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.