I am learning a lot about anatomy of late. Words like rodilla (knee), tobillo (ankle), pierna (leg), and pie (pronounced pee AY) which means foot.

Yet even with this added vocabulary, the expression above (Yo no estoy de pie), part of a recent Spanish language lesson, had me scratching my head and saying, “What?”

I literally translated it as, “I am not of/on/from foot,” and sounded like I was saying, I do not have feet. But that could not be right, could it? Why would they put such an example in a language primer?

Mexican friends to the rescue. In Spanish that expression means, I am not standing, or without the “no,” I am standing.

Since then I have come across several “de pie” expressions, all of which are equally confusing translated literally. Thankfully, I now know the basic concept and can figure out what they mean.

Yo no estoy de pie