Che! Dame los cinco - #8

Che! Cómo andas?

Welcome to the [first] issue of 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 - wacho

A synonym for pibe, boludo, or amigo. I see it used all the time in text conversations like on Discord and Twitter. Start using it! You’ll blend in in no time 🙂 

wacho, vamos a la fiesta

🧉 Cultura - Anna Taylor-Joy

So remember when everyone was watching Queen’s Gambit? I think that was in the height of COVID - either end of 2020 or 2021.

Anyways, I later found out the main actress, Anna Taylor-Joy, speaks Spanish! Turns out she grew up Argentina (until she was 6) and her father is Argentine. How freaking cool, right? Blew my mind.

Here’s a 5-min interview of her in Spanish:

🗨️ Expresión - echar un vistazo

I’ve been having a lot of conversations on Twitter in Spanish to promote my other newsletter — English Byte — and kept hearing this phrase come up.

It means “to take a look” so I’d say, “check out my newsletter!” and some people responded with “voy a echar un vistazo, gracias.” Very handy!

🔗 Contenido - O11CE

This show came out in 2019 so relatively recent but it's about a kid from a small town who goes to a famous boarding school/soccer academy.

I'm not a huge soccer fanatic but I think the main character is supposed to represent Messi so it's kinda cool. Note, there are no Spanish subtitles on Disney 😢 Here's a link to the trailer:

💪🏼 Ejercicio - Write down words on the go

One problem I run into is not having a good system for writing down words I don't know in the moment, like when I'm cooking with my daughter and forget the word for frying pan.

1. Download the SpanishDict mobile app (free)

2. When you look up a word, hit add to list

Now, you'll be able to track words you look up so you can study later (i.e. adding to Anki or something).

Thanks for reading! Espero que disfrutes la semana 😄

Abrazo de tu amigo,
- Joe