Sound like a local: idioms and set phrases

English says "I have just arrived". Spanish has no word for that "just": it uses the verb acabar ("to finish") plus de and an infinitive. Acabo de llegar literally means "I finish arriving", and it means "I've just arrived".

• acabo de comer — I've just eaten

• acaba de salir — he/she has just left

• acabamos de ver la película — we've just seen the film

The trap is translating "just" with justo or solo. Solo comí means "I only ate", not "I've just eaten". Notice too that acabar de stays in the present even though the English is about the past: the present tense of acabar does the work. In storytelling, acababa de means "had just": acababa de salir cuando llamaste.

Two neighbours work the same way. Estar a punto de + infinitive means "to be about to": estoy a punto de salir. Soler + infinitive means "usually": suelo cenar tarde.

Regional note: in Argentina, Uruguay and parts of the Andes you will also hear recién + preterite (recién llegué). It is correct there, but acabo de llegar is understood everywhere.

To say you don't mind which, Spanish speakers say me da igual or me da lo mismo: literally "it gives me the same". It works like gustar: the thing that doesn't matter is the subject, and the person who doesn't care is an indirect object pronoun (me, te, le, nos, les).

• ¿Café o té? —Me da igual. — Coffee or tea? I don't mind.

• A mi padre le da lo mismo el precio. — My dad doesn't care about the price.

• Nos da igual la hora. — The time makes no difference to us.

The trap is writing yo doy igual or soy igual: the person is never the subject. When what doesn't matter is a whole clause, use lo que or a question word: le da igual lo que digan, me da igual dónde comamos.

The same back-to-front pattern drives two other everyday idioms: caer bien/mal for liking or disliking a person (tu jefe me cae bien) and dar pena for feeling sorry (me da pena el perro; careful, in Mexico, Central America, Colombia and the Caribbean me da pena usually means "I'm embarrassed"). Regional colour: Mexico adds the blunt, slightly rude me vale, and Spain leans heavily on me da igual; both me da igual and me da lo mismo are safe everywhere.

"It's worth it" is vale la pena: literally "it's worth the trouble". It is the standard verdict on whether something justifies the effort, time or money, and English speakers often miss it, writing es digno or merece on their own, which sound stiff or incomplete.

The thing being judged is the subject, so the verb agrees with it, and it can be a noun or an infinitive:

• El viaje vale la pena. — The trip is worth it.

• Vale la pena aprender a nadar. — It's worth learning to swim.

• No vale la pena discutir. — It's not worth arguing.

Change the tense of valer as needed: valió la pena (it was worth it), va a valer la pena (it's going to be worth it). Don't add de before the infinitive: vale la pena esperar, not vale la pena de esperar.

Merecer la pena means the same and is common in Spain; valer la pena is understood and used everywhere. On its own, valer also asks prices (¿cuánto vale?), and in Spain vale means "OK". Keep those apart from the full phrase, which is always about worth.

Where English pulls your leg, Spanish takes your hair: tomar el pelo a alguien means to tease someone or fool them as a joke. The person being teased is an indirect object, so you need me, te, le, nos, les, and with a named person both the pronoun and a: le toma el pelo a su hermano.

• ¿Me estás tomando el pelo? — Are you pulling my leg?

• Siempre nos toman el pelo. — They're always teasing us.

• No le tomes el pelo, que está nervioso. — Don't tease him, he's nervous.

The trap is the literal route: tirar de la pierna means nothing to a Spanish speaker. Another trap is the possessive: it is el pelo, never mi pelo; the pronoun already says whose.

The idiom is understood in every country. Regional alternatives you'll hear: vacilar in Spain and Mexico (¿me estás vacilando?), cargar in Argentina (me estás cargando), and the neutral estar de broma or bromear everywhere. Two other B2 staples work with the same indirect-object logic: hacer falta (me hace falta dormir, "I need sleep") and echar de menos, which Latin America mostly replaces with extrañar.

English has a set of vivid verbs for a sudden start: burst out laughing, burst into tears, break into a run, take flight. Spanish covers most of them with echar a + infinitive, a phrase that marks the abrupt onset of an action.

