When it comes to language preperation I was rather on the low side for this Exchange, but well even if I had prepared better it probably hadn't helped much. Here in Chile usually people don’t speak the Castellano Spanish, we learn in School (Europe). First of all it is Latin American Spanish, that is already different from Castellano, and in addition to that there are some words, that are kind of unique for Chile. Some of them I already learned for example:
First word
to be learned in Chile is:
Permiso - kind
of like “excuse me” when you want to pass. That’s to be used mostly in the
metro, when you like to get off the metro, but also when you want to pass in
other situations or as synonym for “disculpe” or “perdon”.
A commonly used frase here is ¿Cachai?, which means more or less “Do you understand? Do you get it?”. At my
first day of uni it was really helpful to know as the teacher more than once
looked at us and asked “¿Cachai?”). In this context it’s handy to tell that
here, people speak one of the fastest Spanish in the world.
For the beginning
it’s helpful to know the expression “Más despacio, por favor”, even though I
feel like most of the time for them it does not even seem fast, so one to two
sentences will be in slower still unclear Spanish, followed but a rapid one
word sounding like, including a lot of “rrr” sound speech that is rather hard
to understand.
Weon – a
word with 1000 meanings (in German comparable with “ding”; even though weon has
even more meanings)
Let me teach you some more Chilenian words that could be crucial, if you'd like to come here:
Carrete:
party
Palta:
avocado
Plata:
money
Tranqui:
calm (down); don't worry
Piscola:
pisco with cola
Polola:
girlfriend
Pololo:
boyfriend
For those of you who'd like to learn even more (also my source of knowledge): http://www.spanish.cl/chilean-spanish-dictionary.htm
Note: In addition to that I learn almost two
languages (as chileno is a bit different) you also get good with numbers here.
Or at least I have to, as on the “Ferías” (markets) they often just tell you
how much it is and thanks to the big currency here you get to know the numbers
until more or less 20.000.
--> There is so much you can buy on the markets here, you can't even imagine!
Barrio Yungay – getting to know my neighborhood
As I had my
room already before I went to Santiago, I also checked out the neighborhood via
Google Streetview. To be honest, my first impression was a bit shocked, but I
tried to relax and be open for this new experience. So trying not to judge I
moved here, and two weeks in I really start to enjoy living in this barrio.
Yungay is one of the oldest parts in Santiago and therefore some houses here do
look a bit “fucked up”, houses are a bit destroyed (missing windows etc), there
is some graffiti, but the people around here are always nice. Every Thursday
and Sunday there is a “Fería” where you can buy almost everything. Most stands
sell fruits and vegies of the season (as it is still winter it’s all about
bananas, oranges, potatoes and that kind of stuff. Next to that you can find
people selling random items, like this one guy who just only sold super glue
really excitedly. All in all the view of my window is amazing and I have the
sun shining in all day (with the sunset being visible for me from lying in my
bed). Still windows over here are not build very efficient (‘Einmalglas’) So
isolation is not really a thing and you can hear people talking on the street.
This is not persé a bad thing, it’s more like that you have to adjust to the
circumstances, like be wearing earplugs for sleeping.  |
| There are like so many playgrounds and places where you can do "freeletics" |
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| The grafities here and there give this Barrio a lot of charme |
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| In real life this mosaic looks really pretty and the mirror parts reflect beautifully |
Muchos Besos,
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