--- title: "echar porras" translation: "To cheer someone on. To hype someone up." type: "word" category: "expression" url: "https://consalsa.app/words/echar-porras" canonical: "https://consalsa.app/words/echar-porras" published: "2026-08-27" updated: "2026-08-27" author: "Andrey the Nomad" site: "ConSalsa.App" license: "https://consalsa.app/about" --- # echar porras URL: https://consalsa.app/words/echar-porras Translation: To cheer someone on. To hype someone up. Pronunciation: /eˈtʃaɾ ˈpo.ras/ Category: expression Region: Mexico Register: casual, warm, completely safe Variants: echar porra, échame porras, echarle porras, porras, échame la porra, hacer porra, echarse porras Literal meaning: Echar is to throw. Una porra is a chant, and la porra is the crowd doing the chanting - so you are throwing cheers at somebody. Tone & safety: One of the safest phrases in the language. You can say it to a friend, a colleague, your boss, or somebody's grandmother. Published: 2026-08-27 Quick answer: - Echar porras means to cheer somebody on or hype them up out loud. - Una porra is a chant and la porra is the crowd chanting it, so you are literally throwing cheers at someone. - It is warm, safe, and usable with anyone - friends, family, coworkers, your boss. What it means: - Echar porras is backing somebody up out loud. Not helping them, not fixing anything - making noise on their behalf so they know somebody is watching and wants them to win. - It works for anything with an outcome. A job interview, an exam, a race, a first date, a difficult phone call somebody has been putting off for a week. Wherever there is a before and an after, there is room for porras. Literal meaning: - Echar is to throw, and it does an enormous amount of work in Mexican Spanish - echar la mano, echar un taco, echar aguas. Una porra is a chant. La porra, with the article, is the organized crowd doing the chanting - the kind that travels with a football club and brings its own drums, and also the school cheer a whole assembly knows by heart, the goya at UNAM being the famous one. - Which came first, the chant or the crowd named after it, is not settled, so treat any confident stadium origin story as a guess. What the phrase describes is clear either way: echarle porras a alguien puts one person in the middle and you in the stands. You are not on the field, but you are loud. How Mexicans use it: - The most common shape is a request. Échame porras, said the day before something hard, is how people ask their friends to be in their corner. It is not fishing for reassurance - it is closer to telling someone the date so they can think of you at the right hour. - The other common shape is a report after the fact: me echaron muchas porras. That usually means a group showed up for you, and people say it with some surprise, because being cheered for is not something adults expect. - In WhatsApp it lives in group chats and it is short. Échenme porras mañana lands the night before, and the replies are usually emoji, a tú puedes, or an ánimo. Nobody writes paragraphs back. - Parents and teachers use it about children - hay que echarle porras - and there it means something closer to build them up. Same verb, softer setting. Common mistake: - The default verb is echar - échame porras, le eché porras. Hacer porra is the other native one and it takes over around sport: le hicimos porra a la selección, ¿a quién le haces porra? Dar porras is the odd one out. It gets understood, but it reads as a translation of dar ánimos rather than something anybody grew up saying. - The bigger mistake is sending porras when somebody asked for help. Moral support offered in place of a favor reads as a polite way of saying no. If your friend needs a ride, echarle porras is the wrong answer, and everybody in the chat can see it. Examples: - Échame porras, mañana tengo entrevista. — Cheer me on, I've got an interview tomorrow. - Ahí te van mis porras, tú puedes. — Sending you my cheers, you've got this. - Le eché porras toda la carrera y ni me oyó. — I cheered for her the whole race and she didn't even hear me. - Nos echaron muchas porras en la presentación. — We got a lot of cheering at the presentation. Mini dialogue: A: Mañana presento lo del proyecto y ya me está dando cosa. B: ¿A qué hora? A: A las diez. Échame porras, porfa. B: A las diez en punto voy a estar pensando en ti. Tú puedes. A: Con eso me sobra. B: Y me avisas cómo te fue, ¿eh? FAQ: Q: What does echar porras mean? A: It means to cheer somebody on or hype them up. Una porra is a chant, so echarle porras a alguien is throwing cheers at them - moral support, said out loud. Q: Is echar porras formal or informal? A: Informal but completely safe. You can say it to a friend, a coworker, or your boss without anyone raising an eyebrow. The formal written equivalent is animar or dar ánimos. Q: How do you ask someone to cheer you on in Spanish? A: Échame porras. Add the occasion if you want: échame porras mañana, tengo examen. For a group, échenme porras. Q: Is it echar porras, hacer porra, or dar porras? A: Echar is the everyday one - échame porras, le eché porras. Hacer porra is equally native and dominates around sport: le hicimos porra al equipo. Dar porras is the one to skip; it reads as a translation of dar ánimos. Q: What is the difference between echar porras and hacer el paro? A: Echar porras is moral support - noise, encouragement, being in someone's corner. Hacer el paro is an actual favor. Offering porras when somebody needed a favor reads as a soft no. Q: What does porra mean in Mexico? A: A chant, and by extension the group of fans doing the chanting - la porra of a football club. In Spain the same word turns up in mandar a la porra, which means telling somebody to get lost, but that sense is not used in Mexico. Q: How do you reply when someone says échame porras? A: Échale ganas is the standard, then tú puedes, ánimo, or mucho éxito. Ahí te van mis porras works too and is more playful. None of them needs anything after it. Q: What does no te eches tantas porras mean? A: Stop hyping yourself up. Used reflexively, echarse porras is the one version of this phrase that is not warm - se echa porras solo is said about somebody who does his own cheering. Related words: buena-onda, a-huevo, chido, compa, cotorrear