Chilenismos
I have been writing a list of phrases/words that someone would need to know if they came to Chile. Here is the start of it.
Note: I cannot figure out how to put accents in my blog, so I have just been copying and pasting them from Google. That takes a lot of time, so sorry, you will notice accents missing on some words!
1. Que te valla bien - Have a good one. This is said almost everytime you said "chao o adios" to someone.
2. Cuidate - Take care.
3. Po - This is a typical chilenismo that is used by every type of person. You can say, "Si po, no po, ya po." I have found it to just add more emphasis. Like, for instance, if you want your little brother to stop making such loud noises, you can say, "Yaaa po! Basta!" (Basta= stop)
4. Como estai? - This is equal to "como estas" but with the Chilean accent.
5. Que onda - Onda means "wave" in English. But this saying is used as, "What's happening, what's going on", and "mala onda" means you get bad vibes for a person or thing.
6. Weon/weona - This is classified as a slang, bad word, but the way people use it it basically means dude/person. Grandparents, toddlers, aunts, uncles, teenagers, etc... EVERYBODY says it and they say it ALL the time. Another spelling for this is "huevon/huevona".
7. Wea - A very popular Chilean word for thing. It is short for huevada.
8. Cuestion - Another word for the spanish word "cosa", meaning "thing".
9. Que lata - How boring/what a shame
10. Que fomé - Boring/ dull
11. The prefix "-re" - This adds emphasis to the word. But a funny and very common misunderstanding is the word "repollo" which is a cabbage, but Spanish learners tend to assume it means chicken since "pollo" is chicken and with the prefix "re" maybe it is a big chicken? Haha.
12. Everything in Chile is "ito/ita" - It's not "un libro"... it's a "librito". It's not "chico o chiquito"... it's "chiquitito", "perrito", "técito"... This suffix in the Spanish language means the thing is small. So a "técito" would be a small cup of tea (té). This is not the case in Chile. It does not matter what size the cup of tea is. It could be the biggest cup of tea you have ever seen, yet it is still called a "técito".
13. Mas o menos - The direct translation is: more or less. In Chile it is used frequently for avoiding a direct answer. For example, if a teacher asked their student if they did their homework and the student replies: "mas o menos", the answer is no, the student did not do their homework. But in Chile, it is pronounced, "ma o meno" because most Chileans drop the last few letters off words. Why? I don't know, but it for sure makes it harder for me to understand!
14. Manjar- An extremely popular caramel type spread that is used in cakes, candies, crepes, etc.
15. Rico/rica - This word has a lot of meanings. It could refer to the food being delicious, an attractive person, or something that is good.
16. Que bacan! - How cool!
17. "Eres seca" - Somebody said that to me and I had no idea what they meant because "seca" means dry, so I took it as an insult, since being dry is not being a friendly person. It turns out that "seca" when referring to a person or thing and in the correct context, means "awesome".
18. "Voy a ir" - This means: "I am going to go". The future tense in Spanish is "Ire" (I will go), but it is more common in Chile to hear the form "voy a -infinitive form of verb-". Me bañaré means I am going to shower, but instead people would say, "voy a banarme" by not conjugating "bañarse".
My classmates and I decided that all you have to do is learn "weon, weona, y wea" and you will be just fine in Chile!
Chile has a stereotype that it is a very "chill" and relaxed country.
Before I joined CIEE's high school semester abroad program in Chile, people who had traveled to Chile would tell me how it's okay to be late in Chile because a lot of people are and how it's common for someone to say an event starts at 9, but in reality it ends up getting started two hours later. I have found this somewhat true. Everything I have been to starts pretty much on time so I think that stereotype is a myth, especially as the country develops more and more.
As for the "chillness" of the country, I am amazed everyday when I see young kids smoking cigarettes. The law here is that you can smoke, drink, and buy alcohol and cigarettes at age 18, but kids end up starting to smoke at age 14 or even age 11 (usually the kids who have parents that smoke).
From what I have seen, the police don't enforce the age of smoking. All the kids walk down the streets with their cigarettes and in my school kids have their supply of cigarettes in their school backpacks and after school and before school, they smoke. Now of course I am not talking about the whole population of young people, just I would have to say the majority.
I think this struck me as very surprising because in the US not a lot of teenagers or even people in general smoke cigarettes anymore. The US has been raising the cost of a box and making people aware of the health effects for about 50 years now. Chile is doing that too. On the boxes there are extremely graphic pictures of people, lungs, and mouths that are damaged from smoking.
Also, when people buy alcohol or cigarettes, they very rarely are asked to show their ID. Talk about culture shock from seeing kids smoking on the streets, and a couple of my classmates smoking almost a box a day.
One other topic I would like to bring up is that I have heard some people in the US say that Chile is a third-world country. After coming to Chile and living here, I find that almost offensive.
Everything works here, runs smoothly, the systems are efficient, and from what I have seen, there are a lot of middle class people. Every city has their homeless people but to be honest, I think there are just as many in Santiago as in New York City. I am probably being biased since I have only been to Santiago, Vina del Mar, and Valparaiso.
I know that in the south of Chile there is a huge population of the native Mapuchi people and they have a significantly different lifestyle. I honestly don't know too much about the north but other exchange students live in a small, port town way up north named Caldera. It's not what I would call poor, it's just very small.
Sure, Chile is way different than the US, but the majority of citizens in Santiago, and tons of other towns (I think the whole country) has clean drinking water, enough food, a job, an education and other necessities. To come to a conclusion, if the US is a first world country, then Chile is a developing first world country.
Next weekend, my family and I are going to a town in the south, called Valdivia.
In the south of Chile it is very rainy, green, and covered in plants... basically the polar opposite from the north of the country.
Valdivia is about 10 hours in car from Santiago so we will be leaving at about 11 at night, driving through the night, arriving in the morning, and staying four days.
I am super psyched for this mini-vacation because from looking at pictures and from what everyone has said to me, it is an incredibly beautiful town. My host mama, Claudia, grew up there and has some family there that we will be staying with.