As with other local Spanish languages, Argentine Spanish includes some deviations from typical Spanish grammar. These rules will help you begin to better understand Argentinians.
1. Vos:
In Argentina, the tu form of verbs is not used. Instead, vos is the term that is used to mean “you”. For instance, instead of the typical Spanish phrase Tú tienes que comprar el pan in Argentina the phrase would be Vos tenés que comprar el pan.
Verb conjugations for Tú and Vos
Conjugating verbs using the vos form is actually easy. Regular verbs adhere to the following scheme:
Take a look at this more detailed explanation of the usage of Vos if you would like to understand it better.
Irregular verbs can be a bit different, but since each one is unique you will have to learn them on the fly. A couple irregular verbs are decir and venir.
2. Acordarse / recordar:
The word acordarse is commonly used instead of the grammatically correct word recordar. An example is the sentence Me acuerdo que hablamos de eso la semana pasada. The correct version would be Recuerdo que hablamos de eso la semana pasada.
3. re-:
The prefix re- for any word demonstrates “extra” of whatever is said. For example, re-canchero would mean extremely cool, nifty or neat. The sentence Martín se vistió re-canchero para salir con María would mean that Martín dressed extremely snazzy (or cool) to go out with María.
To learn more about the characteristics of Argentina Spanish check out our list of resources to learn Argentina Spanish including my book Speaking Argento: A Guide to Spanish from Argentina.
Check out these other Argentina Spanish Slang Word articles.
Featured photo credit: Argentine Flags by blmurch via flickr
