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Credit: Netflix
I went to Argentina a few years ago and quickly learned I wouldn’t survive without trying to use at least a little bit of Spanish. I’m good enough now that I’m not laughed out of the room when attempting to pronounce foods like flanchoco, but no one would accuse me of being good at Spanish. You know who is good, though? Ben Affleck. The actor is excellent at speaking Spanish, and some recent comments as The Rip hit the 2026 Netflix schedule actually started a mini Internet trend.
There are a lot of fun words in Spanish, but according to what Ben Affleck told his The Rip co-stars Matt Damon and Sasha Calle, his favorite has to be a word with innocuous origin that sounds like a “swear” if you are just hearing it without knowing what it means for the first time. Yes, I’m talking about the crowd pleaser “sacapuntas.” It may really mean “pencil sharpener,” but Affleck thinks it sounds hyper insulting.
My favorite word in Spanish is “sacapuntas.” I always thought it was a swear, and I kept on being like, ‘My God, what did they say?’ Sacapuntas.
His The Rip co-star Sasha Calle went on to remark in a Netflix interview that “it could be a great swear, though,” prompting Affleck to just shout the word more fervently in the interview. He says sometimes he loves hollering “sacapuntas, tu madre” out like it is a really insult, and an amused Matt Damon, whom he has reunited with, and Calle told him maybe he’ll make that into a trend.
Turns out, the real trend he started was getting other people to share innocuous Spanish words they are also obsessed with. In fact, there are plenty of other fun words in Spanish some fans of the Batfleck are all over. Here’s a smattering of fun response comments on the post, many of which have literally thousands of likes (and we kept the answers PG here).
My favorite word in Spanish is pantuflas. 😂
Yes!! That one, along with panqueques, and azafata are my top 3.
My favorite Spanish word is Allllllbondigasss. 😆
My favorite is Rompecabezas (Puzzles).
The sad thing is, he may never know he started that fun trend, as Ben Affleck is firmly off of social media.
Still, it’s a cute moment, and as I noted prior, Ben Affleck is excellent at speaking Spanish. He went viral a couple of years ago after doing an interview in Spanish promoting Air in which fans marveled over how solid his pronunciation actually is. He’s gone viral several times since for excellent back-and-forth exchanges in español, which he learned as a kid. You can see this latest one for yourself, below.
One viral comment in the post that garnered over 9,500 likes simply noted, “I like Ben Affleck better in Spanish,” and it’s a sentiment I think most of us would agree with. No more Sadfleck memes, please, instead let’s bring in more Spanishfleck.