Articles and Stories

March 26, 2014

As a child from parents born in mainland Spain, but raised in the Canary Islands, I grew up quickly noticing the differences between various types of accents of the same language. I learnt many of the differences the hard way through very embarrassing moments whenever I would visit León, where I was born, for the summer.

The predominant accent in our household was Castilian, but out on the streets and at school, I was surrounded by Canarian words, sounds and expressions. This duality made me develop an accent hard for some to locate within Spain, and adopt words from the two different regions depending on the context in which I found myself interacting with others.

However intuitive this might have seemed to me as a kid, there was always the occasional moment when I assumed a certain word had one universal meaning, when it actually didn’t… and so the misunderstandings, laughter and embarrassment would arise.

One word I quickly learnt to not use again outside the Canary Islands was “chingar”. I bet you are looking it up in the dictionary right now; actually, if you speak Spanish, you probably already know where this is going even without me telling you the story surrounding this word.

I cannot remember exactly how old I was, but I remember the situation well. I was playing with my cousins out on the street while visiting my dad’s family. My grandparents’ house was in a little village outside León city, and just a few feet away from their house, on the main square, there was a fountain. Summer was always really hot and dry there, so playing with water was not only fun, but also practical; and so we were splashing each other in a typically innocent and playful way. Apparently, at some point I decided I had had enough of that, so I uttered “¡No me chingues más!”.

So there, that was the moment. I saw jaws drop to the floor and heard whispering, making me feel as if I had broken my mother’s favorite vase. I couldn’t possibly understand what horrible thing I had done to warrant such a blameworthy glare. One of my cousins rushed to tell my mother they couldn’t believe I had used such a word. To my relief, my mother clarified to them that “Chingar” meant “to splash” in the Canaries, and not what they thought I was saying. I wasn’t such a bad person after all!

Like “chingar”, there are several other Spanish words I won’t list here that have different meanings depending on the country or region they are used. If you decide to practice your Spanish by travelling to any given Spanish speaking country, be ready for the ride. What you were taught in school might not apply there, so be prepared for some stares, puzzled faces and laughter.

Go to http://intentalocarito.com/videos/ and check out this viral song and lyrics (“Qué difícil es hablar el español”) for a few examples on linguistic diversity of the Spanish language.