'Uruguayan Spanish' Expat

Uruguayan Spanish

Brazil had one when I traveled there but I haven't found one for Uruguay yet. Any ideas or titles would be welcome.

Thanks

Terry

When you say Brazil had one, do you mean they had an English to Brazilian Portuguese dictionary? Because you have to keep in mind that Brazil is a HUGE country with many people looking to speak to the language....Uruguay is this tiny tiny country with a rather unusual slant on the Spanish language that isn't much help to anyone outside of Uruguay - that doesn't make it a very attractive topic for monye hungry book publishers!

There aren't too many differences between Rio Platenese Spanish spoken along the coast in Argentina and that spoken in Montevideo (apart from maybe the more Italian style intonation in Argentina). Try not to worry yourself too much with nuances, if you're brand new to Spanish its more important to get your point across.

A few things to note:

- DO NOT use the verb "coger" which means to take or grab in Castellano Spanish, because in Uruguay it means to have sex.

- Double ll (such as in "calle") is not pronounced like a y, it is pronounced like an sh. The same goes for for y, it is also pronounced sh in Uruguay.

- In Uruguay they do not use vosotros (you plural for people you know), they always use ustedes for you plural. And for tu (you) they use vos or "voseo" (its a special South America thing). So for example where are you from is not "de donde eres" but "de donde sos". They will understand you of course if you use tu so don't worry yourself too much.

Has anyone else got any tips about Uruguayan Spanish?

Thanks for the info. The book I used in Brazil was loaned to me by a man we met from England who has worked there and married a Brazilian. He used it when he first arrived. The book showed many useful phrases. It's chapters were titled Shopping, Traveling, Car Troubles, Dining. ect. It also had a list of phrases or words that we could somewhat understand the response. It was an "street wise" directory that allowed one to at least communicate an idea versus trying to teach the language. One idea we had trouble with before the book was finding a bathroom at the Mall of America. The American term bathroom or rest room does not compute in their vocabulary for translation. I have never seen anything like it before or since and I have lost contact with John to get more info about the publisher, This is kind of what I was looking for.

Ron has you going in the right direction. DO NOT try learning Rio Platenese Spanish! Learn proper Spanish and you'll be fine. In addition, all Spanish leaning systems will not be Rio Spanish. (They do understand Spanish here for the most part. :)

Spoken Spanish in UY is shall we say, odd and of little use anywhere else.

Steve

It's much safer to learn a good solid basis of grammatically correct Spanish and THEN when you have that down you can go about trying to get the Uruguayo nuances.

The only big difference is the accent on certain words and the vos thing. Its important to have a good general foundation in Spanish so that it is useful to you all across South America.

In South American countries they tend to Americanize their words. For example in Spain the word for a freezer is congleador, but in South America its frisor. In Uruguay they use english words like lunch and sandwich, that doesn't mean there aren't proper spanish words for those things!

Just concern yourself with the basics first, the rest isn't that hard to pick up.

Good Luck!

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