Because my flight to Buenos Aires was initially canceled then rescheduled, my immersion into Argentinian culture began a little later than everyone else’s, but it was just as momentous and overwhelming an experience. My first taxi ride from the airport to my host family’s house was quite confusing as I did not understand a word of what the driver was saying to me in his fast, lilting dialogue. My difficulty in understanding his Spanish had to do with his accent and the slang he used. People from Buenos Aires, who are colloquially known as Porteños, have a distinct accent that is different from Argentines from other regions. Like in in United States, different regions in Argentina, such as Córdoba, have their own patois, which even makes it hard for Argentines to understand each other.
Thus, my confusion understandably morphed into anxiety during the first
few days of my stay as I realized I only understood about half of what my host
family was saying to me. I was confident that my Spanish level was good enough
to understand locals, but the new words and sounds I was hearing in Buenos Aires
were different from what I’ve been taught in my Spanish classes in the United
States. Argentines use yeísmo, a distinctive phonetic sound, which transforms
the pronunciation of words with “ll” and “y” into a “ch” sound. This at first
makes it hard to understand what the locals are saying, but it makes for
interesting learning experience.
Fortunately, my confusion did not last too long as my study abroad
program taught me and the other students about yeísmo a few days after my
arrival. Within just the week that I have been here, the people in my program
have started using yeísmo, and I have attempted to do it as well. Furthermore,
my host family has been attentive with teaching me the slangs used in Buenos
Aires. Argentines have different words or slangs for everyday things we use
such as money, the bus, and the metro. There is no other way to learn this
slang besides memorizing it or using it repeatedly. In addition to slang,
Argentines love to speak fast and animatedly, which sometimes make it a bit
challenging for me to keep up with conversations.
Overall, this first week for me has been a time of adjustment to the
frenzy and fast-pace of Buenos Aires. Besides the challenges from the language
barrier and the porteño patois, I’ve
had to adapt to the social standards and cultural mores of Argentina.
Argentines are less strict about time than the United States. There is a
different conception of time here, in which it seems that no one is in too big
of a hurry. Everything and everyone moves at a slower pace, even in the city,
and delays are not seen as problematic but as a part of life. In fact, the porteño slang for a period of time is rato, which could be anywhere from 15
minutes to several hours. The uniqueness and peculiarities of Buenos Aires have
taken me a bit of time to get used to, but it is what makes Buenos Aires and
Argentina so endearing to me and many other people.
