Biking in Buenos Aires

Another way of visiting the city

As in many big cities like New York, Barcelona or Amsterdam, now porteños and also tourists can go around and enjoy the city of Buenos Aires in a bike. 

If you are interested in renting a bike, you just need to register with your passport in any of the 28 stations prepared for this. It is totally free!

Just check this website: mejorenbici.buenosaires.gob.ar

Speak Spanish with our Quick Guide for Travelers

List of useful Spanish words and phrases With this useful guide you will be ready to chat, shop, make travel arrangements, eat out and even handle minor health emergencies. All in Spanish! It includes a pronunciation guide, basic spanish vocabulary for foreigners organized in useful topics, a list of the most used verbs and a section with Lunfardo words, the slang of porteños. Pocket accordion book 20 pages Spanish - English

Porteño Slang in Nueve Reinas

Fragment of the Argentinian movie Nueve Reinas where there are several examples of the porteño slang called lunfardo (Buenos Aires Spanish).

JUAN: Necesito guita.

MARCOS: Mirá vos, qué original.

JUAN: No, necesito guita ahora. Mucha. Por eso estoy en la calle.

MARCOS: ¿Qué pasó, te levantaste ambicioso?

JUAN: No, mi viejo. Estoy buscando guita para él.

MARCOS: ¿Cuánta?

JUAN: Mucha.

MARCOS: Dale, ¿cuánta?

JUAN: Setenta lucas.

MARCOS: A la mierda, ¿qué le pasa a tu papá?

JUAN: Cosas, tiene problemas.

MARCOS: Y vos le solucionás los problemas a tu viejo.

JUAN: Sí, nos llevamos bien. El fue el que me enseñó los trucos para laburar, de pibe, como un juego. Mosqueta, tocomocho…

MARCOS: Lo básico.

JUAN: Después algo pasó. No se qué fue, pero no sé, se arrepintió al enseñarme, me dijo que estaba mal, que no hiciera lo mismo que él, que no me cagara la vida como se la cagó él…, que hiciera alguna otra cosa, no sé, cualquier cosa. Bueno, yo le hice caso, hice cualquier cosa.

MARCOS: Y no funcionó.

JUAN: No, todo lo que hice fue un fracaso. ¿Qué decías vos cuando te preguntaban qué querías ser?

MARCOS: Wing izquierdo.

JUAN: Yo quería ser cómplice. Se escuchaba mucho en casa. ¿A qué se dedica uno con una vocación como esa?

MARCOS: ¿Ministro?

JUAN: Ahora que mi viejo necesita la guita resulta que la única manera que tengo de conseguirla es usar los trucos que él me enseñó. Me rompo el culo tratando de recordar cada frase y cada movimiento de manos, vendo mi departamento para montar un negocio de importación que al final ni siquiera empezó… y nada, las setenta lucas siguen ahí como una zanahoria  y yo parado como un pelotudo porque las cincuenta lucas que junté no sirven para un carajo.

                                                         ***

Vocabulary

GUITA: dinero (money)

VOS: personal pronoun that replaces tú

DALE: informal expression “como on”

LUCA: 1000 pesos (one hundred pesos)

LABURAR: trabajar (work)

PIBE: joven (young man)

CAGAR: arruinar (ruin)

ROMPER EL CULO: expression that means “i have tried hard”

PELOTUDO: tonto (studid)

NO SERVIR PARA UN CARAJO: no servir para nada (is useless)

If you haven´t seen the movie, we recommend it!

Guided Tour - History of Carnival of Buenos Aires

History of the Porteño Carnival

Free guided tour 11th February – 17hs

Meeting point: Sáenz Peña y Av de Mayo

In Spanish and Portuguese

Porteño Carnival 2013

Porteño Carnival 2013

This year there will be 112 murgas that will shine in the 37 corsos organized in the neighbourhoods of the City of Buenos Aires. They will start on Saturday 4^th February and they will continue during all the weekends of the month, including the 11^th and 12^th of February, that corresponds to the Carnival holidays.

A corso is a mask and costume parade organized in a special place or in the street, decorated for the Carnival party. In this corsos you will see many murgas, groups of drum musicians, dancers, and fantasies (people that carry flags, dolls and umbrellas) that decorate the parade.

When: Saturdays from 19 to 2 h, Sundays and Carnival holidays from 19 to 24 h.

