I didn't write this, but, it is absolutely funny and more or less true,and pretty much describes my experience trying to speak Spanish in Buenos Aires.
(it came from here.)
For everyone who invested two, or five years learning Spanish, or for those who took the time on a crash course or just spent hard earned income buying phrasebooks, congratulations.
All your efforts and money will be completely useless in Argentina. But there is hope for you. It's not hard at all to learn the Argentine Language, in fact it only takes a few minutes as the following short read will demonstrate. Take the following Spanish language sentence:
Oye, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
(This translates to: "Hey, who are you? You come here to pick up women on the streets and to dance tango with them.")
But saying it like this will render you an ignorant tourist at best, or an inferior sub-human from a neighboring country next to best. With these simple ten, 12 steps below you will be able to make yourself understood in the Argie tongue:
1. Replace "oye" with a 1000% Argentine word, che. No one knows where this word came from, but many say it is derived from brazilian homosexuals, ironic since today virtually none of them are around. Wonder what happened to them?
/// Che, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
2. "Che", following Argentine etiquette, is ALWAYS followed by the word "boludo", s term to express respect and friendship. Its closest translation in English language is believed to be "asshole".
/// Che boludo, ¿quien quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
3. Quien is spelled the correct educated computer age way in Argentina, "kien"
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
4. Replace "eres tu" with sos vos. Unfortunately, all those verbs in Spanish which had you eating the corners of your textbook are officially worthless. Argentines use an entirely different 2nd person singular pronoun (vos instead of tu), and that means all verb endings change too, so the conjugation of the verb 'to be' is not eres, but sos. Enjoy learning all 25,000 verb endings all over again!
/// Che boludo, ¿ kien //// /// sos vos? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
5. "Vienes" must be replaced with venís. Again poor you, using the subject pronoun vos, has the effect of completely changing the spelling of verbs.
/// Che boludo, ¿kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
6. Take out "aquí" and use acá. Aquí is absolutely forbidden from use, as in Argentina this word sounds too much like Spanish, a language spoken in Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia.
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís //// acá a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
7. Here your options are a bit more open for you. You could replace "coger mujeres" ("to pick up women" in Spain and Latin America), with recoger mujeres, which is the correct way of saying "to pick up women" in Argentina. Another choice should be "buscar" mujeres (to look for women), which would fully disclose the appreciation of the chances a stranger has on getting chicks unless he handles the local language. On the other hand, you could leave "coger mujeres" alone, if your intention is to F-CK the chicks right there on the spot, which was probably what you were thinking anyways. But if you want a bit more privacy, we do advice to replace "coger" with "buscar".
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís //// acá a ///// buscar mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
(ps ALWAYS replace "coger" with "tomar" or "agarrar" when saying you want to "take" a bus. In Spanish-speaking nations coger el bus is the correct form of saying "taking the bus". In Argentina saying this will probably lead to a response like "sure, go ahead, I guess you can do so through the muffler".)
8. "Mujeres" is a far too formal expression not a single Argentine would deign to pronounce. A more appropriate word would be "minas" (chicks), a slang which has also the benefit of expressing properly the high consideration Argentines have towards the feminine gender.
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís //// acá a ///// buscar /////// minas en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
9. In Argentino, all nouns have their syllables switched so that "tango" became "gotan". So always reverse the syllables of all nouns, it's simple and you won't go wrong in your quest to fit in!!(But it isn't REALLY necessary, unless you want to be a real moron. If you do you are almost Argentinian!!!! KANGRETULAYSHUNS!!)
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís //// acá a ///// buscar /////// minas en la calle y bailar ///// gotán con ellas.
10. If you are in Buenos Aires, Uruguay and some other areas, further rules have to be applied. To be precise, within the borders of the described regions one should consider all territories below the Tropic of Capricorn, when Saturn fulfill its duty in the fifth house of Uranus, and Mars is conjunction with Titanus. And, of course, during full moon. In Main Argentino you have to pronounce the "ll"s correctly, so switch out "calle" with "ca-sshe", and "ellas" for e-sshas.
/// Che boludo, ¿///// kien //// /// sos vos? ////// Venís //// acá a ///// buscar /////// minas en la ///// ca-sshe y bailar ///// gotán /// ///// con e-sshas.
11. You can leave "en la calle" ("on the street") alone, as this is how every local and tourist ends up when their girlfriend or wife finds out they were carrying out the commands of this sentence. And presto!
12. You are speaking Argentino.
Spanish: Oye, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
Argentino: Che boludo, ¿kien sos vos? Venís acá a buscar minas en la ca-sshe y bailar gotán con e-sshas.
See, no difference at all!
(Don't take this too seriously)
