren't as good as I was hoping they would be.

Yes, these books are a bit older than the other dirty Spanish books I own (they came out in 1990 and 1995 respectively) and though they do contain some useful translations, there are also plenty of mistakes along the way. Overall, I'd give these two books 3/5 stars because at least the entertainment value was high, even if I can't say the same about their learning value.

Anyway, I'll leave it there until I can get my hands on some more dirty Spanish phrase books. As it stands so far, I've learned a little, chuckled a lot, and expanded my Spanish learning library to include several books that were simply a lot more fun to read than the average textbook – something that I've been wanting to do for quite some time.

The Fine Print