Where to find them:

Abasto: Av. Córdoba between Agüero and Sánchez de Bustamante

Almagro: Av. Corrientes between Av. Medrano and Bulnes / Lambaré between Sarmiento and Perón

Núñez: Ramallo between Arcos and Vuelta de Obligado

Balvanera: Av. Corrientes between Uriburu and Riobamba

Boedo: Av. Boedo between Av. San Juan and Av. Independencia / Av. Belgrano between Maza and Colombres

Coghlan: Av. Congreso between Donado and Mariano Acha

Colegiales: Av. Federico Lacroze between Gral. Ramón Freire and Martínez / Benjamín Matienzo between Conesa and Gral. Ramón Freire / Av. Federico Lacroze between Gral. Ramón Freire and Conesa

Monserrat: Av. Independencia between Virrey Cevallos and San José

Palermo: Darwin between Honduras and Gorriti

Saavedra: Av. Balbín between Plaza and Jaramillo / Av. García del Río between Pinto and Conesa / Av. Balbín between Pico and Arias

San Telmo: Av. San Juan between Tacuarí and Perú

Porteño Spanish

Porteño Spanish

Many countries have Spanish as their mother tongue but besides the general understanding between them, there are different dialects in each region.

Castellano or español rioplatense is the name of the dialect used in the areas around Río de la Plata, in the city of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos Province and Uruguay.

This dialect has several characteristics:

Phonetics

There is no sound /θ/ (that corresponds to the “z”), very common in almost all Spain. This sound is replaced by /s/. For example: “zapato” is pronounced /sapato/.

The consonants “ll” and the “y” are pronounced with/ ʒ / or / ∫ /. For example: “lluvia” is pronounced like /shuvia/ and “ayer” is pronounced as /asher/.

The “porteños” (people born in the city of Buenos Aires) have a special intonation that can be compared to the one of the Italians. It is much more melodic than the Spanish from Spain.

Personal pronouns

    * The use of “vos” as the second person singular instead of “tú”.

    * The use of “ustedes” as the second person plural instead of “vosotros”.

Verb conjugation

* Voseo. Besides the use of the personal pronoun “vos”, the castellano rioplatense presents a different verbal flexion in some verb tenses.

The Present Tense suffers changes in the regular and irregular verbs.

Examples

Regular verbs

Trabajar

Yo                                    trabajo

Vos                                  trabajás

Él – Ella – Usted             trabaja

Nosotros/as                     trabajamos

Ellos / as – Ustedes         trabajan

Irregular verbs

Ser

           

Vos sos

Ustedes son

           

Poder

           

Vos podés

Ustedes pueden

           

Pedir

           

Vos pedís

Ustedes piden

           

Entender

           

Vos entendés

Ustedes entienden

           

Imperative

Trabajar

           

Vos trabajá

Ustedes trabajen

           

Comer

           

Vos comé

Ustedes coman

           

Escribir

           

Vos escribí

Ustedes escriban

           

Use of Verb tenses

 * The use of the simple preterit (“Viajé”) instead of the compound preterit (“He viajado”).

 * The use of verbal phrase (“Voy a viajar”) instead of the simple future (“Viajaré”).

The vocabulary

Our Spanish has received the influence of different languages. This produced a multiplicity of vocabulary related to a wide range of themes. Our vocabulary has been enriched by words from native cultures, from dialects of neighbouring countries, from other countries from Europe like French and English and last but least from Italian.

Examples

Castellano Rioplatense       Español Peninsular

suéter, pulóver                       jersey

ricota                                     requesón

remera                                   camiseta

poroto                                    judía

pollera                                   falda

papa                                       patata

frutilla                                    fresa

durazno                                  melocotón

damasco                                 albaricoque

computadora                          ordenador

celular                                    móvil

valija                                      maleta

Lunfardo is part of our vocabulary. It is an argot born from a dialect created at the beginning of the 20th century with the arrival of millions of immigrants. Nowadays many of those words have been incorporated in our daily language. Some examples:

Lunfardo                               Castellano

plata, guita, mango                 dinero

un palo                                    un millón de pesos

un palo verde                          un millón de dólares

laburar                                    trabajar

afanar, chorear                       robar

mina                                       mujer

quilombo                               lío, confusión

boliche                                   discoteca

pibe                                        muchacho

la cana                                    la policía

birra                                       cerveza

morfar                                    comer