Chile Forum

What about the unique way chileans conjugate verbs sometimes?
I think a lot of the time it's more in the younger population.
I've only heard it in chile...It's somewhat similar to the vosotros conjugation in Spain but it's the "tu" form in chile.
here are some examples:

For 'ar' verbs in the 'tu', you drop the 's' and add the 'i'.

¿CÓMO ESTAI? (for como estas)

for 'er' verbs, if it ends in 'es', drop that and replace it with 'í'

¿OYE, TENÍ UNA GAMBA? (¿oye tienes una gamba?)
or
AY, NO TE PREOCUPÍ (ay, no te preocupes)

Kinda weird eh? I think it takes some mastering, too though, just like when to use 'poh'.

Tybombero wrote:What about the unique way chileans conjugate verbs sometimes?
I think a lot of the time it's more in the younger population.

Actually, I think those are examples of uneducated speech. If I remember correctly, 'estai' = estais. In uneducated (or very informal) speech, the ending 's' gets dropped or not fully pronounced. Another example would be the 'po' word. If you listen carefully, they're actually saying 'pos' but they're "eating" the 's' (not that 'pos' is educated - I think the actual word is 'pues')

I don't have a Spanish dictionary or a grammar book handy to check, but maybe next time you could ask your friends to write the words for you?
You could also compare the speech of, say, a bank manager or university professor. I'd bet they don't speak like that.

Language has a way of "marking" people - here, there and everywhere...

socal-lady wrote:

Actually, I think those are examples of uneducated speech. If I remember correctly, 'estai' = estais. In uneducated (or very informal) speech, the ending 's' gets dropped or not fully pronounced

Yeah you definately don't here your doctor talking to you like that. I think even more than uneducated, it's just plain slang. My friends would speak correctly half the time, and then whenever they felt like it, or if it just flowed in the conversation, they would come out with these pronunciations.

It very well may be that they're just shortening the spanish conjugation in the vosotros form (especially in chile where 50% of there words are cut short)...but then i don't know why they're using it in the "tu" context.

As far as them writing it...haha, well yeah, they can't spell half of the words in the spanish vocabulary so it seems they just spell everything phonetically and hence get a lot of the "ll" and "y" mixed up as well as "b" and "v". So i'm not sure if there is an accurate spelling for it if it's just slang. The "poh" i've seen it spelled as "poh, pu, po, bu"... again not sure if it's an actual word or just some made up slang.

Yeah. languages sure are facinating

I should specify when I say "they can't spell half of the spanish vocabulary", i'm talking about my specific friends who I write to frequently. I wasn't trying to make it sound like chileans in general can't spell.

Tybombero wrote:
As far as them writing it...haha, well yeah, they can't spell half of the words in the spanish vocabulary so it seems they just spell everything phonetically and hence get a lot of the "ll" and "y" mixed up as well as "b" and "v".

So I guess it's no different than in the U.S.
All you have to do is surf the 'net and read forums such as this to see tons of examples of bad spelling and grammar. Most prevalent in the younger generation. Why on earth do we allow kids to graduate without being able to read and write propely?!

Sorry for the rant. Back to our regularly scheduled chilenismos and other weird stuff.

yeah, my Colombian wife does the whole pointing with her lower lip. kinda funny. i guess it takes less effort than lifting your hand to point... you just gotta get used to looking for it.

To signal 'come here', I see the signal in Southern Chile given with hand down palm open fingers out in a kind of patting the ground gesture.

A chilean sayin that I really love:

"Muchas manos matan la guagua"

(too much hands kill the newborn)

Call me dense, but I don't get it. What does it mean?

Too much people fixing a problem may be worse, some things are better solved with few people involved, if a woman is delivering a baby and many people try to help, the newborn may die asfixied, I don´t know how to explain it better, my english is poor!!

I've got it! Thanks, Tom and Puelche

Tybombero wrote:socal-lady wrote:
The "poh" i've seen it spelled as "poh, pu, po, bu"... again not sure if it's an actual word or just some made up slang.

i beleive that its from the word pues.. like 'si pues'..

now if someone can tell me where they got bakan from.. i'd like to know.. it means cool.. like tu ipod es bakan... i also encountered some weird beliefs.. like someone giving you an evil eye or something.. the ojearon.. the belief is that someone with 'strong' eyes can put a curse or similar on u by just looking at you either with envy or coveting.. weirdest thing i heard whilst there.. and what they need to do is to sanctify (santiguar) you.. they do this by mixing salt and sugar and doin hail marys i think.. and get this.. they can tell you had the eye if there is a flame when the sugar is burnt.. hahaha.. if only they knew that sugar almost always will create a flame when thrown in the fire.. shame!.. anyways just something i encountered and found to be interesting...