This is guest post written by Connor Grooms, who learned Spanish to a B1 conversational level in a month and made the film, “” about it.
A few months ago, I learned Spanish to a B1 conversational level in a month while living in Medellín, Colombia. If you want to see the whole story and see , like I did, watch the documentary .
But all Spanish is not the same, and I learned a specific breed – “paisa” Spanish. Paisa refers to people from Antioquia, the region where Medellín is.
So, below I will explain how some things are said differently here. These are trends I’ve noticed, and by no means is the definite “how things are” – which doesn’t really exist.
The Basics You will almost never hear “de nada” or “adios” – instead, your welcome is “con gusto” or “con mucho gusto“, or literally, with pleasure. This is also how you say nice to meet you. “Adios” is only really used for long periods of time – at least a few weeks. Instead, people use “ciao“, mostly, or “hasta luego“.
The phrase “es que” is used a lot – literally meaning “it’s that…”, it starts most explanations.
It’s common to exchange several greetings before ever saying anything of real meaning. “Como estas” is still extremely common, but the “paisa” way is “bien o no”, or, “bien o que”, which literally means “good or not?”, “good or what?”.
Between friends, another common greeting is “¿que mas?“, which means “what more” – and outside of a greeting, it still means that – but as a greeting, it means “what’s up?”. “¿Que tal?“, which is used elsewhere as well, is also used.
If you bump into someone, need to excuse yourself in a crowd, make an error, or otherwise do something that would render an “sorry, excuse me” or a “oh! sorry”, use “que pena“, which literally means “what shame”. If something makes you embarrased, you’d use “me da pena“.
Affirmatives If you come to Medellín and want to sound local, drop the “si“, and use one of three main affirmatives:
Claro = of course. This is used a LOT. Cierto = right/yes Eso = literally means “that”, but it’s used as a general affirmative, in a wide variety of situations.
Common filler words Anyone who has done some research on Paisa Spanish has probably heard of the heavy use of the word “pues“.
“Pues” literally means, “well”, and it’s still used as such, but it’s also used as a filler. You could add it to almost any part of any sentence and it would make sense – it’s almost meaningless. It’s like an “uhhhm”.
“O que” is another common one – it’s added to the end of lots of sentences to form a question. This is almost as common as pues.
Paisas are also fond of throwing a “que” in front of adjectives to express a feeling. So instead of “chevere” (cool), they will say “que chevere” (how cool/ a stronger “cool”). This is part of the culture of everything being great, and the common exaggeration of everything, good or bad. Speaking in a bland “it was kinda cool”, has the potential to leave Paisas bored.
Local slang Something (generally) uneducated young women will do is transform many words to end in “is“. For example, instead of “hola“, they will say, “holis“, and instead of “raro“, they will say “raris“. It’s very improper and actually quite annoying to hear, but if you hear it, that’s whats going on.
“Amigo” is rarely used between friends. Instead, people use “parce / parcero“, which basically means “dude/mate/bro” (use this and you’re instantly better friends with any guy, trust me). If you’re good friends, you’ll even use “guevon“, which is offensive if you don’t know someone. Worse than guevon, there is “marica“, which basically means fag, which is definitely offensive if you don’t know someone, but is sort of teasing if you’re good friends.
There are few ways to say “awesome” – the most common would be “bacano“. If something is REALLY awesome, you use “brutal“, which is the equivalent of “sick” in American English.
This should get you sounding paisa when you come to the amazing city of Medellín. I made while learning Spanish in a month here.