Easter in Spanish is la Pascua, and Holy Week is la Semana Santa, the week before Easter Sunday. To wish someone a happy Easter, say ¡Feliz Pascua! or ¡Felices Pascuas! In Mexico, Semana Santa is a major holiday week, with processions, family trips and many people off work.
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Get ready to celebrate with this Spanish vocabulary for Easter! 🐰 Learn how to talk in Spanish about the Holy Week (Semana Santa), and the Easter holidays, and get some new Spanish phrases under your belt.
If you’re traveling to a Spanish-speaking country, don’t miss out on their Easter celebrations. For example, many Latin American countries mark the days around Easter with different celebrations and the beginning of Lent usually starts with a carnaval.
Spanish vocabulary for Easter
Let’s start with the basics! The main words you should know are la Pascua (Easter), la Semana Santa (Holy Week), la Cuaresma (Lent), and ¡Felices Pascuas! (Happy Easter!). Lent traditionally lasts for 40 days and 40 nights (cuarenta días y cuarenta noches) and during this time a lot of people are fasting (en ayunas). Here’s an interesting tidbit: in Spanish, we say estar en ayunas (to be fasting) and then we have el desayuno (breakfast), which means “to stop fasting” (or think about the English version: “to break fast”). Since we’re on the food topic, have a look over how to talk about food in Spanish.
Easter vocabulary in Spanish
These are the must-know Spanish vocabulary words for Easter:
- el Martes de Carnaval (Mardi Gras, the last day before Lent)
- el Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter)
- el Miércoles de Ceniza (Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent) – ceniza means “ash” in Spanish
- el Jueves Santo (Holy or Maundy Thursday)
- el Viernes Santo (Good Friday)
- el Domingo de Pascua (Easter Sunday) – It can also go by Domingo de Gloria or Domingo de Resurrección
- el Lunes de Pascua (Easter Monday)
- la Crucifixión (the Crucifixion)
- las procesiones de Semana Santa (Easter processions)
- bendecir (to bless)
- el conejito / el conejo de Pascua (bunny / Easter bunny)
- los huevos de Pascua (Easter eggs)
- el huevo de chocolate (chocolate egg)
- los dulces (candy)
- las sorpresas (surprises)
- los cascarones (egg shells)
- el tulipán (tulips) or el ramo de tulipanes (a bunch of tulips)
- cesta de Pascua (Easter basket) – There’s a difference between the feminine la cesta and the masculine el cesto (they both mean “basket”): la cesta is usually a smaller basket, while el cesto is bigger.
Easter is but one holiday, so check out how to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays in Spanish. Be prepared for all seasons!
Practice your Spanish listening skills
Video transcript
Hola, amigos, Hannah from Speak Better Spanish here. This video is going to be a little bit different than our other videos, as it's a little bit more focused on culture, rather than language, but I'm still going to teach you a couple of words and phrases related to the Latin American traditions around Easter. So, without further ado, in the United States, we typically celebrate Easter with a lot of traditions around Easter eggs, Easter candy, and the American tradition. Easter egg hunts, chocolate, and things like that.
These traditions are rare to be found, if at all, in Latin America, including Mexico. So, our traditions in Latin America are usually based around the Catholic religion and the religious practices and celebrations related to Easter. So, the period leading up to Easter, those 40 days in English, we would call it Lent. In Spanish, it's called "Cuaresma". In Mexico, in particular, there's a very interesting brand name that is "Cuaresma". There's a bread pudding type of dessert that is eaten that's called "capirotada".
It usually has raisins, nuts, maybe cheese, a variety of different sweet things, although it doesn't necessarily have to be overly sweet. This is something that's usually prepared at home and eaten during the period of Lent. Then we have the actual day of Easter, which is Pascua. So, if you want to wish someone a happy Easter, you can say "¡Feliz Pascua!". And that week leading up to Easter, in Latin America and Catholic countries, it is a big deal and it is called Semana Santa. In fact, you might find that a lot of things might be closed or not operating at normal hours because it is a very important religious period in some of these places in Latin America, so keep that in mind in case you're going to be traveling during those dates, and be sure to wish everyone ¡feliz Pascua!
And don't be surprised if you don't see any chocolate, any eggs, any of those kinds of things. Not typically part of the traditions in Latin America or Mexico. If you guys like this video, be sure to subscribe. See you in the next one.
Spanish phrases for Easter
Now let’s have a look over the most popular Spanish phrases for Easter:
- ¡Felices Pascuas! (Happy Easter!)
- ¿Qué planes tienes para celebrar Pascua? (What plans do you have for celebrating Easter?)
- ¿Estás pasando la Pascua con tu familia? (Are you celebrating Easter with your family?)
- ¿Qué te trajo el conejo de Pascua? (What did the Easter bunny bring you?)
- El conejo de pascua me trajo una canasta llena de dulces y sorpresas. (The Easter bunny brought me a basket full of candy and surprises.)
- ¿Cuál es tu actividad favorita de Pascua? (What’s your favorite Easter activity?)
- Mi parte favorita de Pascua son los chocolates. (My favorite part of Easter is the chocolates.)
That’s all folks! If you want more Spanish lessons, download our free Spanish conversation course ebook and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Thanks ❤️
Practice before Semana Santa
Holiday vocabulary is most fun when you can use it with the people around you. Book a free Spanish Roadmap Session and we’ll look at what would help you most before the celebrations start. Or see Spanish coaching for couples and families.
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