Chilean Spanish, Part 1

In less than two weeks I will celebrate my second anniversary of the day I arrived in Chile. I have had innumerable adventures here, and to commemorate the occasion, I've decided to write a two-part recap of all the grammar I've learned in the past two years. Oh, that sounded a lot more interesting in my head... Well, for those of you who like language, enjoy, for those of you who like adventures, please be patient. I'll serve some up right after this brief lesson.

I have heard that Chilean Spanish is the most difficult version of the language to understand and learn. I'm not sure that difficult is an accurate classification for what it is. It is, however, very unique to the region. During my semester at La Católica, the university I attended in Valparaíso, I took a grammar class with a professor who loved language. At the beginning of the semester, he told us about the 7(?) regions of distinct Spanish styles in the world. We were asked us to try to identify some of the qualities that make Chilean Spanish different. One of the first things most of the students in my class noticed is that Chileans drop letters and syllables. When asking how you are, a Mexican will say "¿Cómo estas?". A Chilean will ask you, rapidly, "¿Cómo ehtai?", dropping the first s and changing the conjugation. The other day I was out with friends, and one asked how long it would be before our food arrived. "¿Cúanto emora ma o meno?" he asked, leaving out the seemingly unimportant d in demora, and the s's in mas and menos. Two years ago, I don't think I would have understood the question, but you learn to hear the letters that are implied in Chilean speech.

Another characteristic of the Chilean dialect that becomes apparent almost immediately, is their favorite word: weon. We spent an entire day in class laughing about this word that is so Chilean. It originally comes from the the word "huevo" ("way-voh") which literally means egg, but in the slang means something more foul. Let's just say it, it means testicle, or nut sack as I like to say. In all Spanish, by adding an "-n" to the end of a noun and emphasizing the last syllable, the word comes to mean "big 'noun'". This process is essentially the opposite of adding a "-cita" or an "-ita" that English speakers might be more familiar with. Perrito is the diminutive of perro, "dog" becomes "little dog(gy)", and similarly, by adding an "-n" to huevo, we get huevon. Big nut sack. You can imagine this as an insult on the street. Now remember the first thing we learned about Chileans: they love to drop syllables. Huevon became hueon (properly spelled güeon, I believe our teacher told us), and years of instant messaging shortened the spelling to weon (pronounced way-own). Now, knowing the development of the word is fascinating for those who like language, but the fun that is "weon" hasn't even started yet.

My unprofessional guess is that the word started only as an insult, but grew to hold its other meanings. Just like a high school boy might call his friend "douchebag", Chileans sometimes call their friends weon. I've been told to be careful, that if I say weon to someone that I don't know very well they might take offense, but I've found that Chileans usually just find it hilarious to hear the word coming out of a gringa's mouth. So weon can either refer to a person you do not like, or someone you like a lot. In addition to its sort of pronoun usage, weon also has a regular noun form. Chileans use "wea" to refer to anything. Especially if that thing is particularly frustrating or foul. And it can be used to give an implication of frustration to an otherwise normal sentence. For example, "¿Qúe wea pasó aqui?" one might ask, "What (thing) happened here?" with the "wea" implying that whatever happened was not pleasant.

Add to the pronoun and noun an adjective, this time in the original form, "weon". Chileans are in love with the following sentence: "Oye weon, conozco este weon que es muy weon." In English, "Hey weon, I know this weon who is really weon." Or maybe, "Hey man, I know this jerk who is really lame." It's the same word three times in one sentence, each time with a different meaning. You can also say "aweonado".

Finally, weon has its own verb, "wevear". This verb is awesome. If a couple of friends are walking around town, not really doing anything, they are weveando. If someone is making drama at a party and won't settle down, he is weveando. If you ditch your friends or forget to call them back, they may say that you "wevea mucho."

I think Manuel and I really hit it off in the beginning because he is pretty easy to understand. He doesn't have a lot of the verbal tics that most Chileans can't seem to avoid; in fact, when we first met I didn't believe that he actually was Chilean. What is really funny to me, though, is how his speech changes when he hangs out with his friends. All of a sudden he starts dropping the "weon"s just as much as anybody. If you are planning to come to Chile, learning how to understand "weon" is probably one of the first things you will want to figure out. After all, you don't want to be the one being called big nut sack gringo behind your back.

City Living

When Manuel and I first met, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the center of Viña. I have to note that the first time I saw the apartment I would eventually share, he had not bothered to tidy it. It really cracked me up, and now that I think of it, maybe helped set the tone for the rest of our relationship. At that time, I lived 12ish blocks away, also in basically downtown, but on a slightly quieter street and in a smaller building. As we spent more time together more of my stuff ended up living at his place until I basically did, too. On July 26, 2010 my suitcases rolled out of this apartment on my way to the plane that would take me home.

