Picar means hot\spicy?
When a food in mouth is spicy\hot ,I always say it picas, is this wrong?
3 Answers
Picar is more along the line of mechanical sharpness from what I see
Picante means hot
"Picar" is to "prick" "spike" "perforate" "puncture" "sting" and more.
So spices are hot, "picante" when they "prick" or "sting" your tongue.
Even though it's more commonly used as "prick" or "stick", picar is sometimes used to describe a burning or irritation, at least it is in Colombia. Even though it doesn't mean spicy or hot, you could use picar to describe the result of hot and spicy.
No, I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but I heard this very word about two months ago in a conversation with a Colombian friend. She explained it very clearly, similar to how I described it above. The reason the topic came up was because she had just eaten some salsa picante.
