Viva Chile, Mierda! (It’s a good thing)

Yes, I know that Viva Chile, Mierda is an unlikely title for  a post about a country one loves, but it’s an expression that truly bears comment—especially since Chilean President Sebastián Piñera himself used it on camera recently when he announced that all 33 miners were alive and well 700 meters beneath the ground 17 days after the mine they are in collapsed.

A Chilean flag hangs from the remains of a house in Constitución destroyed by the tsunami that followed the February 2010 earthquake

I’ve heard this expression a zillion times, but have to confess that I never really thought much about it, and certainly did not understand it until these past couple of weeks…

Ya Pasamos Agosto!

We made it through August… Let the fiesta begin!

Chileans—especially the older ones—have a thing about August, a kind of a wary-scary dread accompanied by the increasing mantra-like use of the expression “si pasamos agosto…” (if we get through August), followed by a clearly audible self-congratulatory sigh of relief come September 1st: ¡Ya Pasamos Agosto! We did it! YAY! We got through August!

August is the tail end of Chilean winter, and let me tell you that three long months of cold, damp, gray, and dreary, can really take its toll. Especially on the abuelitos, the older folks who have spent most of the past three months wrapped in bufandas (scarves) huddled up to a guatero (hot water bottle), and shivering beside the estufa (free-standing heater), avoiding drafts, keeping their feet warm, and basically trying not to get sick.

August is a rather neurotic month, and its schizoid flip-flopping between hot and cold, sun and rain, and brownish smog vs. the more preferable invisible-type O2 really wreak havoc on delicate respiratory systems and kick off a rash of bronchial and sinus infections, along with bad colds, which lead to pneumonia, which leads to the hospital, which leads to…. well, let’s just say that many older people fear it’s the end of the line, the last stop on the train, where they’ll buy the farm and kick the bucket…or in the finest Chileno: estirar la pata… irse al patio de los callados…parar la chala… poner la piyama de madera…dejar de existir…

(FYI and just for the record… I checked the statistics and found a report that showed that more adults actually die in May, June, and July.)

So clearly, pasar agosto is a big deal among the so-called “third agers” (the tercera edad, as it’s called here) and cause for celebration. A quick google check revealed a number of fiestas in senior centers and even an all-out bash at Los Buenos Muchachos (a very Chilean restaurant that’s big with groups and tourists) suggesting that families invite the senior generation to a big show tonight with 1980s singer Luis Dimas.

So, ¡Ya pue’ chiquillos!, ¡Ya pasamos Agosto!, which is also might convenient, because September just happens to be the national party month, time for Fiestas Patrias… a 2-day holiday that tends to turn into a month-long celebration of spring and independence…
¡Tiki-tiki-ti!

Today’s vocabulary:

All of the following expressions are typical ways of saying that someone has died. Please feel free to correct or add more!

estirar la pata (stretch out the foot or leg)

irse al patio de los calla’os (go to the patio with the ‘quiet ones’)

parar la chala (chalas are sandals, but parar can mean to stop or to stand up, so I come up with 2 different interpretations with the same effect: that the sandals stop walking or that they are bottoms up, meaning that the person is lying on their back)

poner la piyama de madera (put on the wooden pajamas–with reference to the coffin)

dejar de existir (stop existing… this is a very standard, formal way of referring to death–a favorite of newscasters–that has always given me chills… do we really stop ‘existing’ when we die? doesn’t memory count? is this too existential a question for a blog?)

Annje speaks Chilensis

Call it Spanglish, call it Spangli-shilean, call it Chilensis–what it is is the Spanish–excuse me–Castellano (I stand corrected!) that you hear on urban streets every day. It’s fast and fun and full of idiomatic expressions that no non-native-Chilensis-speaker could ever figure out on their own. I never dreamed that the recent post on the Rooster from the Glue would receive all the attention it has (see for yourself: Gringas die Laughing!), and I’ve been thrilled by all the response and contributions to the Glossary (which is going to take a while to get updated–now you know what I’LL be doing this weekend!)

Annje of (Annje Unabashed) is a frequent reader of Cachando Chile and she sent me her hilarious version of a little bad translation fun:

Annje says:
I can never resist the opportunity to play around with language, so to take up Margaret’s challenge, here goes my translation, with a brief introduction… better late than never.

