Laura Flores cuenta trabajos duros en Miami y escuela
C1 Spanish listening practice · Mexican Spanish · Curated for advanced learners
What does “tiempos de vacas flacas” mean?
Tiempos de vacas flacas means lean times — a stretch of scarcity or money trouble — set against tiempos de vacas gordas, the fat years of plenty. The image comes straight from the Bible: in Genesis, Pharaoh dreams of seven fat cows and seven thin ones, which Joseph reads as seven years of abundance followed by seven of famine. The lesson baked into the phrase: save during the fat years for the lean ones.
In the clip por la vaca flaca means roughly “because money was tight.” The expression is fully pan-Hispanic and works in any register. From the same monologue, two more Mexican-flavored gems: echarle ganas (to put your back into it, give it your all) and echarle humildad (to swallow your pride) — the resilient grit of taking any job to get through the vacas flacas.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-ESP 2011 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.