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