Colombian Spanish: What makes it different?
Not all Spanish is the same.
There are more than 20 countries where Spanish is spoken.
Chilean Spanish is very fast; in Argentina is not used the pronoun “tú” that is why there is an extra conjugation for each tense, for example, take the verb “comer” (to eat)
yo como,
tú comes,
él come,
nosotros comemos and
vos comés.
Depending on the country, the vocabulary changes a lot and the same word can change meaning from one country to another: “guagua” is a public bus in Cuba, but it is also a baby in Chile and Ecuador.
The same idea can be said in different words depending on the country: underwear is called “calzones” in Chile, “pantis” in Spain, “bombachas” in Argentina, “pantaletas” in Mexico and “blumers” in Venezuela.
Colombian Spanish is famous in the region. Among other Spanish-speaking countries, Colombians are thought to speak very well and foreigners think we speak slowly.
Certainly, Colombians, especially Bogota citizens, have an unconscious obsession with the correct use of words. We even had a philologist president for 6 years (between 1892 and 1898) Miguel Antonio Caro who founded the Colombian language academy.
Each language is the x-ray of a culture. The Colombian Spanish x-ray reveals that we are delicate because we use many diminutives (-ito / -ita) to soften what we say: a person is not gorda (fat) but gordita (a little fat), a man is not feo (ugly) but feito (quite ugly).
However, we are also ironic with the same strategy: things are not caras (expensive) but caritas (very expensive), places are not lejos (far) but lejitos (far away), and people are not tarde (late) but tardecito (very late).
We are indirect and we make many detours because we greet with many words hola (hello), buenos días (good morning), qué más (what else), cómo vás (how are you doing) and after all that, we say y ¿cómo estás? (and how are you?) because all of the above was just a hello and it wasn’t a real question.
