Pasarlas canutas

/pa·ˈsaɾ·las ka·ˈnu·tas/

To go through them "canutas."

Frequency

ConversationVery common

JournalismOccasional

LiteraryRare

AcademicVery rare

In English

to have a really hard time; **to have a really hard time**; **to go through a rough patch**; **to go through an ordeal**; **to struggle badly**; **to have a miserable time**

Meaning

Pasarlas canutas means to have a really hard time, to go through a rough patch, to suffer greatly, to struggle badly, or to go through an ordeal.

Examples

Las pasé canutas durante los primeros meses.

I had a really hard time during the first few months.

Lo pasaron canutas para llegar a fin de mes.

They struggled badly to make ends meet.

En la universidad las pasé canutas.

I went through a rough patch at university.

Si sigues así, las vas a pasar canutas.

If you keep doing that, you're going to have a very hard time.

It refers to periods of serious difficulty, whether physical, emotional, financial or practical.

Used when

goes through financial hardship
experiences serious problems
struggles during an illness
faces a very difficult challenge
lives through a stressful period

Origin

Like many popular sayings, it took hold in casual conversation before settling into a fixed phrase.

Today, canutas has no independent lexical meaning for most speakers and survives only as part of this fixed idiom.

Modern Spanish speakers simply understand the expression as meaning "to suffer great difficulties."

Cultural note

The expression is highly versatile.

It may describe:

financial difficulties,
academic struggles,
family problems,
physical hardship,
or emotional suffering.

The exact nature of the difficulty is determined by the context.

Did you know?

Spanish has many expressions describing difficult experiences:

Pasarlas canutas → to have a really hard time.
Pasarlo mal → to have a bad time.
Pasarlas negras → to go through serious hardship.
Pasar un calvario → to go through an ordeal.

Among them, pasarlas canutas is one of the most colloquial and expressive, suggesting prolonged hardship without specifying its exact cause, which makes it useful in a wide variety of everyday situations.

For English speakers

Do not translate the expression literally.

English speakers would never say:

I passed them canutas.

Instead, use expressions such as:

I had a really hard time.
I went through a rough patch.
They struggled badly.
We went through an ordeal.

Choose the translation according to the type of hardship involved.