Mexican slang or Spanish slang?

My friend says "Chinga" is Spanish slang. I always thought it was Mexican. What''s the difference?

• OK, we''ll start with the assumption that we all know Spanish is the language spoken in Mexico and by "Mexican" you are referring to a cultural colloquialism or regionalism.%0D\ %0D\ The verb "chingar" means "to fuck" in Spanish. So it is indeed universal Spanish. HOWEVER, the Mexican culture has embraced the expression "Chinga" the way Anglos use "Fuck!". And that''s only done in Mexico. Other colorful variations exclusive to Mexico (and nearby countries like perhaps El Salvador) are "chinga tu madre" (fuck your mother) and "chingate"(fuck off).%0D\ %0D\ Hope that helps.

  Y si no, chingate

• Before I went to Spain as an exchange student in 7th grade, my told me to remember to tell anyone who messed with me, "Me cago en la leche de su puta madre montar a caballo."

• I know almost no Spanish, but I''ve noticed that the sound of Spanish spoken in Spain is much more pleasing than that spoken in Mexico. Why is that? Any native Spanish speakers here? If so, how much difference is there? Is it comparable to English in the UK vs US vs Australia?

• The real difference, in my family, between Mexican and Spanish is about 500 years in the new world. That''ll do it.

• r3, you really prefer the Spanish lisp to Mexican Spanish?

• r1 and Spanish speaker here. %0D %0D Mexican inflection is high-pitched and sing-songy. Spaniards from Castille speak virtually with their mouths closed, little expression, and end every sentence almost in a whisper. And of course, Castille being the seat of kingdoms and where the language originated, it is full of archaisms and considered "more elegant" than most other accents.%0D %0D Andalucians (Southern Spaniards) are more animated, breathe in their esses, and shorten words containing s,d, or r in their last syllable (thus para becomes pa, peludito becomes peluito and nada becomes na). %0D %0D Guess who are the ancestors of most Latin Americans? (mixed with black and Native American, of course). Then in the Carribbean, with the African influence we started substituting r endings for l (pasar became pasal)%0D %0D So, in conclusion, in terms of accents:%0D %0D %0D Spaniard:Brit%0D %0D as %0D %0D Mexican:Hick/Cowboy %0D %0D as %0D %0D Carribean Latin:Black/Urban%0D %0D %0D As a matter of fact, when dubbing movies into Spanish (most of which is done in Mexico) the rule of thumb - until the PC nineties - was to have a black person sound Cuban and a Cowboy or Hick sound exaggeratedly Mexican. %0D %0D So Julia's son sounded like Fidel Castro and watching Yosemite Sam speak to Speedy Gonzalez was always a big ol' Mex-Fest :)

  Puelto Rrrican

• Actually Julia''s son sounded more like a high-pitched Ricky Ricardo when he ranted to Lucy in Spanish.

• Thanks r6. The last part about movie dubs was interesting. It shows how the accents are perceived.\ \ I hear a lot of Spanish of the Mexican variety in person and have never really cared for it (the pervasive emphasized "o" sounds give it a silly or ignorant sound for me). Again, that''s just the perception of someone who understands very little of it.\ \ But I saw a movie last week, [italic]Nico and Dani[/italic], where the characters were supposedly from Barcelona, and for some reason all the usual annoyances didn''t bother me. In fact, I kind of liked sound of it.

  r3

• R8 is a chingado racist

  La Raza

• Where are the Spanish language television shows that are on US cable produced? Like Sabado Gigante? Spain or Mexico? I so wish I could understand what is going on but the 2 languages I''ve managed to master will have to do, n''est-ce pas?

• Colombian Spanish trumps all. %0D\ %0D

  Barranquilla

• Could the differences between Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish be similar to the differences between English English and American English? (Accents included?)

• Do Spaniards use "joder" for fuck like Mexicans use chingar?

• Did you grow up in Puerto Rico, R6, or did you learn Spanish here in the States?

  Hispanic Homo

• Hi, Gwyneth at R3!

