We don't speak Spanish. Here in Argentina, we speak castellano (Castilian). It might seem the same to you and me but Argentinos are adamant that their version of Spanish is superior to the rest of Latin America, supposedly retaining the pure Castilian flavor lost by other countries. On the other schizophrenic hand, they're equally proud of the lunfardo slang that permeates daily conversation. Lunfardo originated long ago with lower-class criminal types and most of its word origins are bastardized Italian and French. So, we speak "pure" Spanish sprinkled with dregs-of-the-earth foreign slang. It's typical Argentine lunacy.
The most important thing to learn is vos (you). In Spanish, there are many ways to say "you":
- tú - singular, used with a friend, family member, or someone lower on the social ladder such as a maid
- usted - singular, more formal and used with superiors and new acquaintances
- ustedes - plural of usted, used with any two or more friends or strangers
- vosotros - plural, used like tú for two or more friends and family members, but mainly used in Spain
You won't actually hear the word vos very often. As you may know, Spanish verbs are strongly conjugated, so the verb form itself tells you not only which tense is being used, but also the person. For example, here's the present tense of the verb tener (to have):
- yo tengo - I have
- tú tienes - you have
- él tiene - he has
- nosotros tenemos - we have
- ellos tienen - they have
It's not easy to find a book with conjugations that include vos, but don't worry, there's a simple trick. When you hear a verb and it doesn't match anything you know, it's probably the vos form! You don't need to use it yourself, everyone here understands tú quite well even if they don't use it in their everyday speech.
So if people ask you ¿de dónde sos?, you'll know they're asking where you are from and you can reply soy de los Estados Unidos, che, ¿y vos?
3 comments:
You are a little confused. Castellano and Español are the same thing. In South America it is referred to as Castellano. The reality is in the Capital Federal they speak "Argentino" or Rio Platese version of Spanish. The dialect here is much different not only grammatically but with the mixture of Lunfardo.
I would not take that Deby Novitz word for everything as she has made many mistakes in the past with her information .
I stayed at her guesthouse in Paraguay and had a terrible time.
I felt she was after quick money selling her tours and her tango .
She only like americans now for money thats all.
Janet
Tangospam is correct that castellano is interchangeable with español in most parts of the world. In Spain, a variety of dialects are spoken that may actually be distinctive enough to be considered separate languages, e.g., Catalan, Gallego, etc. What we think of as Spanish is simply the primary language dialect of Castilian (castellano).
Argentine Spanish is a variety of Castilian linguistically known as Rioplatense Spanish (from the Rio de la Plata which separates Argentina and Uruguay), as noted by Tangospam. However, I think she missed my tongue-in-cheek attitude about the pride Argentinos have in their dialect, often believing they are carrying on the pure tradition of Cervantes and the ancient royal courts of Castile and Aragon.
In my informal surveys of Spanish speakers from a variety of countries, it seems most think Colombia has the "best" Spanish, far and away. Interestingly enough, many felt that the Spanish of Madrid was sadly degraded.
If you speak Spanish and want an humorous take from an Argentino on the oddities of Rioplatense, look at http://www.elcastellano.org/miyara/dic_arg_esp.html. For example, his definition of an accountant says "a professional who helps us evade taxes and then denounces us for the crime when we're late paying him."
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