How to Better Understand Argentines

Argentina’s Academy of Letters has published the third edition of its Dictionary of the Argentine Language, and which adds new vocabulary to what is considered the definite guide to the South American country’s lexicon.

The dictionary contains colloquialisms, regionalisms, dialectical expressions and slang commonly spoken in the country, and can serve as an invaluable aid for visitors or when conversing with Argentines anywhere.

Among the words in the new edition are guita, meaning money, laburo (work), and heladera (refrigerator), and which are all commonly used in the capital Buenos Aires.

In the country’s north, words have entered Spanish from the indigenous Guaraní language, such as angá (poor, poor thing), and angaú (fictional, lies).

The prefix ‘re’, commonly used to reiterate or add weight to an adjective, is now also recognized as a word in its own right, and is used as an affirmation in response to another’s over-adjectivizing, according to the dictionary.

The first and second editions of the dictionary were published in 2002 and 2008 respectively.