Clarissa's Blog

Yes, it’s that but it’s also many other things. One is intonation. As people say, Argentineans are the only Spanish-speaking Italians in the world. The Argentinean intonation is very expressive, very up and down, like Italian.

There’s also the vocabulary. I prefer “pollera” to “falda” and “boludo” to “gilipollas.” I know quite a few words in lunfardo. I like the voseo, although I don’t use it in class. I generally tone down the Argentineanness at work because it’s an affectation in anybody who isn’t a native speaker. But I can speak to Argentineans in a way that makes them convinced I grew up in Luján. I’ve done it several times for fun (usually while not being completely sober), and people would get upset that I’m so unpatriotic that I’d deny my Argentinean origins.

“¿Argentina o Uruguay?” is the question I get immediately when I begin to speak to native speakers of Spanish anywhere in the world.