Chilean Slang and Body Language

    I am very excited to leave for Chile! After learning more about the geography, it seems even more incredible than I thought! It is so cold where I live; I can't wait to get into the beautiful sunshine in Chile and escape the cold! Although, I am feeling a bit nervous.  I do not know how to speak Spanish or Chilean Spanish for that matter.  After watching the videos, I learned that a lot of their language is slang.  It is not normal Spanish it has a lot of differences to it.  I've heard some Spanish before and I take French which is kind of similar, but I've never heard of Chilean slang words before.  I feel like this is going to make it even more complicated.  

In the video, Dino taught ten Chilean slang words that he found of importance to foreign travelers.  He taught the words in his home, and he was very laid back and entertaining.  He repeated each slang word multiple times and broke the word up into syllables.  He then related the sounds of these syllables to English words to help us pronounce them easier.  He gave the meaning of the words and if it was possible, he would act out the meaning.

I think Dino acted the way he did in the videos to not make them boring for his viewers.  He even said that he only did ten terms per video because he didn't want to overwhelm his watchers.  He created his videos to try and help foreign travelers understand Chilean Spanish easier.  He wants to help travelers who are going to a new country try to understand it's culture better.

I enjoyed his videos a lot.  I took notes while he taught me about the slang words because some of them he said were really important.  I appreciated his method of teaching.  He made it relatable by comparing the word sounds to words in English.  I really liked that.  He also tried to give background information on the slang word if he knew it which made him look very knowledgeable.  This made him more of an authority figure to people viewing his videos because it makes him look trustworthy.

When I taught my family the Chilean slang terms, they had a difficult time.  My older sister took Spanish in high school and knew it fairly well.  The Chilean terms were confusing her because she was used to the basic Spanish ones.  My dad had a hard time pronouncing "carrete" because he cannot roll his "r's".  Similar words with "r's" he had difficulty with as well.  I cannot roll my "r's" either so I was not much help!  Overall, they enjoyed learning the words.  My mom loves learning other words in different languages, so she had a lot of fun with this activity.