Language Play & Politics a la Chilensis

**This post was “Freshly Pressed” on November 18, 2010.

Chile’s alternative  news weekly, The Clinic (firme al pueblo, por supuesto) is a master at attention-grabbing and deliciously irreverent headlines that require a very good understanding not only of Chilean Spanish, but of Chile’s current events. If you’re a foreigner here in Chile, make a point of regularly checking out the covers at your local newsstand—and give yourself a big pat on the back if you get the headlines—it’s a sure sign you’re making progress on your cultural and linguistic Chilensis.

English humor seems to be more language-based than Spanish is. A lot is based on puns, which aren’t very frequent in Spanish, but they do come up from time to time, and The Clinic is one of the best sources for finding them. I spotted this cover a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t resist a giggle.

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Speaking Chilensis: beware the Fake False Cognates

It’s time for another lesson in Chilensis, in Chilean Spanish, and in those sneaky little false cognates that can trick you into saying things you really had no intention of saying at all.  And as every language learner discovers, just when you least expect it, you’re bound to stumble—or even dive headlong—into the quirky linguistic pitfalls of new language acquisition. And since I’ve probably fallen into and crawled red-faced out of most of them, I thought I’d pass along a little more advice on staying out of linguistic trouble.

Once again from the “boy was my face red” school of learning Spanish by experience, I bring you yet another chapter of dumb stuff the gringa said:

Cachando Chile: a Year in Review

Writing the landmark 100th post is a bit of a daunting task. I had intended to post this on December 1, which I had declared Cachando Chile’s 1-year blogiversary, but with all the hoopla over the Alienating Chileans post (which hit and passed the 100 comments mark that day), followed by an enormous amount of real-life events—you know the kind—all those things that get in the way of blogging, but that end up becoming “blog fodder*’ anyway. (*Eileen gets credit for coining this extremely apropos term).

In honor of this landmark, I wanted to look back over my first year of blogging.

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),

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:

Chilean Spanglish Spoken Here: A Rooster from the Glue

Spanglish is a funny language. Spend enough time here in Chile and you end up pretty fluent in the Chilean variant, which I call Spangli-shilean!! (Get it?) See? Right there you need to be on the inside track to cachar la onda…

At our most recent Chilespouses dinner, our resident comedian Eileen Shea had the Spanglishilean speakers roaring with laughter—and many of the newcomers scratching their heads—with a story about a guy from work.