• echar a correr — to break into a run, take off running

• echar a volar — to take flight

• echarse a reír / echarse a llorar — to burst out laughing / into tears

Note the reflexive echarse with laughing and crying (and with emotional reactions in general); with motion verbs, plain echar a is usual. Empezar a is not wrong, but it is flat: it loses the suddenness that the English verb carries.

Two cousins share the territory. Romper a is even more abrupt and mostly goes with crying, laughing or applause: rompió a llorar, el público rompió a aplaudir. Ponerse a is deliberate rather than sudden: se puso a estudiar (she sat down to study). Choose by asking: did it erupt (echar a, romper a) or was it decided (ponerse a)? Echar a and ponerse a are used everywhere; romper a is mostly Spain and written style. Latin America also says soltarse a llorar (Mexico), largarse a llorar (Argentina, Chile) and, for running off, salir corriendo.

When one more thing goes wrong on a bad day, Spanish speakers say ¡lo que faltaba!, "just what was missing": the exasperated equivalent of "that's all I needed" or "that's the last thing I needed". It is always ironic. Nobody says it about good news.

It comes in a few shapes:

• ¡Lo que faltaba! — the bare exclamation

• ¡Lo que me faltaba! — with the person who suffers it

• Era lo que nos faltaba. — It was the last thing we needed.

• ¡Solo faltaba que lloviera! — All we needed was rain!

The trap is the literal route: es todo lo que necesitaba sounds sincere, as if you were grateful. Spanish marks the irony with faltar, the verb of things missing. Use the imperfect faltaba, even about the present moment.

A useful partner at this level is lo de, which packages a known matter without naming it: lo de tu hermano, ¿qué pasó con lo de ayer? ("that business yesterday"). Both phrases are pan-Hispanic. Mexico also says nomás eso me faltaba; in Spain you may still hear the dated ¡lo que faltaba para el duro!

To dismiss something as absurd, Spanish says it no tiene ni pies ni cabeza: it has neither feet nor head, so you can't tell which end is which. It is the natural match for "it has no rhyme or reason" or "it makes no sense at all", and it is used for plans, excuses, rules, plots and arguments.

• Ese plan no tiene ni pies ni cabeza.

• Me contó una historia sin pies ni cabeza. — with sin, it modifies a noun.

Both no tiene pies ni cabeza (the dictionary form) and no tiene ni pies ni cabeza are standard; keep the no before the verb in either. "I can't make head or tail of it" uses the same image with encontrar: no le encuentro ni pies ni cabeza.

Two more idioms from the same register: poner el grito en el cielo is to hit the roof in scandalized protest (los vecinos pusieron el grito en el cielo), and a las primeras de cambio means at the first setback or opportunity, without a fight (se rindió a las primeras de cambio). All three are understood everywhere. Plainer alternatives are no tiene ningún sentido and es un disparate; Spain also says no hay por dónde cogerlo (Latin America: agarrarlo), but the full idiom is the safe choice.

Spanish speakers quote refranes (proverbs) far more often than English speakers quote theirs, and getting one right in the right moment sounds unmistakably fluent. The trick is that proverbs are fixed: you translate the whole saying, not the words. "Better late than never" is más vale tarde que nunca, word for word almost, but with más vale ("it is worth more") instead of mejor. Mejor tarde que nunca is heard too and is fine; más vale is the classic form.

The proverb stays frozen whatever the tense of the story around it: Llegó con un año de retraso, pero más vale tarde que nunca. Don't conjugate it into the past.

Other refranes worth knowing, with their English partners:

• A caballo regalado no se le mira el diente — don't look a gift horse in the mouth

• En boca cerrada no entran moscas — better to keep your mouth shut

• Más vale prevenir que curar — better safe than sorry

These are pan-Hispanic. Each region also has favourites of its own: Mexico's el que es perico, dondequiera es verde, or el que se quema con leche, ve una vaca y llora, common across Latin America but rare in Spain. The classics above work everywhere.