putting the “sha” in caste-sha-no

Okay, so you want to move to Latin America and learn Spanish? Great. Take some advice from me, (a humble, budding English teacher who lives in Buenos Aires and wonders if her degree in Linguistics is ever going to get her anywhere...) don’t come to Argentina if you want to learn “normal” Spanish. Yep, there is at least one reason not to join me in the craziness that is Buenos Aires. See, down here people don’t speak the español that you learned in high school, and they don’t sound like your cleaning lady Marta either. In fact, they don’t speak español at all in this country. If you ask any self-respecting Argentine what language they speak, they will answer you, “Yo hablo castellano”. Okay, boludos. Let’s roll!

The variety of Spanish spoken here in Buenos Aires is referred to as Rioplatense Spanish by people like me (read: language geeks), and you’ll find it spoken in the areas around the city, some other parts of Argentina (that haven’t been “corrupted” by Chilean Spanish), and across the river in Uruguay. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to hear.

First, let’s talk about phonology (sounds). The most distinctive sound difference in this dialect is that they say sh (like in mission), or zh (like in measure) when “y” and “ll” are written. What does that mean? Well, you didn’t see a protest in the Plaza de Mayo, you saw it in the Plaza de Ma-sho. Last night, you didn’t eat arroz con pollo (chicken), you had arroz con po-sho. (I generally try to use the “sh” sound when I speak here, but I do make an exception at Mexican restaurants. It just feels unholy to me to order po-sho con mole. Call me a purist.)
The second thing that you’ll notice is that you won’t hear many “s” sounds on the ends of words when the locals speak. Most of the time, porteños will make an “h” sound instead, or they’ll drop the sound all together. For example, los vasos son sucios (the glasses are dirty) might sound like loh vasoh son sucioh. Don’t freak out. Other dialects of Spanish are doing this too, and it’s one of the most natural sound changes in the history of human language. Just ask your local linguist.
One thing that everyone notices here is that the locals sound like they’re speaking Italian (read: intonation). It’s actually quite nice to my ear, but I recently found out that Argentines haven’t always spoken like this. Before a wave of Italian immigrants showed up here about a century ago, everyone sounded like people in Andalucia, Spain. It’s just one more thing that proves that Italy rules!
Okay, if you’re a real language geek, you might notice that some locals will drop the “r” sound at the end of their infinitives. If you can hear this, congratulations! You might be a closeted linguist! Let’s go grab a beer some time and I’ll tell you all about this phonological feature of Rioplatense Spanish, because the rest of my readers don’t really care.

Now for the good stuff. For all you language geeks out there, Rioplatense Spanish employs the use of voseo. For all the rest of you, porteños don’t use tú, they use vos. Yep, remember vos? That verb conjugation that your Spanish teacher never made you learn? Well, get crackin’ because it’s all they use down here. Don’t worry, I’m here to help as always! Here’s the deal with vos...vos works as a nominative and an objective pronoun. Or in layman’s terms...

It can be a subject as in...
vos estás escuchando un CD de Jorge Drexler
(you’re listening to a Jorge Drexler CD)

Or it can be an object as in...
“Muchas gracias!" “No, gracias a vos!”
(Thanks a lot! No, thank you!)

That’s the easy part, but don’t worry, it doesn’t get much harder than that. All of the vos conjugations are the same as the tú conjugations, except for the present tense and command forms. Here’s how it works for the present tense...take the root of the verb, and add –ás for –ar verbs, -és for –er verbs, and –ís for –ir verbs. For commands, the endings are –á, -é, and –í, respectively. Hmmm. I don’t know about you, but I always think examples are helpful, so here you go...

hablar (to speak) --> vos hablás (you speak) hablá! (Speak!)
comer (to eat) --> vos comés (you eat) comé! (Eat!)
vivir (to live) --> vos vivís(you live) viví! (Live!)

Really, it’s that simple. Now, you know all those verbs that change their root (poder --> pued-, tener --> tien-), well there’s none of that nonsense with vos. It’s vos podés (you can) and vos tenés (you have). Okay, I know what you’re thinking, “What about all those other really irregular verbs?” Let me tell you that vos is truly your new best friend. There are only two truly irregular forms for vos: the command form of ir and the present tense form of ser. Check it out...

Ir (to go) --> vos vas (you go) andá! (go!)
Ser (to be) --> vos sos (you are) sé! (be!)

That’s it. Hacer becomes hacés, estar becomes estás, haber becomes habés. Would that they were all this easy to learn! If this is too much for you, you can use the tú form here, but why not be adventurous? Especially when you’ve never had it so easy. (If you’re still confused, go to this website: http://www.verbtutor.com/learnit/verbs/verbconj.asp )


Before I get into the vocabulary differences down here, I have to tell you about re-. Re- is a prefix that Argentines put on just about anything: nouns, adjectives, even verbs! The meaning of it can be something like “very”, “really”, or “such”. Actually I’m simplifying things a bit here, it’s really pretty hard to translate. Re- basically just emphasizes whatever word it’s attached to. To give you an example, when an Argentine friend saw me after I landed my first teaching job here, she said, “Estás re-contenta!” (You’re so happy!) To learn more, check out my link to Wally’s Argentine Dictionary.


Okay, we’re in the home stretch! The last thing to throw out at you is Lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires. That’s right, they have enough slang for there to be a word for it, and this will be your final hurdle in adjusting to Spanish in Argentina. Lunfardo came about in the beginning of last century in the lower classes of the city. Because there were a ton of European immigrants arriving at that time, Lunfardo uses Italian and French words as well as words from some of the indigenous people here. Now if that weren’t enough, there’s also something in Lunfardo called vesre which is when they mix up their syllables. The best example of vesre is the word itself, which is the word revés (reverse) all mixed up. Another example is gotán (tango). Other features of Lunfardo include word play and the use of metaphor. If you want to get a jump start on learning Lunfardo, go pick up some tango albums. It’s the easiest way for you to start hearing the language from abroad. Outside of that, check out Wikipedia’s entry on Lunfardo. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunfardo] There are some great links listed at the bottom!

Well, you’ve gotten this far in my post and you might still be asking yourself, “If going to Argentina to learn Spanish is like going to Mississippi to learn English, where should I go to learn “real” Spanish?” Well, my friend, I would avoid most places in the Caribbean. If you’ve ever heard how they speak English in Jamaica that should make my point for me. If you decide to go to Spain, know that you will have to learn new words when you travel around Latin America. (Every cab driver in this city will tell you on your way in from the airport that you shouldn’t use coger while you’re here. In Spain, coger means “to take”, while here it means something more...um, carnal.) If you’re crazy enough to go to Chile, you’ll find out that it’s as difficult as Buenos Aires. By some accounts, it’s even worse in terms of accent and slang. To the best of my knowledge, and this is not my specialty, Mexico and Colombia are supposed to have the “cleanest” Spanish. Again, I’m crazy enough to go learn languages in places that have heavy dialects, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about. Feel free to challenge me on this one. In the end, I’m not sure that it matters all that much. I know Israelis that talk with Aussie accents, Arabs that speak with British ones, and one Chinese dude that had a Scottish brogue. I can’t say that I’ve had too much trouble understanding them. (Except for that Chinese dude. The Scots are nearly unintelligible!)

Happy language learning!