Argentina Bahia Blanca Mission

I'm from Argentina. I had to come to the United States and learn Uruguay's language in the worst possible way. I went to school. I went to movies a lot. I listened to radio. Things that you can't do when you're a missionary. So my advice, Spanish is very complex but at the same time easy because if you memorize the verbs and expressions and if you get used to the rhythm, it's like music. So it's not like English. In Spanish, you write and you read and if you do those two things and you memorize the verbs, you'll be ahead of it. But missionaries have a special touch from upstairs. So, yeah.

The first year and a half of my mission in Argentina, I did not speak one word of English. I tried to eat, dream, sleep Spanish since the day I got to Argentina. And I learned the language fairly quickly, in my opinion. I was able to have conversations and teach lessons in Spanish after three months of just being in Argentina, where a lot of my friends who would speak English at zone meetings and district meetings, they took a little longer. And asking the members to critique you on speaking Spanish, they're very nice. And so they'll give you tips, and they'll help you learn vocabulary that can help you sound more like a person from Argentina. And sounding like a person from Argentina, people will be open to you and more receptive if you sound local and not like a white American.

You've been called Spanish-speaking obviously, however, it's definitely not the Spanish that you were probably taught in high school if you went to school in the U.S. Their Spanish is called Castellano and their accent is very distinct. It's super fun, it kind of sounds Italian-y at first, but essentially, instead of saying ya as in yo or like boyo, like in words like that, you'd say sho and pocho and cache. So that's really distinct, especially when you first get there and you're listening and you're like, that's not quite what I was expecting. And then additionally to that, they speak in a form called voz, so you've probably heard of tú and vosotros and nosotros. This, however, is kind of its own thing, but it's great to learn and it's super fun to speak.

So there's a few different words that you'll use that you might not have heard before. For example, a bus is called a colectivo. Also to say wow, you'd say fa. Also to say very, so like very awesome or very cold, you say re. So re frio, re genial, whatever. To say that something's like cool or like to call someone a stud, you'd say capo or que copado. And a taxi is called a remis. And pineapple is piña, or sorry not piña, anana. That's normally what you would think it is. And avocados are palta. Dude is che. And to say goodbye, you'd say chau.