Cool Spanish - Play up/Play down

These contain some examples of vulgar language.

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Un pelín (*) Lit. a tiny hair, meaning a very little bit, often used to soften your statement.
¿Puedes bajar la tele un pelín? Can you turn the telly down a wee bit?

Un mogollón de... (*) In Spanish, this word evokes abundance, chaos, lots of things or people.
Había (un) mogollón de tráfico (*) There was heavy, chaotic traffic.

una pasada (de...) (*) When something goes past its limit (whether time or quantity) you say se ha pasado, "it's gone over". Hence una pasada means "a lot".
Esos pantalones me gustan una pasada (*) I like those trousers a lot.

cantidad (de...) (*) Used with either la or una, cantidad means "quantity". On its own however, it's slang for "a lot" as above. Cantidad de... is also used with adjectives to mean "very".
Había cantidad de gente en el concierto (*) There were loads of people at the gig.

Tela (*) Lit. "fabric" or "cloth". It's used in the following expressions to indicate there are lots of things to do or something is excessive: ¡Tela!¡Manda tela!¡Tela marinera!
Hace tela de frío (*) It's freezing cold.