Alderman, Alderwoman = Concejal, Concejala (translating to/for/with the Venezuelans)
By Thomas Hansen and Gabriella Fangiat
VENEZUELAN SPANISH
Of various people we have been hearing from, it is teachers of Spanish, especially, have been telling us how interesting it is to hear the Venezuelans and their expressions. Venezuelan has its own rhythm, and the central dialect—which seems to be the standard—is clear and pretty easy to understand.
Some dialects in the country are not. Some people may not realize—the persons who have come from Venezuela and landed in Chicago are all from different states. All the travelers who have come here did so with total strangers who speak different dialects, look a little different, and have different sorts of neighborhoods and cities and ranches they left to come to the US.
The Spanish language they speak varies. There are different dialects within the country, and the Spanish they use has a rich tradition—as does the language in any country.
Venezuelan Spanish has its own story. As we have mentioned before, Italian has had a huge influence on making the Spanish spoken by the “brave people” somewhat sing-songy, like Italian apparently sounds like to non-speakers of the “boot-shaped country language.” If anything, Italian seems to have made this kind of Spanish more vocalic, that is to say, the vowels are stressed and lengthened.
Cansado becomes something like becomes something like “cAn—sÁÁÁÁÁ--o” instead of “can—sá--do” as in other dialects of Spanish. (Accent marks added here to show emphasis of the syllable.)
A lot of questions sound maybe more “dramatic,” if we can use a word in this imprecise way. For example, “No queréis café vos?” tends to sound almost like “You really don’t want any coffee? Are you sure? I feel bad! Are you feeling okay? What’s wrong?” because the sentence sounds like this: “No que--rÉÉÉÉis ca--fÉÉÉÉ vos?????”
In translating for the homeless Venezuelans in Chicago—also referred to as “migrants” among us—there are some more words to know. Some terms vary from country to country in every language, and sorry, Google, not all of your words are the ones we want. Some words used in Spain just do not make it when translating in Chicago for Venezuelan speakers of Spanish…
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USING WORDS THAT WILL WORK
We people who speak more than one language like to use the words that are going to work.
This means, it is more efficient to get a good handle on slang, including words to avoid and words to use more often than we usually would while using a language in other contexts—travelling on a plane, teaching a class, speaking with colleagues about morphophonemics. Well, maybe this kind of conversation does not come up that often… but you get the idea.
Any teacher of world languages (e.g., English, Russian, Spanish, Twi) will tell your there are variations and slight differences from country to country. We have talked about parchitas and vaina… here are some more common words and uses among Venezuelans…
BTW — speakers of Mexican Spanish will notice that a lot of clever Venezuelans have started using slang words from Mexico. Why? Because it speeds up conversations and “makes things easier.”
Recently, I have heard Venezuelans say “chelas” and “chido” several times. Also, yesterday in a conversation, I overheard some Venezuelan say, “No manches!” to mean Hey do not BS me! Or Stop kidding me!
One guy told me they “just say it the Mexican way” to make it easier for them to understand the conversation and try to not use too many of their words.
Gabriella remarked she has been hearing more and more Mexican slang among the Venezuelans… especially the dudes. Another expression heard a lot is “Que padre!” which is a Mexican term which was commonly used a few years back in some parts. It just means, “Wow! How cool!”
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CERTAIN WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS
Certain words are very Venezuelan, or at least often used by people from that country… Here are some examples recently heard (a lot!)…
Agarrar is used for “to grab (onto)… as in the bus, told to grab and hold on --- Agarra! Or Agárralo. Agarrar means “to rape” in some countries. In translating, we should use “tener” or other words to talk about holding onto things.
Biyuyo is just a slang word for money – like dough or scratch.
Boleta. This means rude, such as a person who eavesdrops and does other inappropriate things in a group.
Broma. Weird, but they sometimes use this to mean “thingy” or “whatchamacallit…” The real meaning is joke or prank.
Cacharro – a “beater” or junky old car, a junker. Lots of young guys say they just need a cacharro to do work – like delivering pizza or meals.
Caucho is used for car tire. It is simply from the word meaning “rubber material.”
Chamo (and chama for girls) is used for buddy or friend or kid. Some young Venezuelan guys use this constantly—like saying “dude” or “bro” in casual speech among friends in English.
Chivo means boss or guy in charge. It can also be used to tease – as in “El chivo no lo quiere?” which means something like, “Oh, the important guy is so rich and powerful does not want that?”
Chulo does NOT mean cute or sexy in referring to guys. It means “ripoff” as in one of the people in a group who never seems to have money but always comes up with cool ideas of where to go… “Don’t go with him to get ice cream – que es un chulo de verdad!”
Concejal, cocejala: these are the words used for alderman and alderwoman. Plurals? Concejales and cocejalas.
Concejalía is the word for city council.
Note that our new neighbors from Venezuela are reading up on what is happening in Chicago, what the mayor is doing about housing for them, and what is going on with money to come from President Biden and other places. They are not at all “complacent” about their situation.
Gabriella jumps in here to say she does not know any “complacent” Venezuelans. They follow the news and they plan to make a difference, she reminds me. “Don’t get in their way,” she advises.
Cotufas is a word commonly used for popcorn by many -- but not all Venezuelans.
Coroto means junk or stuff, negatively used often. No traigas todos tus corotos contigo. “Don’t bring all your krap with you.”
Pichirre means cheap or selfish. No seas pichirre!
Pilas means quick or clever. Luis es muy pilas. Luis is the bright one in the group.
Refugio is used by Venezuelans as both count and non-count for “shelter. El refugio está cerrado (with the d not pronounced) means “The shelter is closed.” Hay refugio en Suiza means “There is shelter (safety) in Switzerland.” They are using the word refugio to refer to the shelter established for them in the armory on N. Broadway in Chicago.
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SOME NOTES ON TRANSLATING
Translating is a daily learning experience. This is an understatement.
BTW -- We talked to a lot of people about how Venezuelans say “sanctuary city” and they all insist the correct phrase is “ciudad santuario” and it’s weird to have two nouns of their own gender next to each other but that is how it is. This is not so common in Spanish—language teachers especially argue for other ways to do this grammatically—but every single Venezuelan we asked insisted this is the correct phrase in Spanish.
Gabriella has been a HUGE resource and has admitted she has “learned so much about Venezuelans and their language” she had never even thought about—even though she was born down there. We are all learning every day.
Something I have noticed in speaking to people from the “Land of Grace” is that they have a great sense of humor. For example, once when I was speaking with one of the grace speakers, I asked him to “slow down” because he was going way too fast.
He started acting out what he was talking about and slowed his speech down to a ridiculously slow speed – as a record player might do if somebody switched the speed down too roughly… The other people at the table laughed and laughed.
So I responded, “Mejor hablamos inglés?” …so maybe we should just switch to English?
No! He yelled, “Sorry!”
I actually laughed.
Such good-natured people to translate for and try to help. Haha. However, I did think it was funny.
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NEW GOOD-NATURED NEIGHBORS
Conversations with these people who speak a lively kind of Spanish and tend to have big brown Italian eyes focus on some big concerns to their families. As we are finding out as we interview (and simply chat with) the grace land guys and gals, they have needs and plans and desires.
They want to learn English. They want to work and make money to buy food. They want a safe place to live. They want a future for their children.
As we have reported before in StreetSense, they do NOT want to live in a tent or a barracks or a police station. They are trying so hard to deal with the stress of being somewhere else—somewhere which happens to be half-way around the world from the land of grace 6 countries away they left for a better life.
Que chévere! Is something they say at each big (or even small) victory as they move ahead. “How cool!”