Thursday, August 20, 2009

Chilean Spanish

Margaret from Cachando Chile and some other gringas have been having some fun with the Spanish that is spoken in Chile. They even got some media attention when a journalist from a Santiago newpaper interviewed a few of them and wrote a story about it.

The game consists of translating some of the common slang expressions directly, word for word, without taking meaning into consideration. It's hilarious and great fun. I am something of a language nerd so I couldn't pass up something this entertaining. I fabricated a little story using as much slang as possible that Margaret has been gracious enough to post on her site.

Most of it is in English (but I'll warn you: there is also some nonsense in English and some non-standard Spanish).

It is my first "guest post" of sorts. You can read it here

3 comments:

mosey (kim) said...

That is hilarious! And a nice little story too. :)

It reminded me of that story of Mark Twain's "The Jumping Frog" which was translated into French so appallingly poorly that he translated it back into English to show how bad it was. Let me see if I can find a link... here we go...
jumping frog

(and a complete segue: when you move to Chile, will that be a permanent move?)

Margaret said...

Annje- mutual firsts! You were my first guest blogger! I loved your story (guess that means I'm a language nerd too... ¡y con mucha honra!)
Thanks for letting me post your piece!

Danielle said...

Love all of it! You write wonderfully! I'm so entertained.