El Salvador’s Cultural Richness
El Salvador is a very small country, but it is very rich in many things. Spanish has many variations, let’s just take a look at Spanish from Spain, México and Argentina; those three are very different in accent, rhythm, and intonation.
Salvadoran Spanish vs Mexican Spanish
In El Salvador, Spanish sounds a bit similar to Mexican Spanish, which is not very difficult to understand, but in some rural areas, the Spanish tends to change a lot. Mostly because it was mixed with Nahuatl and other pre-Columbian tongues.
San Salvador Slang
If you come to San Salvador, you will understand a huge part of it, this is because we mostly use neutral spanish, but we also have our own slang like: “chivo,” “maje,” “puya,” “nel,” among others. These words are mostly heard in casual conversations because they are very common. If you come to do business, you won’t hear those words because they are not formal.
There are some others that may be heard quite a lot, but I will write another article about it because it is a topic to deep dive into. So, Salvadoran slang is mostly similar in Central America and also some other Latin American countries.
Neutral Spanish in the Capital
In San Salvador most of the people speak a very “neutral Spanish” which is spoken clearly and well pronounced. Therefore, if you speak Spanish and you want to practice it, San Salvador is the place to go.
This doesn’t mean that there are not other places outside San Salvador that speak neutral Spanish, there are, it is just that San Salvador, as for being the capital city, it is mostly known for that.
Regional Variations
Now, if we move to other cities like Santa Ana or San Miguel, that changes. Even though we speak the same language, it is a bit different, because people tend to speak it more relaxed, sounds like speaking with laziness. Let me give you an example: We use the phrase “Puesi” which has different meanings, one of them is “so…”.
Now, we use and pronounce the letter “S,” but in some other places we tend to change the “S” for the “J” (sound in Spanish which sounds like the “h” in English like in “hello”) so the sound of the word “puesi” now sounds like “pueji” /puehi/. This is very common in rural areas of the country and not only in El Salvador but in Central America.
Vocabulary Differences
The same happens with some other words like “Cipote” (Kid) in Guatemala is “Patojo” and “Patojo” in El Salvador is a limping person.
Another word is “Chucho” which for us means “Dog”, for some other people it is another way to call people whose name is “Jesus”. Also, it refers to someone who is always trying to take advantage of every situation. For example: You go out with some friends, you all collect the money to pay, but there is one friend who ate a lot and didn’t bring any money with him, that is “Ser chucho”.
Language Diversity
This is just like English that has many differences, one word may change completely or some pronunciation differences like the word “Schedule” in one country is pronounced one way and in others is pronounced differently.
Embracing Language Learning
That’s the beauty of languages, that you never stop learning. Now, it is not needed to start worrying about it because even though you don’t know all the words, you can get by and people will understand you and will speak to you clearly so you can understand.
Local Appreciation
We won’t push you to speak Spanish, but it would have a huge impact for us (in the positive way) if you speak Spanish to us. You may get congratulated and we will greatly appreciate your effort for learning a new language, especially one that is considered as one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world.
Visiting El Salvador
Spanish in El Salvador may be different in many ways, but that is only noticeable when you integrate with the community. If you come for work or tourism, your Spanish will be enough to get by. We will welcome you and make you feel like home, especially if you take the time to learn some Spanish.
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