Doin' It Doggy Style: Chilean Animal Slang
Chile: Top to Bottom, With A Barn For Good Measure
Chile is certainly a study in contrasts; bone-dry desert, freezing Patagonia, and everything in between. Anyone visiting Chile from abroad will quickly learn three things about Chile's Spanish (another contrast from Spanish elsewhere)
- Chileans speak very fast
- Chileans do not heed "standard" grammatical rules
- Chileans idiomatically summon animals in everyday speech - a lot. :)
So I thought it would be fun to share some here, along with what their English equivalent would be (more or less)
All The World's An Animal
| In Chile | Translation | English Idiom |
|---|---|---|
| Más cagado que palo gallinero | Screwed / Totally in trouble | Up the creek / Fucked |
| Fuiste al chancho | You went overboard / Exaggerated | Went overboard / Went too far |
| Pasarlo chancho | To have a great time / Enjoy fully | Have a blast / Have a whale of a time |
| Una persona vaca | Person who is boring or dull | Drag / Snooze |
| Perro pa’ la pega | Hardworking / Dedicated | Workaholic / Hard worker |
| Perro envenenado | Stuffed full / Completely full | Stuffed / Full |
| Un condoro | To make a huge mistake | Big blunder / Major screw-up |
| Ser sapo | To be a snitch or tattletale | Snitch / Tell-tale |
| Hacerse la mosca muerta | To pretend to be innocent or harmless | Play dumb / Play innocent |
| Más tonto que perro nuevo | Extremely stupid / Naive | Dumb as a post / Clueless |
| Buscarle la quinta pata al gato | To overcomplicate something simple | Split hairs / Make a mountain out of a molehill |
| Le pasaron gato por liebre | To be tricked or swindled | Get ripped off / Swindled |
| Ser vaca | To be disloyal or mean-spirited | Snake / Two-faced |
| Curado como piojo | Very drunk | