Help

keywords | index | help | feedback | home

Written Spoken

Alphabetically speaking, ch has been a separate letter up until very recently. So be careful to check between the c and d sections of the phone book when looking for your friend Chacho. Likewise ll will probably be listed as a separate letter.

Because spanish is so wonderfully phonetic, there are only a few things that Argentines ever spell wrong. The natural Argentine affinity is for y over ll, v over b, and sometimes z over s. The result is that Argentines may write baruyo, or even varuyo, instead of barullo ("racket", a lotta noise). In signs, the qu is sometimes written as k, particularly for kiosko. The same as in the American "teknology" or "water pik". Due to folks not being able to find the Spanish configuration for their keyboard, you may see ñ written as ni on the internet (e.g. mañana = maniana). Another source of spelling change is foreign sounds. For example, the English "j" sound (as in "judge") does not exist in Spanish. The result in Argentina is the substitution of the closest possibility, the ye.

Alternative written spellings are as follows...

ll becomes y (e.g. cabayo)

b becomes v (e.g. chavón)

s becomes z (e.g. ezo)

h disappears (e.g. ijo)

qu becomes k (e.g. kiosko)

ñ becomes ni (e.g. maniana)

j becomes y (e.g. Yimi for "Jimmy")

Note I am by no means advocating bad spelling! Sometimes it's on purpose and sometimes it's not. The point here is to recognize what's going on between the spoken sounds and their written equivalents.

Last updated 11/14/2005