Friends photo by luiswalk

Did you ever wonder how Chino Ríos was related to tennis star Marcelo Ríos?  Or what parents were thinking when they named their daughters Kena or Mane?   Actually, Chile produced only one tennis-playing Ríos, and Kena and Mane’s parents gave their girls quite traditional names (María Eugenia and María Elena, respectively).  Chileans like to give people nicknames.

Nicknames based on a person’s given name, for the most part, have one of three origins, which I’ll call “Shortened”, “Younger sibling”, and “Imported”.

1) Shortened: These nicknames are easy to connect to their full-form counterpart, since they’re usually just the first one or two syllables of the name. They may sound confusing at first to foreign ears, since male nicknames can end in “a” and female nicknames in “o”.  Examples: Fran, Manu, Pau, Rafa, Seba.  In the case of compound names such as Juan José or Carmen Luz, the shortened form will usually be made up of the first syllable of each component name, producing Juanjo and Calú, respectively.

2) Younger sibling: These nicknames sound vaguely like the original, though they never have more than two syllables, and they simplify complex sounds, in much the way a child learning to talk might pronounce her older sibling’s name.  For example:

Jorge -> Coke :  /x/ (written as “j” and “g”) is replaced by the easier-to-pronounce /k/, and the adjacent /r/ is removed
Gloria -> Lola : /g/ is removed from the first consonant cluster, /r/ is replaced by the easier /l/ and the diphthong /ia/ is reduced to /a/

3) Imported: These are Anglo-sounding nicknames, like Paty and Naty

Here is a list of common name-based nicknames.  As  you’ll see, several have both shortened and younger-sibling forms.

Then, of course, there are the nicknames that come not from a person’s given name, but rather from a physical characteristic of theirs.  The most common of these are: Chascón (needs a haircut), Chico (short), Chino (Asian-looking), Flaco (skinny), Gordo (fat), Guatón (fat), Pelado (bald) and Negro (dark). These are generally pejorative terms, but always used con cariño.  The nicknames are often assigned by peers in primary or secondary school and can never be shaken.  They stick so fast to their owners that they can often be spotted in mainstream media, followed by a surname, as though they were official.

Several expats appeared in Las Ultimas Noticias on August 17, 2009 discussing chilenismos: why they’re so animal-laden and how ridiculous they sound translated literally into English.

The article is here: Gringas se matan de risa traduciendo chilenismos

It references this post on the blog Cachando Chile: Chilean Spanglish Spoken Here: A Rooster from the Glue as well as expat comedian Eileen Shea (pictured).

In general, the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking world assigns its children two family names at birth. In the case of Spanish-speaking countries, including Chile, the father’s surname comes first and the mother’s second. The father’s family name is the one that each person passes down to his or her offspring. So if my father’s name is Juan Pérez López and my mother’s is Carolina Rodríguez Núñez, and they decide to name me Paula, the Registro Civil would put me down as Paula Pérez Rodríguez.

This naming system is generally well-regarded by the locals here, since it helps distinguish individuals who may share first and last names with many other people, and gives the maternal line an extra generation of legacy.  (That coupled with women maintaining their full birth name after marriage makes the Anglo naming system look pretty machista in comparison.)

The practical result of all of this is that Chile is set up to keep track of people with two last names.  This is perhaps due to the fact that the vast majority of immigrants Chile do have two (according to the 2002 census, over 70% of resident foreign nationals were from Spanish-speaking countries).

But in come the gringos (and, frankly, most of the rest of the world) with their single surnames to mess things up.  Most retail client information systems in Chile require people to have two last names, from banks to pharmacy and supermarket loyalty programs.  If you’re lucky, you can enter a period (.) as a second last name, as my bank did for me, but often the system will require that it be composed of letters.  Previred, the employee benefits payment web site, had me enter “NN” as a last name, and I’m reminded of one particularly frustrating web shopping session every time I get a letter from Falabella addressed to “Rebecca Lee NO TENGO APELLIDO MATERNO”.  Sometimes the employee typing in your information will just repeat your real last name*.

What I find most attractive about the idea of obtaining Chilean citizenship– no joke– is the possibility that it would grant me a segundo apellido.  If you’re a naturalized Chilean of non-Ibero-American origin, do you have two last names now?  Let us know in the comments.

Vocab

• apellido, apellido paterno: (paternal) surname, family name
• apellido de soltera: maiden name
• segundo apellido, apellido materno: maternal surname

* Having identical first and second last names is actually fairly common among Chileans.  Although at first glance it suggests incest, it’s usually the result of undeclared paternity or simply two parents with the same common paternal surname.⇑

This heavenly stuff gets translated into English in Isabel Allende novels as “blancmange” and into American ice cream flavors as “dulce de leche” (read with hard d and gutteral l), which is its name in most of the rest of the Spanish-speaking world.   Manjar literally means “delicacy” and is what you get when you cook sugared milk for a long time.  It turns into a smooth brown paste that vaguely resembles peanut butter in color and consistency (which leads to a puzzling confusion between the two on the part of some Chileans, despite the completely different flavors and textures).

Manjar is a staple on the breakfast and once table, to be spread on bread like jam.  It’s also a common filling in many pastries and cakes.  Dunkin’ Donuts in Chile sells a “Boston Manjar” donut, which is a Boston Kreme donut with a manjar filling in place of the “kreme”.

