I was ignorantly under the impression that this is a term to be used often when you didn’t know how to say something in Spanish. You could just ask the Spanish speaker you were trying to converse with, “Cómo se dice (insert English word or phrase here)?” and they would leap at the chance to tell you what you were trying to say in their native tongue. Well, this only works if the person you’re speaking with speaks English as well, and if that were the case, you probably wouldn’t be speaking Spanish to them in the first place!
“Do you have a …cómo se dice cucumber?” I want to say in the mercado. “Where is the…. cómo se dice jelly?” I want to say at the supermarket. “Cómo se dice I want you to make whatever for dinner, I don’t care.” I want to say to our maid, Juanita. All instances where I would and have gotten the sideways turn of the head, not in the least bit understanding what I am trying to communicate.
The more useful, but less practiced is “Que es esto?” meaning “What is this?” but only works if you have the object in the vicinity of pointing ability. This is more used when you are trying to increase your Spanish vocabulary, which my family is doing on a daily basis. Otherwise by grunting and pointing you would attain the same outcome. No language of any sort needed.
Recently, while driving to the Maxi Palí in Rivas with my maid and stumbling over my Spanish words because I couldn’t access Google Translate (and because my Spanish is extremely limited), my maid corrected me by saying, “No tengo palabras en Español.” Yes! Exactly! I don’t have the words in Spanish! So help an amiga out and give them to me!