In January 2011 I came back to school a week late in order to prolong my visit down south. In January we lived in the same 13th floor apartment, but this time, I had no other apartment 12 blocks away to go "home" to. This was home for one month. Viña Park is a modern building, and the first time we drove up to it together I was really impressed. It has a water feature in the lobby and at least two concierges on duty at all times. The square footage (square meters) of our one-bedroom was small, but well designed. We never felt cramped except when it came to shoe storage. It just seemed natural living in an economical space in a big city. And we had a view of the ocean.

In July 2011 my suitcases were packed to stay. And one of my suitcases was actually a kennel. And the kennel contained a dog. Bauzá is pretty close to a perfect apartment dog. He's really mellow, likes to sleep a lot, and needed very little encouragement to understand that the balcony was to serve as a backyard in emergent situations. Still, he's bigger than perhaps the ideal apartment dog, and we felt it. The economical apartment began to feel small. So when the family who rented Manuel's house in the country decided they had to move and the house was left empty, we began to consider a change.

It was really hard to leave the view and the convenience and the beautiful building, but in the end, I think we told ourselves that it was the best thing for the dog, and that we'd probably love it as much as he would. Circumstances caused me miss the first part of our country living, but like clockwork I was on a plane to be back in time for New Year's Eve again.

In January 2012, I began to realize the beauty of country living. Bauzá absolutely loves it. He taught himself to leap the fence in order that he can patrol the perimeter of our parcela. It wasn't until we had overnight guests from Santiago who reveled in the silence that I also realized it is incredibly quiet and we have as much privacy as we could want. And you know, we don't have a lobby with a water feature, but we have a clear blue swimming pool.

Other city dwellers also recognize the novelty of spending time in the country, and we've been able to pay for our home improvement projects by renting the house for a week here and a weekend there. This week is one of those weeks. Maria has a big house, also in the center of the city, located almost exactly between my two apartments of 2010.

She has a surprising number of bedrooms for the location, so we and the four dogs we somehow now have are staying with her for the time. We are back in the city, and it has really put the parcela into perspective. On the 13th floor, busses and traffic were almost reduced to white noise. On the second floor of a house built literally right against its neighbors, this is not so. As I put myself and the indoor dogs to bed tonight, I heard dance music from my window and cueca music coming in from the window down the hall. The neighborhood's garbage is collected at night, and car horns know no hour. I think Bau and Ody are content to spend a week barking at the passersby we never get in Mantagua. But I don't think any of us will regret it when we pack up and go home.

Easter Bread

Do you ever have something that sticks with you? It's in your brain and you keep kind of mulling it over without realizing it until you have a revelation. The other day, Manuel were at the supermarket buying insecticide (see my future post about creepy-crawlies). We were passing the bakery section and Manuel asked if we shouldn't get a pan de pascua. He indicated a brown lumpy loaf of something and I declined; it didn't seem very appetizing. I remember this very clearly because we later had an argument upon arriving home and finding we had no food. You didn't suggest that we buy food, I tried to explain, you only offered me a brown loaf. In Spanish, pan means bread, and pascua is usually translated to Easter. For some reason, whenever I hear "pascua", my initial thought is of Easter Island, and not of the religious holiday. I thought it was quite amusing when I found out that the name is translated literally: Isla de Pascua. When I saw the lump loaf, I thought it must be some traditional food of the isolated Pacific islanders.

I got here on December 30th, so the remnants of Christmas had been hanging around. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Manuel's mom Maria has a Christmas tree that she decorates every year. It was still up, so I took a picture of it to show April. The strange thing I noticed is that they called it an arbol de pascua. And when speaking of Christmas gifts, they say regalo de pascua. So I'm beginning to believe that "pascua" does not only mean Easter, but has some larger meaning encompassing more than one religious holiday. I was in Maria's kitchen this afternoon washing dishes and thinking about the silly lump loaf with its chunks of nuts and fruit. Maybe it was a Christmas bread, I thought. And then it came to me. Pan de pascua is fruitcake.

Nightmares

I've been in Chile for less than two weeks now, and already the experience has provided some good stories. Today is the second time the electricity has been cut and the water stopped flowing. To have the two things happen concurrently makes this one slightly more uncomfortable than the previous incidents. I can't help but think how my mother would disapprove if she knew I was brushing my teeth like Scarlett O'Hara might: by candlelight and with still water. I like to think I'm a strong lady, but I've never much liked sleeping in a house alone. With Manuel gone, walking through the dark isolated building is not the adventure it might be if he was here. To amplify the nightmares already forming in what remains of my childlike fear of the dark, the packs of stray dogs outside are barking nonstop. No, not barking, howling incessantly. If old musclebox Bauza wasn't here, I might use Scarlett's refrain: it is not to be borne. But I will bear it. My fluttering heart will eventually find peace as I drift to sleep with the comfort of b's snores. Sometime in the night I will hear the inevitable chirp signaling that the power has come back, and in the morning I will wake up to a new day.