• Yes, Spaniards are really fond of joder. And cono. Chingar in Mexico doesn't always have negative connotations - "chingue!", for example, means "I made it!" or "I did it!" If you can read Spanish and want to know more, Octavio Paz's "El laberinto de la soledad" has an entire chapter devoted to it. I also recently bought a book called "El chingonario" at Sanbourne's in Mexico City that has uses that even stumped my Mexican friends. Chingar became as popular as it did in Mexico because it's heavily tied to Malinche (the women who translated for Cortes). In fact, she's called La Chingada - the fucked one, the original race traitor. Mexican Spanish isn't necessarily sing-songy. That's more or less confined to the Federal District, but because they dominate the Mexican media, that's what you hear. Mexico actually has a whole range of accents - the south is different from Mexico City, which is different from the north. I hate Spain Spanish. They sound like Daffy Duck. My partner (who is from Tijuana) describes Colombians as sounding "retarded," something I never really noticed until he mentioned it.

• Neither, r10, that slop, Sabado Gigante is made in Miami.\ \ The sing-songy Spanish spoken in Mexico City is actually heard mostly among the lower class, poorer citizens. \ \ \ Sort of, r12.

• My mother is from South Texas. She grew up Speaking Spanish as well as English. A Mexican friend told me she spoke a beautiful old style of Spanish. ( I don''t speak it.) When I told her what he said she replied "no, I just speak it correctly" %0D\ %0D\ She had a cleaning lady from El Salvador. I did not understand their conversations but I could hear the difference. My mother pronounced each word clearly where as the maids words all ran together.

• Reminds mne of France French and Quebecois French.

• "My partner (who is from Tijuana) describes Colombians as sounding ''retarded'', something I never really noticed until he mentioned it."\ \ Of course he would. Colombian Spanish is often described as ''clean and crisp'', and those who would disparage it are often insecure about the status of their own speech.

  Hispanic Homo: "Just Sayin''"

• Nowhere near as different as those two accents, r19

• I know someone who spent her childhood in Colombia, learned English as a teenager in New York, and had parents who spoke Czech and German. Her English is perfect, and her Spanish sounds crisp and clean, as R20 pointed out. It''s especially noticeable when I hear her speaking to Mexicans. It sounds better to my ear than Mexican Spanish.

• r14: I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Went to college in the U.S., then stayed in New York. But, as a matter of fact, I''m in PR now.%0D\ %0D\ [quote]I also recently bought a book called "El chingonario" at Sanbourne''s in Mexico City that has uses that even stumped my Mexican friends.%0D\ %0D\ Did you also visit the infamous rest rooms at the Sanbourne? (see clip - NSFW)%0D\ %0D\ [quote]Reminds mne of France French and Quebecois French.%0D\ %0D\ My stepfather was French. It is my understanding that Frenchmen cannot even understand Quebec Canadians. So your analogy may apply better to, say, Basque (Bilbao) or Catalonian Spaniards, who speak an almost totally different language, even though the official language of their regions is now Spanish. They have double road signs and their own TV networks. And, just like the Brazilians and Portuguese, they can understand Spanish, but we can''t understand them.%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ %0D

  http://www.xtube.com/watch.php?v=Zzizl-G326-

  r6

• For what it''s worth, Colombian Spanish has been deemed by the Real Academia de la Lengua Espanola as the best spoken Spanish in the globe

  r6 - jealous bitch of course

• Oops, meant to add Barcelona as an example of a Catalonian city

  r6, yet again

• [quote] So your analogy may apply better to, say, Basque (Bilbao) or Catalonian Spaniards, who speak an almost totally different language, even though the official language of their regions is now Spanish.%0D\ %0D\ I really hate DataLounge threads about Spanish. Nobody ever knows what he''s talking about. It''s as if Spanish is so vast and complicated a subject (which it is) that nobody can ever get a handle on it. %0D\ %0D\ "Basque and Catalonian Spaniards" do indeed speak "totally different language(s)" in their respective autonomous regions of Spain. Though the official language at a federal level is Spanish, Euskara and Catalan are official at the regional level.

• How is Cuban Spannish different?

• The thing that strikes your ear immediately about Cuban Spanish is that an s at the end of a syllable is pronounced as an English h, so for example los mismos sounds like loh mihmoh. The aspiration can be so light that the h-sound is often hardly audible: lo'' mi''mo''. (This is the same process by which the final s in French is believed to have eventually become silent.) %0D\ %0D\ This feature is shared by pretty much all the Caribbean and some South American varieties of Spanish, but the rules for the occurrence of the aspiration vary from region to region. In Buenos Aires, for example, an s is still an s before a vowel sound and only an h before a consonant, I think.

