¿Como?

They do not speak Spanish in Chile. Oh, they think they do, but it´s not true.

I was getting a little confident, perhaps even cocky with my Spanish skills in Peru, but when I landed in Santiago, my confidence was shot to hell.

The Chilean accent is ridiculously fast, has a strange (but I must admit, beautiful) intonation, and they clip off the ends of every other word. Everywhere I go, "gracias" is "gracia," "no mas" is "no ma," and "por favor" is "por fa" (or "por fis," but I´ll get into idiosyncrasies in a minute). These I can handle, yet there are thousands of others that I can´t even hear because I can´t follow a conversation to save my life.

One of the hardest things about Chilean Spanish is their phrases. I met a cool New Yorker who had learned his Spanish in Chile (poor guy) and he put it best: "You can understand the words and still have no idea what the hell they´re talking about."

Some examples:

"andar el gringo" - literally means "walk the gringo," but in Chile it means to go without underwear

"andar el pato" - "walk the duck", and in Chile it means to have no money

and my personal favorite . . .

"me de paja" - means "it gives me straw", but you should be careful who you say this to in Chile because it means "I´d rather by masturbating."