So,
por eso is honestly one of the most useful lil chunks you can learn.
It's
NOT exclusively Mexican, but boy do Mexicans use it
A LOT.
And it normally translates well as
that’s why or
for that reason.
So yeah, it's used to talk about
THE RESULT of something.
The basic pattern is:
statement + por eso + resultNo dormí nada. Por eso estoy de malas.I didn’t sleep at all. That’s why I’m in a bad mood.
Está bien caro, por eso no lo compré.It’s really expensive. That’s why I didn’t buy it.
Here's an example of
Rubén the CDMX taxi driver (at approx. 00:35) using it to talk about how the term
ruletero came about:
Siempre andamos para diferentes lugares. Por eso somos ruleteros.We’re always going to different places. That’s why we’re called ruleteros.
And you can also pop in a
y to stitch everything together:
Me queda cerquita y por eso voy seguido.It’s really close to my place, so I go pretty often.
Mateo from Xochimilco (at approx. 01:56) uses the
y por eso structure when explaining why his street is called
El Infiernito (make sure to watch the full episode to find out more!):
Y por eso le pusieron El Infiernito.And that’s why they named it El Infiernito.
But that ain't all my Mexican-Spanish-loving pals…
You see, por eso can also be used on its lonesome!
And this is where things get juicy.
Imagine you make a point, and someone replies with something that actually
SUPPORTS what you’ve just said.
You know those situations when someone thinks they’re disagreeing with you but they actually just haven’t quite grasped what you’re saying?
Yeah, I'm sure you know the ones ;)
Well, in Spanish you can respond with an exasperated:
¡Por eso!
It works a bit like:
👉
Exactly! / That’s my point! / That’s what I’m saying!