• I always wondered if it was just me, but now I see it isn''t, I always thought Colombian Spanish was easier to understand than Mexican Spanish. I have a friend who is from Colombian and am surrounded by Mexicans and love the way he speaks Spanish.

• In L.A., the spanish now is Chicano spanish which is totally different in terms of slang and colloguialisms than NYC spanish and Texas spanish - I''ve lived in both LA and NYC and it''s quite different. I studies spanish with a Cuban professor and it was the absolute easiest to understand - no Castilian lisp at all. Yes, the spanish in Barcelona is more than a bit different - it''s Catalan! American english is very different from English and Australian and South African. Now, why did this thread start?

• I have students from many different Spanish-speaking countries and the consensus of opinion is that the Colombians speak the best Spanish.%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ But as far as I can tell, it''s about economic disparities just as much as it is about regions and countries.

  CC Prof

• My Uncle Chano use the word chinga all the time. Pass me that chinga. It never occurred to me that it was not a polite word, although my uncle was a plumber, so I should have guessed.

• Indeed it has, r24

  Barranquilla

• This is Catalan. As a person who speaks very little Spanish, this is way easier to understand than Caribbean Spanish that sounds like it all runs together.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1-wRamMhGk&feature=player_embedded

• Pinche is a vulgarity in Mexican spanish, sort of like "fucking", but it Spain it simply means a cook''s assistant.

• The sexiest accents for me are Argentinean and Spanish from Spain (sexiest men too)

• Yes but Argentinean''s need to be told how beautiful they are 24/7.

• Not so, r37!!%0D\ %0D\ (No gifts from the Palacio Rosa for you)

  Maria Eva Duarte de Peron

• And then there are the variations of the words for cunt: Chocho, chocha, panocha. Any other regional forms?

  Una Chochota..bitches...

• Because they are not Colombians R37

  Barranquilla

• Bollo (roll/bundle), Papaya (papaya) - Cuba %0D\ %0D\ Concha (seashell) - Argentina)%0D\ %0D\ Co%C3%B1o (vulgar - cono with a squiggle on the n, in case this format is rejected) - Spain%0D\ %0D\ Crica (vulgar) - Puerto Rico%0D\ %0D\ Tota/Toto (nickname) - Dom Rep%0D\ %0D\ In general:%0D\ %0D\ Chocha (which means bird):Pussy %0D\ %0D\ as %0D\ %0D\ Cono/Crica:Cunt%0D\ %0D\ Except that cono has become an everyday curse, like damn or fuck. But when crica or cono are used to mean twat/cunt, many are very offended.

• I''m not a Spanish speaker, but I''ve heard many varieties of the language spoken. I really like the Castilian version best, and I''m especially fond of the lisp.\ \ Colombian does sound crisp and clear, but I really abhor that "zh" sound that the Colombians and most South Americans make for the letters "ll". IMO, "calle" should be pronounced (English phonetics) "ka-yeh", not "ka-zheh".

• %C2%A1Hijue puta! My favorite Mexican slang saying.

  Son of a Bitch

• Add a "so" or "canto" to Hijueputa and... welcome to Puerto Rico!%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ so hijueputa - big time son of a whore (sonofabitch)%0D\ %0D\ canto-e (short for "canto de") hijueputa - piece of SOB

• F&F

• [quote]I''m not a Spanish speaker... but I really abhor that "zh" sound that the Colombians and most South Americans make for the letters "ll". IMO, "calle" should be pronounced (English phonetics) "ka-yeh", not "ka-zheh".%0D\ %0D\ The zh is hot as hell. Who are we as non-Spanish-speakers to "abhor" one variety over another? %0D\ %0D\ Do you abhor the way it''s pronounced in Spain ("ka-lyeh") as well?

• Learned Spanish in High School and then later in Spain. Just returned from a month in Bs As and the zeh drove me crazy. Was not aware of that peculiarity and it really threw me for a loop. I came around eventually and started to use it since people often didn''t quite understand. I found the Uruguayians to be hotter then the Argentinians but I wouldn''t kick either out of my bed for eating crackers, unless crackers was my dog...

