Getting Around Lunfardo

Lunfardo is the slang used in Buenos Aires, which on occasion takes over more of the conversation than actual Spanish. Some say this slang was created as a mixing of the different cultures that settled here, or as a way to speak in code so police wouldn't understand. Either way, it still has me scratching my head sometimes, even though I've gotten down some of the basics.

Some of the most common words that many foreigners will either know already or learn right away are, "che," "boludo," or "che boludo." These words can mean a number of things, but depending on the situation, che is more like "dude", or "hey." Boludo can be something you call a friend or something you call an enemy, and as I've already made the mistake several times, you need to be comfortable with someone before you drop the boludo. I even have a little book on lunfardo-English called, "Che Boludo!"

It's something of a joke, but you really do need to learn a bit. A bad word in another language will never mean the same thing to you as one in your own language, and that's why I say boludo too much. I just don't feel it. To me, I hear people saying the word and think, "Okay, I get it. I want to say it too and look like a local." But I don't hear it in the same way, and I don't hear the undertones. I had just met a kid on my floor and said boludo. He wasn't happy, and I was the boludo.

Think of some of the worst words in the English language, and how you would instinctively know when it is socially acceptable to say them. Now, imagine that you have a foreign friend who hears you say one of these words. The next day they drop the word in randomly at a totally inappropriate time. Under normal circumstances you might be offended, but knowing that they don't fully grasp the word, you have to just smile and explain that they shouldn't say that. This scene is basically my life down here.

I'm learning on a moment by moment basis, and even then it takes time to get the meaning of the word behind the word. It's not just Americans or Britons that make these mistakes though. People from Buenos Aires talk differently, and even Spaniards or people from the south of Argentina are known to mock the way porteños speak. Like seeing an actor butcher a Boston accent, it makes you cringe.

Wherever I've gone I've tried to learn the local lingo. In Spain that meant saying, "Tío, joé que caló!" In Ecuador I adopted, "A cha chay," and "chévere." Even after just ten days or so in Chile I started using, "po" and "huevón." So no surprise that down in Argentina, trying to get to know this culture as best as I can, I'm going to mimic and do as the locals do. I just need to make sure I'm not saying the wrong thing.

I want so badly to be perfectly fluent in Spanish, and it's obvious to me that this is a goal that will never be accomplished. But there has to be a balance between sounding like an idiot and getting away with mistakes to sounding too good to make blatant mistakes like calling someone you just met an asshole, all with a smile on your face. Oddly enough, it's kind of a challenge.

The Language Wall

I've hit a big wall with my Spanish in the last few days. Suddenly I sound like an idiot, unable to roll my r's, conjugating poorly, and lacking vocabulary which was once a staple in my brain. It's funny, but I'm also having trouble communicating properly in English. It's as if my head is breaking down. I think I'm just tired, and need a slight break, just long enough to refresh myself.

In classrooms back home, they teach you the basics of Spanish, and justly so. Most people will never wind up working in a Spanish speaking environment, let alone speaking the language on a daily basis. The things I learned in class and through my own investment in Spain and Latin America, both in conversations and friendships, has put my skill at a high level. Not to brag, but I know how to ask where the library is and I can manage asking for a menu. No problems there. But in a classroom, they don't really teach you much business Spanish.

I'm continuously learning this as I go, trial by fire. If I sit down with a co-worker and talk about what I like to do and explain my background, we can have a good conversation. But when I need to ask someone how to make an extra cell on a spreadsheet, or explain that Mozilla Firefox wouldn't let me download some application because I don't have the latest version of Office, well then it just takes a bit longer for me to explain. And that somehow affects my confidence, which definitely affects how I sound. I'm well aware that I sound like an idiot most of the time in my office, but it's mostly because I have to learn new terms every day. I have a notebook filled with new vocabulary I've learned on the job.

Lately I've been translating a lot, and though it can be very difficult and challenging, I really enjoy it. Sometimes I have to ache over a paragraph for 40 minutes, but once it's done it sounds like it was actually written by a native speaker to begin with. It also helps me learn more vocabulary this way, though the problems generally arise from fancy menus with terms in French that I'm not even familiar with in English. This constant flux of English and Spanish throughout my day has me cross eyed and trying to keep up. Today I accidentally said, "That's mejor!" (That's better!)

These mental walls are normal in any second language, and they just as overcome-able as they are unavoidable. I've been through them before, and you always think you're brain has let go and you've lost the language. You just need some time to rebound, and you come back much stronger than before. It's amazing to feel the difference when your mouth forms words you didn't know you'd learned. All you can do is push on until that happens, even if you do sound like the village idiot on the job. I am the office idiot, I guess.

Tomorrow is New Years' Eve, and the time has flown by so quickly I haven't even noticed or had a chance to do a "year in review" kind of thing. We work a half day at the office tomorrow, and after I'll be heading south about 6 hours to Mar del Plata with my co-worker and her friends. Mar del Plata is a city of about 1 million people, located in the Pampas province. Apparently the beach gets so crowded you are elbow to elbow with people, and winds can get strong. It doesn't sound like the most picturesque beach, but then again Argentina isn't known for beaches.

We'll be spending the weekend there as well with the extra day off, and come back on Sunday night. So until then, have a happy new year.

What's in a Word?

Though I get enough Spanish in my daily life, I started taking Spanish classes today to improve my grammar and, above all, vocabulary. I only formally studied the language for two years, after all. I wasn't planning on taking classes down here, but after thinking it over, I realized that if I want to work with Spanish, I'll need to improve as much as I can, and it just makes sense to do it now while I work at a university and get a discount in a Spanish speaking country.

So now the plan is to take an hour of Spanish 4 days a week until I've reached 20 hours, and I'll probably stop there because I don't make enough money to be able to continue all year. Just long enough to steer me in the right direction. I'll go straight from Spanish class to teaching English, which could either confuse me terribly or make me a much stronger linguist. Time will have to tell on that one.

But I've been dealing with analysis of language so much recently that I've started to think about the meanings of the words we use every day. Take, for instance, a very common word in Ecuador, "Chuta." "Chuta" is used all the time by everyone, and can be roughly translated as something like, "Dang, Darn, or Shoot!" It's a non-offensive word that helps explain frustration or anger. However, there is a worse companion for this word. "Chucha" is more like "Dammit, Shit, or Fuck!" You rarely hear people say "Chucha," and when you say it people look at you like you're crazy.

We have the same standards in English with our versions of acceptable bad words and unacceptable bad words. But what does it all really matter anyway? As long as you get the connotation, that something has angered you, you're just saying the same thing. We've trained ourselves, and we've been trained by others, to understand that some words are okay to say and others are not. Why should "Dang" be less offensive than "Dammit" if it says the same thing? You're angry and you need a word to say, and that's as simple as it is. If we'd been told since we were children that "Dang" is the bad word and "Dammit" is acceptable, who would argue about it?

So much of language is non-transferable. I've come to the realization that words are just a code for a message that you're trying to get across. It's all just understanding and inference. That's why sometimes a person from England will say something that an American doesn't understand. We're all speaking English, but there are different translations and cultural interpretations. "Pissed" in England means drunk, but in the United States it means angry. These translation differences continue in just about every language.

For this reason I sometimes say things I learned in Spain and people scratch their heads or laugh because it sounds weird. All we can really hope for is that the message gets across and everyone understands each other. Fluency is a very difficult thing to define, and by extreme standards, you could say that you're only truly fluent with yourself and maybe your family. Misunderstandings will always occur, even within tight circles. But who knows? All of this in depth analysis of language seems to have made me cross-eyed, and I can't even figure out what I'm saying anymore.