Che! Dame los cinco #16

Che! Cómo andas?

Welcome to the“Che! Dame los cinco” newsletter.

For the new folks joining us, I send these 5 things for you every Monday morning:

1. a new word

2. a piece about Argentinian culture

3. a new expression

4. a piece of content I recommend

5. an exercise for improving your Spanish

📖 Palabra - tope (traba) de puerta

I sent this pic to my friend Tony saying, “hey what do you call this in Spanish?” It’s a door stopper. He said tope de puerta and sure enough, I checked it on MercadoLibre and it is!

It’s fun to learn words like these because they’re so nuanced but make me feel like I’m leveling up my vocabulary.

🧉 Cultura - El lunfardo

I like to think of lunfardo as Argentinian slang influenced by Italian. Some might disagree but give this podcast episode (9mins) and let me know what you think.

This is one of the best podcasts out there to get practice listening to the Rioplatense accent and learn about Argentinian culture. It’s a two-for-one.

Link to episode.

🗨️ Expresión - no te rasques la nariz

So this isn’t strictly Argentinian but it’s a new phrase I learned this week. It means, “don’t pick your nose.”

Can you guess why I learned it? Yeah, that’s right. My daughter has started sticking her fingers in her nose and I needed a way to stop it 🤣

🔗 Contenido - El Método Rebord

I can't remember where or how I heard about this podcast/show on YouTube but I watch it occassionally because:

• the video and audio are high quality

• it's usually two guests

• guests usually are Argentinian

It's more advanced so proceed with caution but it's another place to get Argentinian input for your Spanish.

💪🏼 Ejercicio - Speak Spanish at a restaurant

I was eating at a restaurant with my daughter the other day and accidentally told her, “decile gracias” meaning “tell the waiter thank you.” I was in Spanish mode.

The waiter’s nametag read Jose so there was a slight chance he spoke Spanish.

Later when he brought the food, I spoke loudly to her in Spanish (so he knew that’s what we spoke and I wasn’t telling her to say gracias to assume he spoke Spanish because his name sounded Mexican).

Anyways, he ended up coming back and speaking to me in Spanish! It was the coolest thing 🙂 

So next time you go to a restaurant, go alone and pretend that you’re on the phone speaking Spanish. Maybe you’ll get a waiter who speaks Spanish and get an excuse to practice?

Let me know how it goes!

Thanks for reading! Espero que disfrutes la semana 😄

Abrazo de tu amigo,
- Joe