Spanish word of the week: callarse

This week’s Spanish word of the week is callarse.

Callarse is a verb that means to stop talking or to keep quiet. You can listen to the pronunciation of callarse in the audio clip below:

Callarse is the reflexive form of the verb callar. The basic idea behind callarse is that of ‘not talking’:

Cuando entró la profesora, todos nos callamos. When the teacher came in we all stopped talking.

Me callé lo que ya sabía. I kept quiet about what I already knew.

Lo mejor que podemos hacer es callarnos. The best thing we can do is keep quiet.

You can use it to tell people to be quiet:

¡Cállense, por favor! Please be quiet!

But callarse la boca is rather informal:

¡Cállate la boca! Shut up!

Come back next week for another insight into Spanish vocabulary!