When I first arrived in Chile, I thought I would be fine in terms of language. I had, after all, majored in Spanish and spent 4 whole months in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I was good to go… or so I thought. I quickly learned otherwise.

Not only is the Chilean accent fast, often with the mysterious disappearance of the last consonant, especially the “s,” but it is full of what you might call informal language. There are more slang expressions in “buen chilensis” than you can shake a stick at. Many of them defy direct translation: chamullento (teller of tall tales), achaplinarse (back out of something), or engrupir (win someone over with lies/smooth talk). You have to come up with an entire phrase in English (of course there are words in English that don’t translate well into Spanish either.)

There are also informal conjugations that no one ever mentioned in any Spanish class I took: Andai con plata? Qué querí? Qué tení? Qué mirai? It’s not vosotros… It’s not vos… What is it? I don’t know, but I love it, I love all of it.

I learned new “modismos” (slang) every day, but my intensive course came when I started hanging out with my “pololo’s” (BF) family. His sister, now my cuñada (sis-in-law), who is a brilliant child psychologist, is also the Queen of Slang. Not only is she on the cutting edge of newly-coined terminology, but she is also a master word-mixer herself, inventing terms and putting clever twists on common ones.

When I first met her, I didn’t even understand a “J” (no entendí ni jota = I didn’t understand anything). They all thought it was so funny because she would be telling a story and I would be sitting there dialing busy (marcando ocupado = with a blank look because of miscomprehension). She was my gauge of success: when I understood everything she said, I knew I was fluent in “Chilensis.”

This is a completely fabricated story in her honor. I think she would be proud!

This is what it would look like in direct translation:

We went out the other day with the skinny to take a few swallows and throw the size. The only can was that skinny’s boyfriend, who appears until the soup, arrives with a striped face and starts treating her like the lining because she hadn’t answered her phone.

The stupid big egg had already smoked a whistle and he put himself to suck like the condemned… he was totally cooked. He continues throwing her the seal, accusing her of putting the hat on him and of having black feet hidden over there who wanted to saw the floor from (under) him. Skinny told him nothing to see and that he was peeling cables. But the type grabbed skinny’s monkey tail and threw it against the wall. He left the broom—it was half a scandal. More on top, the broken, stick face left blown without paying. He did the dead dog… With Skinny we had to pay the bill with the broken glass and all that left salted. What an iron!

So, let’s see how close you were:

Salimos el otro día con la flaca a echar la talla y tomar unos tragos. La única lata fue que el pololo de la flaca, que aparece hasta en la sopa, llega con cara de rayado y el empieza a tratarla como el forro porque no había contestado el teléfono.

El huevón tonto ya se había fumado un pito y se puso a chupar como condenado… estaba totalmente cocido. Seguía echándole la foca, acusándola de ponerle el gorro, y de tener un patas negras escondido por ahí que quería aserrucharle el piso. La flaca le dijo que nada que ver, que estaba pelando cables. Pero el tipo agarró su cola de mono y la tiró contra la pared. Dejó la escoba– fue el medio escándalo.

Más encima, el roto cara de palo salió soplado sin pagar. ¡Hizo el perro muerto! Con la flaca tuvimos que pagar toda la cuenta con el vaso roto y todo que salió salado. ¡Qué plancha!

This is what it might look like in loose translation into normal English.

My friend and I went out the other day to have a few drinks and have fun chatting. The only bummer was that her boyfriend, who seems to follow her everywhere, shows up looking a little crazy and starts giving her a bad time because she hadn’t answered her phone.

The stupid jerk had already smoked a joint and then started downing drinks like it was going out of style… he got totally wasted. But he keeps chewing her out, accusing her of cheating on him, of having a lover hidden somewhere who wanted to take his place. She told him there was no way and that he had totally lost it. So the guy grabs her drink (Cola de mono is a little like Bailey’s) and throws it against the wall. He made a mess, it was a huge scandal.

Then on top of that, the shameless, low-class trash flew out of there without paying his bill. My friend and I had to cover the tab, even the broken glass, which was expensive. How embarrassing!

Disclaimer: this story is completely fictitious and is in no way characteristic of any of my real experiences in Chile and is not meant to insinuate, imply, or suggest that Chilean men are violently jealous drunken potheads.

