Trabalenguas y errores divertidos con Eugenio Derbez
B2 Spanish listening practice · Mexican Spanish · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
What does “trabalenguas” literally mean in Spanish?
A trabalenguas is a “tongue-twister,” and it’s built exactly like what it does: trabar (“to jam, snag, lock up”) plus lenguas (“tongues”). So the word literally means a “tongue-jammer” — a phrase engineered to snag your tongue. Once you see trabar inside it, the joke in the clip clicks: when Derbez fumbles and groans estoy bien trabado, he’s saying “I’m all jammed up,” same root, same idea.
That verb trabar is worth keeping. It’s the “to snag / get stuck” verb — a door that se traba, a conversation you trabas (strike up), machinery that jams. The reflexive trabarse is your everyday word for tripping over your own words: me trabé = “I got tongue-tied.” So trabalenguas isn’t a random label; it’s trabar + lenguas doing exactly what it says.
Vocabulary frequency
How common is the vocabulary in this B2 Spanish listening practice listening practice?
General Spanish frequency
Spoken Spanish frequency
Words above this video’s level
Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s B2 level.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-ESP 2011 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.