• Colombians cut you if you criticize their Spanish!

• Well R48 we will not so much cut you as we will troll a thread about our language, really. \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ I''m partially joking.

  Barranquilla

• Besse Ma culo

  misshelenbedd

• This is such an interesting thread! Sometimes I wished Spain had wiped out my native country''s local language so I can contribute on this thread. Instead, all we got is Catholicism and hispanic surnames leaving our unique language and culture relatively intact.

  Filipino

• r51, don''t a lot of people speak English there?\ \ The only thing else I can think of about the place is that Maximo Oliveros was kind of hot for an [childish epithet posted by a bigoted tool].\ \ Oh... and one more. I think this song is kind of appealing.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP_pAD3CZPA

• I heard on NPR that there was a study that concluded that Columbian Spanish was the most pure form of the language. I think Mexican Spanish came in second. This was because Mexican Spanish included many indegnous words: Mayan and Nahuatl. Interesting that they both came ahead of the country of origen.%0D\ %0D\ Here in Tucson, pinche puto pendejo, is a favorite and much admired explitive phrase.

  Ethan de Tucson

• That''s probably because Spain is not really linguistically unified, R53. Castillian is what people mean by Spanish, but there''s also Catalan, Galician, and numerous other local dialects that are like Spanish, but not quite (to varying degrees). \ \ I''m not super familiar with Colombia (besides the fact that it has the most beautiful people on earth), but Mexican Spanish is pretty uniform throughout the country, even if there are differences in accent and colloquialisms. Interesting in Mexico is that quite a few things have two names that can be used almost interchangeably because the indigenous version has survived - grasshopper can be referred to as chapulin (nahuatl) or grillo (Castillian), for example.

• For all those here who obviously feel free in using loaded words like "ignorant" and "retarded" to describe how certain types of Spanish sound to them, you should realize that these are not valid linguistic terms--in fact they are worthless for describing how language actually sounds or is produced--and only serve to reveal your opinion of the people whose speech you think you''re describing. %0D\ %0D

• I have NO IDEA where the IDIOT/IDIOTA got the idea that the Mexican word "CHINGA" is spanish for Fuck. In Spain there is no such word as "CHINGA" The MEXICAN word "CHINGA" is derived from a West African language which was brought from Africa during colonial Mexico (New Spain 1560's-1821)slave trade.... Oh I bet your Mexican friends never told you this.... It's probably because they were never told ( it takes research)that became part of the Mexican language. Yes you and your Mexican friend probably didn't know hat spain imported between 250,000 - 500,000 African slaves while the U.S. imported just a little more than 500,000... OK I guess you now want to know why most Mexicans don't look like your everyday African (like the U.S. has) Well I'll tell you. Unlike the U.S. Mexico AKA New Spain, never made inter racial marriage illegal and since the HUGE majority of slaves that were brought to Mexico were male, the only thing the slaves could do was marry Indigenous women as well as marrying with spaniards. Miscegenation went on for nearly 3 1/2 centuries in Mexico as opposed to the U.S. where it was unheard of accept for Sidnety Portiers "Guess whos coming to dinner. One other bit of info. after Mexico won it's independence, the first president was Afro Mestizo "Vicente Guerrero" In other words, Mexico had their Barrack Obama back in 1821!!!! Refferences: (1) "La Poblacion Negra de Mejico". Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, [1946] (2) Afro Mexicans (Discourse of Race and Identity in the African Diaspora). Chege Githiora, [2008]

• My father was from central Mexico and my mother from New Mexico. They were constantly debating the correct useage of words. Then, much later, I realized that Mom's Spanish was older and more formal than my Dad's. The people in New Mexico speak a colonial form of Spanish that was isolated, similar to the English spoken by the people from the Appalachians.

• The Spanish lithp drives me insane. My grandma is from Madrid and I can't stand that sound. I actually prefer Mexicans speaking.

• Can somone explain the Argentinian accent? I've seen it made fun of by Spaniards in movies and tv.

• what is a papi chulo?

• The answer to R60s question----heaven.

• R59, I think Argentinian Spanish is heavily influenced by Italian... hence them calling each other "che." Mi amor es Nicaraguense so I've grown partial to Nicaraguan Spanish.