If you like sweets, you will probably love manjar.  Fortunately, in Chile you can get it at any store that sells food, even the tiniest mom-and-pop negocio on a remote patagonian isle.  However, should you find yourself traveling abroad and in need of a fix, here are two simple recipes: the traditional slow-cooked milk and sugar, and the more modern boiled-can-of-condensed-milk.  For the moment, both are untested by expat.cl, so use at your own risk.

http://www.nuevoanden.com/recetas/recmanjar.html

The Chilean Peso has a somewhat more exciting history than our dollars and pounds.  For starters, it didn’t even exist until 1975, when it was introduced to replace a highly devalued Escudo.  Just in the last 10 or 15 years we expats have gotten to witness all kinds of neat changes, such as the pink plastic 2.000-peso bill, the replacement of the 500-peso bill with a coin, and the two-tone 100-peso coin.  This last one was an unfortunate turn of events for Chile’s urban children, since for some reason most, if not all, of those supermarket vending machines full of cheap toys only accept the old 100-peso coin.  (I often tell my son that I have none of those coins on me, and most the time it’s true.)

Read more about the Chilean Peso on Wikipedia.

Change is good

Change, that is, coins and 1.000- and 2.000-peso bills, are worth more than their proportional value compared to higher-denominated bills.  For some reason there aren’t enough of them around, and people do not spend them wantonly.  If you go into a store to buy an item for $1.500 and hand the cashier a $10.000 bill, he will automatically ask you, “No tiene más sencillo?” regardless of how many 1′s and 2′s he actually has in the cash register.  I actually had a cab driver once accuse me of taking a ride in his taxi just to break a 10.  And forget about $20.000-peso bills (if you’ve ever actually seen one).  I avoid ATMs that dole them out.  Tip: if you’re in a bind, a good place to break large bills is the supermarket, the bigger the better.

Gambando y quinando

Ever wonder where the U.S.-coin nicknames penny, nickel and dime come from?  Me neither.  But it’s helpful to know their equivalents in Chile.

• Gamba – 100 pesos
• Quina – 500 pesos
• Luca, lucrecia – 1 thousand pesos
• Gabriela – 5 thousand pesos
• Arturo – 10 thousand pesos
• Palo – 1 million pesos

I can’t give you unequivocal etymologies for these terms, but it’s pretty clear that “Gabriela” and “Arturo” refer to the the historical figures depicted on those bills, Gabriela Mistral and Arturo Prat.  Gamba means “prawn” in Chile, and palo means “stick”, so you’ll have to get creative with those.

Luca is the one of these you really need to know.  It can be used generically to mean “money,” as in Al proyecto le faltan lucas.  And it’s used in multiples to refer to other bills and quantities of money.  You will probably hear un billete de cinco lucas more often than una Gabriela in reference to a 5.000-peso note.

I’m a little pressed for time now and won’t try to reinvent the wheel. Below are some online and print resources that will help you get your foot in the door with this engaging dialect. Try to learn the basics immediately, for example: al tiro, the verb cachar, huevón (in all of its forms), the informal conjugation of verbs in the second person singular, and then take on the rest at whatever pace suits you.

Books

• How to Survive in the Chilean Jungle, by John Brennan: U.S. (Amazon) – Chile (Antárctica)
• Chilenismos, by Daniel Joelson: U.S. (Amazon)

Web sites

• Chilean Slang Made Easy on knol
• Chilean Slang from ContactChile
• Chilean Spanish on Wikipedia

Been here years? Already know all that stuff? Read WikipediarS. Epacagarselarrisa.

You’ve probably seen it around.  In late 2005, ProChile, the Chilean trade commission, adopted the slogan “All Ways Surprising” to promote tourism and trade with Chile internationally, and it has since received a hearty thumbs down from English-speaking fans of Chile around the world.

It’s meant to be a subtle double entendre: Chile is always suprising, and it’s surprising in all ways.  There are only a couple of things wrong with that.

1. When an English speaker first looks at the phrase “All Ways Suprising” and hears the phrase “always surprising” in his head at the same time, it seems wrong.  The phrase as it is written is ungrammatical.  As one expat put it, “it looks like something the editor missed.”
2. In English, the term “surprising” does not have the generally positive connotation that the term “sorprendente” does in Spanish.  Travelers to foreign countries aren’t necessarily looking for lots of surprises.

So I think I have the support of many when I say: ProChile, how about getting started on the next slogan?  I’m sure I can round up a few dozen voluteer editors for you.

I’ve always been a little puzzled by the use of the verb preferir (to prefer) in the command form, as in “Prefiera nuestros servicios.”  One would argue that in this context it means “choose” rather than “prefer”, but after all these years it still doesn’t really sound right.

Like this!  Want that!

The following are the most common financial indicators used in the media and in prices for services.

IPC (Indice de Precios al Consumidor): Known as the Consumer Price Index in English.  This indicator measures the purchasing power of the Chilean peso, based on the variations in cost of a standard bundle of goods and services.  While the IPC itself has a positive total daily value (e.g. 100,5), you will often see it expressed in terms of its accumulated variation over a prior period such as a month (e.g. -0,02) or a year (e.g. 6,3).

UF (Unidad de Fomento): The UF is a ficticious unit of currency with a value equal to a set number of pesos (e.g. 22,000) that is readjusted daily according to the IPC. Services can priced in UF, as well as savings and investment instruments, credit instruments such as mortgages, home rental prices, even school tuitions.  Salaries, on the other hand, are always set in pesos (related search).

UTM (Unidad Tributaria Mensual):  Another reajustable unit similar to the UF.  Government fees and fines are often expressed in UTM.

UTA (Unidad Tributaria Anual): The UTA is equal to 12 UTMs.

You can look up past, current and future values of these indicators on the SII (linkme) web page Valores y Fechas, or read about their history in the SII news archive.

This one has me completely stumped and therefore completely enthralled. I’m not even going to Google it, to keep the mystery alive.