Cabrearse is a very common way of saying “to get angry”, especially if it’s in a obvious, irated way:
Susana se cabreó mucho anoche.
Susana got really angry last night.
The reason why somebody is angry is introduced by the preposition por:
No te cabrees por eso, no vale la pena.
Don’t get worked up over that, it’s not worth it.
On the other hand, the object towards which the anger is expressed is introduced by the preposition con:
Este entrenador se cabrea mucho con sus jugadores si no rinden en los partidos.
This coach gets very angry with his players if they don’t perform well at the matches.Mis padres se cabrearon conmigo por no hacer los deberes.
My parents got angry at me for not doing my homework.
You can also provoke somebody to get angry, in which case the verb stops being pronominal:
Me cabrea ver que no se lo toma en serio.
It makes me angry to see s/he’s not taking it seriously.Estoy seguro de que lo hace para cabrearme.
I’m sure s/he’s doing it to make me angry.
The derived adjective is cabreado/a, meaning “angry”:
No vayas a hablar con él ahora, todavía está muy cabreado.
Don’t go talk to him now, he’s still very angry.Nunca la había visto tan cabreada.
I had never seen her so angry.
The state of being angry is called a cabreo. Tener un cabreo is another way of saying estar cabreado, useful if you want to augmentate or otherwise use an adjective with the cabreo:
Fernando rayó el coche y ahora tiene un cabreo tremendo.
Fernando scratched his car and now he’s really raging.
Another equivalent option is to use estar con un cabreo:
Está con un cabreo considerable desde las últimas elecciones.
S/he’s quite pissed ever since the last elections.
To talk about the moment the cabreo started, you can use either cogerse un cabreo, agarrarse un cabreo or pillarse un cabreo:
Se cogió un cabreo monumental cuando se enteró.
S/he got quite pissed when s/he found out.Siempre se agarra un cabreo cuando pierde.
S/he always gets mad when s/he loses.Me voy, que mi novio se va a pillar un cabreo si llego tarde.
I’m leaving now, my boyfriend will get mad if I’m late.
And when it’s all over, we use the expression pasarse el cabreo:
Por suerte, al día siguiente ya se le había pasado el cabreo.
Luckily, the next day s/he had calmed down.Estoy esperando a que a Ana se le pase el cabreo.
I’m waiting for Ana to calm down.
Originally published in Talk like a Spaniard.