Ladies, don’t be alarmed if your friends occasionally call you “ gorda” (“fat”).
#ISPEAK COLOMBIA FREE#
Feel free to attract his attention by uttering the word “ parce” in his general direction. Obviously.Ī Colombian friend need not merely be an “ amigo“, when you could refer to him with the preferred local term “ parcero“. Want to talk about a period of two weeks? Well then you have to say “ quince días” or “fifteen days”. A Colombian week is always said to last “ ocho días” or “eight days”. You will never hear a Colombian referring to a week as having just 7 days. The same goes for the superbly mystifying expression “ ahorita más tarde“, or “now-later”. More often than not, “ ahorita” actually means “later”, but it can also be a polite way to imply that something is not going to happen at all. Learn that the Spanish word “ ahora“/ “ ahorita“, which is supposed to translate as “now”, means nothing of the sort in Colombia. Locals also like to call any woman between the ages of around 16 and 50 a “ vieja” - technically the word for an elderly lady, though not in Colombia. You’ll need to pronounce it in a more Latin style, mind. To get more Colombian about things, you can instead refer to a guy using the English word “man”. There are plenty available, but try: “ ¿Qué más?”, “ ¿Quiubo?” (“ ¿qué hubo?“), “ ❻ien o qué?”, “ ❻ien o no?”, or if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, “ ¿’ntonces? ”.Ĭlassroom Spanish teaches you to talk about men and women as “ hombres” and “ mujeres”, or “ señores” and “ señoras”. Instead, spice things up with one of the local ways to say “Whats up?”.
#ISPEAK COLOMBIA HOW TO#
How to Speak Colombian Spanish – Infographic TextĪ short guide to leaving behind ‘gringo Spanish’ and learning to chat like a real life local.įorget about asking friends how they are just by saying “ ❼ómo estás?“. For anyone so inclined, I’ve drawn up an infographic guide on how to speak Colombian Spanish. In the spirit of “when in Rome” and all that, you might like to imitate their way of waxing lyrical. Ah, if only that were so.Ĭhat to the locals during your stay and you’ll quick find that this beautiful sounding version of the language contains as many funny linguistic quirks as it does bits of local slang. Below are a couple snapshots of the gunner from the helicopter and me playing with his ammo.Latin America’s friendliest inhabitants – the Colombians – have long claimed that theirs is the most ‘neutral’ Spanish on the planet. Laptops delivered, the next morning I was on a plane back to New York. They hadn’t left at all, they had just moved on. Sure enough, the kids dropped me off at an incredible vista to be reunited with Nicholas and the rest of my travel companions. He speaks Spanish like a baby.” I didn’t know where they were taking me, but so long as we didn’t drive the motorcycle over the Andes and past the FARC, I figured things would work out. Their ring leader, an eight year-old girl, explained to the rest, “You need to ask him easier questions. Next thing I knew, I was being whisked away in a motorbike cab by half a dozen members of the local youth police corps.
I was in the middle of nowhere, I had no cash in my pocket, no cellphone reception, and I speak Spanish exclusively in the present tense.Ĭonjugating nearly every verb I could channel from the eighth grade, I told the soldiers I had to return to their nation’s capital inmediatamente. I ran along the dusty road leading to the airstrip just in time to watch a military plane take off and when I asked the three guards on duty if they had seen my friends they pointed to the sky. Nicholas presented the kids with 650 of his little green computers.Īfter losing myself for an hour or so filming the kids in their classrooms I realized all the soldiers had disappeared and Nicholas was nowhere to be found either. We were visiting a town in the center of Colombia, called La Macarena, which had been under guerrilla control over the last 40 years. Three hours later, camera in hand, I was soaring over the Andes in the cockpit of a military transport (the kind of plane you’d expect Val Kilmer to drive a Jeep into) along with Nicholas Negroponte, the Commander-in-Chief of the Colombian Army, the Minister of Defense, a lot of soldiers, and a handful of dignitaries and journalists.
I flew to Colombia with just under a day’s notice, arriving in Bogota on Thursday, December 4th at 6am. Our first follow-up: Nicholas Negroponte and his One Laptop Per Child initiative.
#ISPEAK COLOMBIA SERIES#
This week we premiered our first installment of “TED in the Field” – I am directing a new series on TED.com where we track significant progress from past speakers, and also introduce new people and ideas.
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