I for one have great difficulty in using small phrases in combinations which have (to me) an illogical meaning. For example, menos mal appears to mean something like Thank God, or Thank Goodness

In the search for some clarity, I came across this poem which I thought might drum the meaning into me:

Menos mal que la noche no es eterna,
y de pronto la luz nos ilumina
y los cinco sentidos se despiertan
y comienza una historia muy antigua,
una historia que va del miedo al llanto,
pero también del llanto a la alegría,
a la absurda manía de lo humano,
de la pasta de dientes y la ducha,
de la risa en los bordes del naufragio,
del orden cotidiano del saludo,
de la fuga solar de las ventanas
y la prisa por encontrar respuestas.
Menos mal que la tarde dura mucho
y podemos hacernos a la idea
de que llegan la noche y sus secretos.
Menos mal que la muerte nos consuela,
y nos va confesando día a día
que aquí nada es eterno.
Menos mal que a pesar de los pesares
seguimos aferrados al milagro,
a la ciega esperanza del sosiego
y a la terca ambición de la unidad.


Francisca Aguirre
"La herida absurda"

__________________
γνωθι σεαυτόν. And on the eighth day, god made the fossils

"menos mal" could also be used in the sense of "at least"

e.g.: Hace mucho frío y todos están enfermos. Menos mal que a mí el tiempo no me afecta. (It's very cold and everybody is ill. At least the weather doesn't affect me.)

Menos mal literally translates as "less bad", but that makes no sense in its context, and doesnt mean anything to do with less or bad.

Its hard to explain, but ill try.

Lets say that you tell someone that youve finally found a job, or that something that you wanted to do was difficult but you finally did it, or that something that you wanted to happen finally happened, or that there was a bad situation but at least something good happened or came out of it.

Its like a combination of "at last" , "at least..." and "thank goodness for that". Its a very positive phrase. Im surprised that theres no equivalent in english. Theres also an element of "at least", as cornflakegirl says.

I dont know id this is a canary islands phrase or if its said everywhere in spanish speaking countries. There are other phrases like this also, like :

Ni que va (i cant even explain what this means, not because i dont know but because theres just no translation)

Pa mi ver

O sea

Cono (with the line above the N) is used as an expression in all sorts of situations.

Puto. The word "puta" means slut, but in spanish (as you probably know) an a at the end of a word refers to female (hence puta) but an o refers to masculine. So, puto is a silly kind of variation to puta, which i guess means male slut, or just a derogatory name for a man, like calling a man a pussy in english. In a part of a south american country (i cant remember which one) they have this word : macha. Macho means male, masculine, so macha refers to a very masculine woman. Its like saying "man woman".

What a weird language i speak.

etc etc. If anyone wants me to try and translate any of these ask and ill try.

My wife concurs 'at least'. eg We have had some bad luck this week to top it all the car broke down yesterday. Took it to the garage and by a miracle they fixed it straight away so "menos mal" we got the car back.