Chilenismos

I am part way through Eat, Pray, Love, thanks to my besties Ash and Anna who have strongly recommended the book. It's taking me awhile because I rarely have time to sit down and listen to books on tape however I am making it through slowly but surely. There's a lot of talk about language and it has inspired me to blog a little about the language that surrounds me.

Chilean Spanish is definitely very unique to Chile. There are so many different words that are only used here, in fact, that they call their slang Chilenismos. I haven't been paying that much attention to them or trying to learn them because I want my Spanish to be more universal...if that makes sense. I would prefer not to get back to the U.S. and have no one understand me because of all the Chilean words in my vocab. Also I try to not pick up on the accent because the Chilean accent is really bad. Like I've mentioned before they tend to drop the end of words...sometimes the middle. For example mas o menos turns into ma o meno. Anyway, some words are said so much that it's hard to ignore them.

Here is my personal glossary of Chilenismos:

Cachar: This means 'to understand' or 'to get.' You often hear people say "cachai?" at the end of a sentence (it's actually cachas but it sounds like cachai) as in, do you understand? The official word is entender and possibly the word my host mom says to me the most. "Entiendes?"

Carretear/Carrete: A very popular word meaning 'party' or 'to party'. It sounds a lot like karate. This is probably the first chilenismo I learned because partying is really popular here. Everyone goes out Thursday night to get their carrete on.

Colectivo: I wasn't aware that this was unique to Chile but a colectivo is a shared taxi that has a fixed rate and route. This is what you have to take home (if you live far away) when the buses stop running at night.

Micro: The city buses. They all seem like they're going to fall apart but they're pretty cheap when you need to get somewhere.

Once: (Pronounced oHn-say) This word doesn't actually mean dinner but it basically is because Chileans don't have dinner. It's basically tea time. I've talked about it before because of the lack of food. I think of it more like a midnight snack.

Palta: The word for avocado. Took me forever to learn this word but it's necessary because they put mashed up avocado on everything. Love it!

Po: This word is Chilean for "pues" which means 'well'. Probably the most heard word because Chileans like to tack it on to the end of any and every word. Literally I can't see how it makes sense but people say it anyway. Most commonly heard as Sí po” and “No po" which translates like "yup" and "nope."

Porotos: The Chilean word for beans. We wouldn't want to use good old frijoles like everyone else now would we?

Pololo/a: The word for boyfriend or girlfriend. Also a verb, "pololear" which means to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. I learned about a month in that the word I learned for boyfriend, 'novio' means more serious, like fiance. I was wondering why my family kept asking if we were engaged.
Tío: Literally this means uncle, but I just learned it can also just mean 'guy,' which is probably the most enlightening thing I've learned in awhile. Augustin has asked twice now after seeing a picture of Luke (the same one of me kissing him on the cheek) if he was my tío and I was confused to death to why he would automatically jump to the conclusion that Luke was my uncle. Huge revelation.

Ya: Usually in spanish 'ya' means 'already' but it also means 'okay' here.

That's pretty much all I've picked up so far. It made for a lot of confusion when I started out but I think I've got it pretty much understood.

Also I confirmed that 'ciao' is actually spelled 'chao' here...but I don't like that spelling so I'm sticking to ciao. Take that Chile.

P.S. I went to the store and got two jars of peanut butter. Unfortunately they're tiny so they won't last long. I paid a good $5 for each of them too. They'll last me until I get my package from home in which I requested peanut butter (the good kind without the sugar). Anyone wondering how to say peanut butter in spanish? It's a direct translation: Mantequilla de maní.

P.P.S. Happy 10/10/10 everyone. Supposedly it's a lucky day for love? I'm holdin' out for 11/11/11. Luke and I have a thing with 11:11. Make a wish!