¿Cachai?

“Si, gracias” I responded with an emphatic nod when the flight attendant asked me if I wanted water. I took the water nonchalantly, trying not to smirk. Did she even notice that I was speaking Spanish? I was feeling a mixture of relief and pride that I had understood her question and had thought to answer in en español, and growing elation, I was speaking already! How hard could this be?

I arrived in Chile hoping that the seven years of Spanish class that I had taken from 6eme to Tle wouldn’t prove to have been completely wasted. I hoped that the fact that I was able to semi-converse in Spanish with the handful of Spanish volunteers at the Zeehondencreche in Pieterburen meant that I still had some grasp over the language despite the fact I hadn’t really heard or studied it in over five years. I hoped that I really do have a knack for languages as everyone tells me I do when they hear that I am trilingual. My faith and fear of failure in my language speaking ability had accompanied me all the way into Santiago. In the airport, I saw that I could I read the Spanish sign for “salida” (exit) , and I held my own in the short conversation with the border control official no problemo. I thought maybe I remembered more than I thought I did.

Despite the fact that I was buoyed by my half-remembered Spanish language foundation, I soon realized the key ingredient that would be necessary if I were to successfully be immersed in foreign country and language: concentration. The problem with going to a place where solely Spanish is spoken, is that they speak Spanish, all the time. All the time!! I had forgotten how much energy it takes to understand a language that you can understand only if you concentrate hard on the meaning of the words and on the structure of the sentences; but if you let your concentration waver for a moment, you lose the thread of the entire conversation. I think the last time that I had experienced this state of linguistic fuzziness was in 1ere when I went on a trip to Saint Petersburg with my Russian class. I remember not receiving what I thought had ordered at a fast food place and difficulty haggling with the little old ladies at the the souvenir stands next to the Spasa Na Krovi church. Last year, when I was in Madagascar, I never reached the point where I could have followed a conversation in Malagasy if I concentrated very hard. Of course, I could get my point across easily enough with the paucity of words I knew and French as a crutch; but here, I didn’t have the option of a language I already know, I had to use Spanish. When I first arrived, it was like listening to someone speaking with a hand covering their mouth; I could kind of understand, but to get the true meaning of the Chileans’ words I needed to concentrate very hard.

On top of the intrinsic difficulty of understanding a language that I am not fluent in is the added difficulty of the Chilean accent. So to build upon the previous comparison listening to the Chilean accent for me is like listening to someone talking through a mouthful of marbles with their hand covering their mouth. I found that the number of marbles (read here: accent) varies depending on where the person is from. Hernán, one of the boat captains, comes from el campo in the South, and instead of saying, for example “Quizás querías venir pescar con nosotros esta noche?” (Maybe you want to come fishing with us tonight?) he will say something like this “ Quitha queri veni peca conotro etanoch?” And I am left with a blank look on my face. Maybe not all the Chilean accents are not that extreme (although they all seem to have the ability to speak mind bogglingly fast), but I have noticed some quasi-universal peculiarities. The two quirks of pronunciation that I find most noticeable are that:

1. Chileans practically never pronounce the “s” sound. So “Que dijiste?” Becomes que dijite?” Once you start anticipating how words will sound without the “s” sound this becomes easier to understand.

2. Chileans rarely pronounce the endings of words and considerably soften them, so often almuerzo becomes almuerz. This is a bit harder to deal with especially when you don’t understand a word and you are trying to get someone to repeat it back to you. It usually takes several tries.  

Besides these pronunciation differences there are a couple of linguistical quirks that I’ve picked up in the last two weeks that I’ve found very endearing:

1. The usage of “acá” instead of “aquí” for saying “here”. In Spanish class I remember at least one lesson being devoted to the different degrees of “here”. You learn aquí, ahí, allá (or at least this is what I remember from a super long time ago), and I always remember using “aquí” for right here and “acá” was a really shady term that we had heard of but never used and it was kinda had the same meaning as “aquí” (then ahí is even further away and allá is waaaayyy over there), however in Chile, I soon realized that I was the only one saying “aquí” and everyone else was saying “acá” so, I jumped on the acá train as well.

2. New slang!

chévere: awesome, cool, great

cuatico: over the top

chuta: darn

fomé: lame

¿chachai?: get it? This one’s probably my favorite because it kind of seems to replace the conversational filler “ummmmm”, and of course being the producer of many blank quizzical expressions I have earned my fair share of¿Cachai? And ¿Cacha(s)te?

3. Speaking someone’s name proceeded by “la” or “el”. For example they’ll say, “¿Donde está la Lauren?” (Literally, where is “the” Lauren). I can´t tell if they do it for everyone or if it a term of endearment or familiarity, but I love it!

So all in all, my Spanish is definitely getting better. It has only been two weeks but I already understand practically everything (unless people are talking really really fast), and I feel that I can converse more smoothly. I think that my progress can be measured by the simple fact that when I got here and I would be asked, “¿Cachai?” I would respond with a blank quizzical expression, but now I know enough at least to say, “Sí caché!”