• Spanish is spoken in very different ways throughout the Spanish speaking world, although the language is very much the same, with, of course, certain colloquial variations. As a non-native Spanish speaker I find Caribbean Spanish to be the most difficult to understand (among Spanish language accents, it is remarkable for being non-phonetic and slurred). Colombian Spanish is regarded by a great many people to be quite beautiful and "standard" and with no small justification. Mexico, a rather large and populous country embodying many cultures, and hundreds of native languages (which locally colored the accents of spoken Spanish), has many different accents (and that's not even considering the differences in "class" and education among Mexicans and how it reflects on their use of language, as such differences impact on the use of English in the U.K. and U.S.). By no means do all Mexicans speak Spanish in the well known sing song accent commonly attributed to Mexicans.

• I was just going to post what R56 did about chingar not being "universal Spanish" as R1 said, until I realized that the thread was started way back in April and R1 was unlikely to be hanging around. But yeah, chingar is just a Mexican thing. In Spain it's follar.

• I'm Spanish and me and my family don't speak that "Mexican never have and never will.

• mexican is a person of mexican descent. spanish is the language

  anonymous

• [quote]In Spain it's follar. Yeah, so I was told. A friend from Uruguay heard me using the verb follar and said I must have picked it up from a Spaniard. He said the "proper" word was hoder.

• [quote]Can somone explain the Argentinian accent? I've seen it made fun of by Spaniards in movies and tv. In Argentina they have a way of pronouncing the Y sound like sh. For example, words like amarillo (yellow) or llorar (cry) are said as amarisho or shorar. They also have the habit of using the interjection ché in every other sentence. For example, "Behave yourself!" would be said as "¡Portate bien, ché! The Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto Guevara was teased by his Cuban compadres for this habit (kinda like Americans making fun of Canadians saying "eh?" at the end of a sentence) and so they started calling him El ché and the nickname stuck.

• Oops, that's joder.

  R67

• I don't understand why the first thing that comes out when speaking about iberian spanish is the lisp when that sound is pretty much confined to Andalucia and neighbour regions (about 25% of the total population) which had a bigger prevalence of arab speakers during the middle ages. Thats where the famous lisp or "ceceo" comes from. For the rest of the country the differences in pronunciation between regions are as acute as IE between Argentina or Perú.

  http://educadultos.wikispaces.com/file/view/Lenguas_de_Espa%C3%B1a.png/31581997/Lenguas_de_Espa%C3%B1a.png

• I'm a native American English speaker and it's very difficult for me to tell the differences between various Spanish dialects, i.e. Mexican, Puerto Rican etc. Does English all sound the same to native Spanish speakers, like American English vs. British English etc.?

• The jokes on argentinians in spanish media have a lot to do with the fact that they have an over the top cultural obsesion with psychology and psychoanalysis. So whenever somebody sounds pretentious or know-it-all the argentinian pronunciation is used as a gest.

• Those living in Medellin have an intensely unique way of speaking. I can barely discern it with all the slang.

• just think country vs. city grammar ain't vs. isn't some people speaking english sound country, while others sound more educated and proper. same with spanish.

  anonymous

• I took three years of Castillian Spanish in high school. I can pretty much read Spanish without issue but to hear it, yikes! Certain words and phrases translate on the fly, but there are some I have to reach for the dictionary. However what I do note of Spanish proper is that it's got a heavy Arabic influence in it. Makes sense when you consider the geographic location. But I also note in my early youth I was exposed to the Italian language. And Spanish and Italian are kissing cousins linguistically.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• R74 is illiterate and a 'tard in any lingua.

• I love a Spanish man in the morning

• [quote]chingar is just a Mexican thing Have you lived in every Spanish speaking country? I know it would be impossible, but if you had, you wouldn't make such a narrow-minded statement. Yes, follar and joder are used in Spain, but so is chingar. Even on Spanish TV nowadays. Also, chingar (as well as chichar) are used widely throughout most of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. It's just that it's used as a reference to sex and not in all the other exclamatory ways Mexicans use it.

  Puerto%20Rico%2C%20Cuba%2C%20DR%2C%20Venezuela

• Papi chulo loosely translates to hot daddy. But Papi, when used sexually or even as a term of endearment, has little to do with age and everything to do with attraction, affection, ... or "hotness."