Spanish Latin American

3 Responses to “Is Chilean spanish very different from Mexican spanish?”

1. Ciko wapo Says:
   August 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   Americo G is right.

   But Chilean Spanish is quite notorious among Spanish speakers themselves for being a bit harder to understand.

   Once you get used to it it’ll be no problem though.

   One characteristic of Chilean Spanish which is quite widespread in the spoken, yet not the written language, is the Chilean voseo.

   The trick is to look at the conjugation of "vosotros".
   If it ends in -áis then it becomes -ái or -áy in Chile.
   The endings -éis and -ís both merged into -ís, or -íh, because the final S is aspirated.

   For example:

   Tú – Vosotros – Chilean voseo

   tú hablas – vosotros habláis – tú ablái
   tú estás – vosotros estáis – tú ehtái
   tú comes – vosotros coméis – tú comíh
   tú haces – vosotros hacéis – tú acíh
   tú vives – vosotros vivís – tú vivíh
   no te preocupes – no os preocupéis – no te preocupíh
   no digas nada – no digáis nada – no digái nada
   quiero que hables – … que habléis – … que ablíh

   Notice that some vowels change:
   tú duermes – vosotros dormís – tú dormíh
   que duermas bien – que durmáis bien – que durmái bien
   tú puedes – vosotros podéis – tú podíh
   tú quieres – vosotros queréis – tú queríh
   tú juegas – vosotros jugáis – tú jugái

   Another characteristic of Chilean Spanish, as mentioned before, is that they aspirate the final S within a syllable. Sometimes so weakly that it is barely audible.

   For example:
   "Cómo estás?" – "Cómo ehtái?".
   Nosotros somos chilenos, y ustedes? – nosotroh somoh chilenoh, y uhtéeh?

   All in all, Chilean sounds nice, though.

   Have fun in Chile!
   "Que te divertái bien!"

2. Americo G Says:
   August 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   It’s the same. Just a few differences in accent and vocabulary, but nothing hard to understand. Latinoamerican spanish dialects are very similar to each other. I think is harder for an american to understand scottish english.
   Mexicans, chileans, peruvians, can understand each other perfectly.

3. Dawn Says:
   August 9th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

   It’s different but understandable for the most part. The accent is different and also some words and slang.
   I’m a Mexican Spanish speaker and I have more trouble understanding some regional accents from Spain and some from the Caribbean.