Annje lived in Chile for almost 4 years and has been married to a Chilean for 8 years. They are raising two little Gringo-Chileans in Texas where she is completing a Ph.D. They are planning to return to Chile when she finishes (which will be “soon” OK!)

Gringas die laughing

I was just sitting here minding my own business when the phone rang the other day and a reporter announces that he had stumbled upon Cachando Chile and had tracked me down and wanted to know more about what was behind this whole Chilean Spanglish Rooster from the Glue, bad-translation fun with Chilenismos that was going on over here. He saw that gringa blogger Abby (see Abby’s Line) was involved as well as Canadian comedian Eileen Shea. Unfortunately Bearshapedsphere blogger Eileen Smith posted just a tad too late to be included in the article—it was LUN‘s loss, but you don’t have to miss out—go on over and check out her contribution too!

It seems he thinks we have a movement going on. I told him that the post had started with a bit that Eileen included a preliminary version in her show for the Chilespouses the other night. “There are 500 gringas who get together to laugh at Chilean dichos?” he asked incredulously.

No… I had to laugh… “nothing like that… we get together for other reasons, but it’s fun to laugh at ourselves trying to figure out what these strange sayings are all about!” I told him.

He asked for my top 5… caught me off guard with that one, but I had to admit that the first time I heard someone say “mi señora no tiene pelos en la lengua” (my wife has no hair on her tongue) I was really torn between confusion and repulsion… I mean, ICK! (it means she’s outspoken, by the way). And then there’s the obvious question of why in the world anyone would name a tasty pastry treat something as odd as “calzones rotos” (‘torn underpants’ or ‘ripped knickers’ in Brit-speak). Eeuuww! But once you get beyond the name, they really are pretty good (the name comes from the shape, by the way, although even so it takes a bit of imagination…)

I also have to say that “pato malo“  (bad duck) seems a very odd way to refer to a thug… I mean, a snake, a fox, a bull, a bear, even a dog… I could be afraid of those things… but how bad can a duck really be? Doesn’t it strike you as a rather affectionate way to refer to someone that no one would ever want their son to be or their daughter to date? And then there’s this whole fascination with pigs… “Pasarlo chancho,” for example, means to have a good time… why? I can’t help but wonder… and then the use of “chanchito” as a term of endearment! (really!) That’s probably grounds for divorce anywhere else!  Hmmm… have you seen the book of Chilean idioms, How to Survive in the Chilean Jungle? The name probably came from all the animal references we have going on here!

In the end the reporter Enrique Niño wrote a very nice piece in Las Ultimas Noticias (thank you Enrique!), and the response from his readers who looked Abby and I up on our respective blogs has been tremendous! We’ve received tons of contact from people from around the world, although most were Chileans who were amused and offering new vocabulary and expressions that will be added to the Cachando Glossary very soon!

So if you haven’t seen the article, take a look! (Gringas se matan de risa traduciendo chilenismos) (by Enrique Niño for Las Ultimas Noticias, Sunday August 16, 2009, Santiago de Chile).

Chilean saying: Nació con la marraqueta bajo el brazo… “Born with a hard roll under the arm…?”

Chile has a lot of “dichos,” popular sayings that enrich the language. I came across a new one today: “Nació con la marraqueta bajo el brazo” (Born with a hard roll under his/her arm). Excuse me?

This curious expression is used in the same way English speakers would refer to someone being born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth. In other words, they are born into a family without economic concerns.

2 marraquetas

A marraqueta (mah-rrah-KET-ta-and don’t forget to roll those r’s!) is a favorite type of Chilean bread made from French baguette dough, but with its own very specific shape. It can be divided into 4 parts (which I would call rolls), although for some reason that I’ve never been able to figure out, 1 unit is actually 2 marraquetas and each has 2 parts to it.

Like French bread, marraquetas are crunchy on the outside and very light and airy on the inside. They are often used for sandwiches, such as the very typical ham & cheese sandwich served for breakfast (yes… breakfast).

So what’s the relationship between bread and wealth? I’m speculating, but my guess is that it has to do with bread representing abundance, references to “give us this day our daily bread” and, of course, as good descendents of the bread-loving Spaniards, for many Chileans, bread is a must at every meal, so having that problem resolved at birth is a very good start indeed!