A Guide to Chilean Language

Good morning everyone, hope you’re enjoying the long Semana Santa weekend! Mine has been a bit weird so far…

Some of my California friends and I were supposed to head out to Cajón del Maipo for some low-key camping-cum-backpacking before we hop back into the hustle and bustle of the city and classes and internships, but a lot of people had to cancel because we also are in midterm season. Thankfully, one of the gals still wanted to go out, but plans went awry when we got to the end of the 3 hour bus ride and my friend realized someone stole  her wallet :(((( So we hitch hiked back aways and then came back to Santiago.

Now I am chilling in my room drinking way more coffee than necessary, writing this post and avoiding all of the homework, group projects, research papers, exam studying, work for my mom, household chores, etc that I was planning on putting off until Sunday or the due date (whichever comes second).

Anywho, on to the purpose of this post:

Speech

As a side note before you continue, there are words in here that may be inappropriate for children. Also, there are a lot of generalizations about Chileans; obviously not everyone here is this way, but there are some nearly universal patterns that I (and some of my American friends) think would be helpful to know about before entering the country.

Without a doubt, it is hard to understand Chileans. I have even heard from several native Spanish speakers that Chileans are very hard to communicate with. Keep reading to find out why!

One of my study abroad advisors told me that if I want to become fluent in Spanish, I ought to go to Chile because “…if you can understand Chilean Spanish, you can understand any Spanish!” I took that to heart and I am really hoping she was right because I’m surprisingly less far along in fluency than I thought I would be at this point in my adventure. The first thing people, especially beginning Spanish speakers, should realize when they come to Chile is that Chileans talk in a very unique way. 

Patterns, Accent and Pronunciation

There is something called “Neutral Spanish,” which is basically very little slang, less of an accent, slower speech, more enunciation, and no words or letters cut. This type of Spanish is mree often naturally spoken in northern South America. I have been told that you can ask people to speak español neutral, but whether or not they actually will is yet to be seen because I haven’t personally tried it. Chileans do not normally speak in a neutral fashion.

I read the other day that on average Spanish is spoken considerably faster than English. Let me tell you, Chilean Spanish is spoken considerably faster than Castilian Spanish. They run all of their words together so there are hardly any distinguishing spaces between words (often there aren’t any at all).

Another aspect of speech here is their ability to make most words into contractions. Obviously that is slight hyperbole, but to be fair, if you give a Chilean a word with the letter ‘s’ in it, you can bet your last dollar they will get rid of the ‘s’ in casual conversation. They also drop other letters and sounds (usually consonants like the ‘d’ in words ending in ‘ado/a‘), and often don’t finish words (especially if they end in ‘s’ or are the word para which gets shortened to ‘p’‘). 

One really nice aspect of Chilean Spanish: they don’t use vosotros (bless the gods). This, of course, is only nice for people that already don’t use vosotros, like everyone who is not from Spain 😛 or for non native speakers who did not learn Spanish in Spain. For the plural informal (and formal) they use ustedes and ustedes conjugations.

Interestingly, Chilean Spanish is influenced by indigenous languages such as Aymara, Mapudungun, and Quechua. This can be seen in words, spelling and pronunciation.

They also do not speak with the same accent as other countries. For example, their double L, ‘ll‘, sounds like a ‘y’ instead of a ‘j’ or ‘sh’ like in Argentine and some other places; although the younger people in Chile have started incorporating this more in recent years. Also unlike Argentines, Chileans use tú instead of vos; the vos form has slightly different conjugations as well. Another example is how the letters ‘z‘, ‘ci‘, or ‘ce‘ typically has an ‘s’ sound, unlike the Castilian ‘z‘, ‘ci‘, or ‘ce‘ which sound like ‘th’ (think, Barthelona vs Barcelona). Also to differentiate from Spain-Spanish is the imperfect subjunctive tense: in Spain, they end words with -se instead of -re like Chile and many other countries.

I’ve read that Chileans often use a ‘sh’ sound for ‘ch‘, but I haven’t specifically noticed this.

One thing that is fairly gender specific is how women speak: there are women who speak in the highest octave possible (think mini mouse) and there are women who speak in this sexy, low, raspy voice. There is no in between. I don’t know if this is how women normally are, or if I only notice it here because I focus on the sounds a lot more because I don’t know the language…

Slang and words of a different name

Don’t even get me started on the modismos, aka chilenismos. Oh darn, too late haha! They practically have their own language with all of the slang they use–they use so much slang, so often, in fact, they often won’t realize some of their words are slang or that they have different words for things that the rest of the Spanish speaking world already has words for. 

Chile is a fairly isolated country, at least from the view point that for hundreds of years after conquistadors arrived, they had to fight tooth and nail to make it to mainland Chile. There are natural boundaries all around the country that prevented early settlers from coming in…and from getting out. In the North of Chile is the Atacama, also known as the dries desert in the world; in the East are the Andes mountain range, while although not being the tallest or most brutal of peaks, they were still hard to surmount with minimal technology; in the South you have Drake Passage, which is the harrowing strip ship-smashing ocean between the southern tip of America, and the northern tip of Antarctica; and finally you have the West coast of Chile, which is just that, a narrow line of seaside country facing the freezing expanse of the Pacific ocean with nothing but Easter Island and thousands of miles of water between it and New Zealand.

I mention this quick history because it helps one understand why the language here has such an interesting series of differences from other countries’ Spanish. With all that time spent isolated, the language was able to morph into something uniquely chilean! 

Something I’ve noticed while skimming through other chilean dictionaries is that their slang tend to appear negative when directly translated, but the colloquial meaning is super positive! (Very few of these are added to my list because I haven’t yet experienced/internalized them.) 

Below are just a few (of hundreds) chilean modismos.

• Al tiro– right now; people know you’re a foreigner immediately if you use ahora and they will ask you if you’re Mexican if you use ahorita
• A pata- as in de pie, by foot
• Auto- car; don’t look now, but coche isn’t what you think it is
• Bacán– cool 
• Cabra/o- girl/boy
• Cachar- to understand; often used as ¿Cachai? at the end of sentences (like people use the word “capiche?” in the US)
• Caña- hangover
• Carabinero- police officer
• Carrete– a party; fiesta works too
• Carretear-  to party
• Carrito– shopping cart
• Chela– beer; cerveza works too
• China/o- used to describe anyone or anything of asian descent or origin, regardless of actually being Chinese or not
• Choclo– corn; nope Chileans do not use the word maíz
• Coche– baby carriage
• Copete- a glass of any alcoholic beverage
• Cuático– someone who is complicated or complex
• Curado– drunk; borracho works too
• Entrení/entretení- entertaining; from entretenimiento; used like “Qué entretení”
• Es como el hoyo- something that is very bad
• Estai- as in estar, which is the verb to be; often used in a question as “¿Cómo estai?“
• Flaca/o- endearment for friends or descriptive term for people who are skinny; can also be used negatively to someone you dislike or in an argument
• Fome– boring; aburrido works too
• Frutilla– strawberry; I’ve gotta say, it’s cuter than fresa
• Galla/o- dude
• Gamba- 100 peso coin
• Gorda/o- endearment for friends or descriptive term for people who are on the heavier side; can also be used negatively to someone you dislike or in an argument 
• Gordita/o- endearment for friends or descriptive term for people who are a little chubby, or just for friends in general usually between young women
• Guagua– baby; this originates from an indigenous word, imitating the sound babies make when they cry 
• Guata- belly/tummy; indigenous origins
• Guatón– dude or fatso; often used to describe someone who is on the heavier side
• Gringa/o– used to describe anyone that isn’t chilean, especially those with blond hair and blue eyes; is rarely meant to be offensive unless used in a fight
• Gringita/o– an endearment for chilean children with blond hair and blue eyes
• Hacer dedo- to hitch hike
• Huaso- chilean cowboy
• -ito/a or -illo/a (and plurals)- they love to add diminutives to words, some words they won’t even understand without the diminutive! Words you will hear regularly are: cafecito, cervecita, aguita, tecita, chiquillas/os
• Jevy– serious or heavy; often said “Que jevy“
• Lápiz– pen, but also pencil…as long as you use an adjective; lápiz de pastel is a ball point pen, but a lápiz de grafito is a normal pencil and a lápiz mecánico is a mechanical pencil
• Luca- 1000 pesos
• Maestro- a blue-collared worker, often someone who works in plumbing or cleaning; not used as a word for a teacher!
• Me fue la zorra- something that went really well
• Micro- the buses in Santiago
• Mina/o- attractive person
• Negra/o- endearment for friends or descriptive term for people who have very dark skin, regardless of descent
• Negrita/o- endearment for friends who are very tan, or recently got a tan
• Nopo– from no + po; usually used to begin a sentence in response to a question
• Novia/o– nearly fiancé, or otherwise very serious relationship
• Once- tea time or a meal that isn’t one of the main 3
• Onda– vibe; often used as buena onda
• Paco– a negative term for police (DO NOT use this while talking to the police)
• Palta– avocado; I know, I miss aguacate too
• Pavo– slow and clumsy
• Plata- money; dinero works too
• Po– a superfluous sound Chileans add to other words or to end sentences, often used similarly to pues (well); often heard as “sípo” or “yapo“
• Polola/o– casual boyfriend/girlfriend
• Pololear- to date casually
• Profe- profesor/a; teacher; I’ve never heard a chilean say the whole word before
• Qué lata- How boring
• ¿Qué onda?– What’s happening?
• Rica/o- tasty (food), rich (people) or attractive (people)
• Sipo- from sí + po; usually used to begin a sentence in response to a question
• Taco- traffic jam
• Tener onda (con alguien)– to be into/attracted to someone
• Tincar- to have a feeling, hunch or perception; used like “Me tinca“
• Tranquí– from tranquila; calm down or slow down
• Trago- a drink of something (usually alcohol)
• Weón/a or huevón– dude, fucker or jerk (can be used as an endearment for friends or an insult, depending on the circumstances)
• Weya or wea or hueá– thing; often used in a sentence like “puta la wea” or “pasa me la weya” 

Curse Words

Is any dictionary really complete without a few words that would make your grandma blush? I usually just swear in English, so I apologize that my list of vulgar words is pretty short 🙁

• Ándate a la chucha- Fuck off
• Chucha- fuck or cunt
• Chuta- basically damn
• Conchetumadre- motherfucker, son of a bitch, or holy shit!
• Pucha– darn
• Puta- whore/slut, or shit, or motherfucker

Texting

Not only do Chileans have a lot of slang, they also use a lot of abbreviations in texting! See the list below for some of the ones I’ve seen while trying to read the volley of messages in group chats with chilean students:

• dsp- después
• nop- no (either from the english word nope or from nopo)
• p- para
• porfa– por favor
• pq– porque (in the same way we use bc for because!)
• q- que
• sip- short for sípo
• tmb- también

Thanks for reading! I hope this list helps you understand what is going on around you a little better when you find yourself in Chile. Please comment below if you know of any words that should be added to this list; I know there are hundreds that could be on here, but currently my list only includes words that I have personally heard. Also, let me know if you think any of my definitions need improvement 🙂

I will continue adding to this as I learn more!

-K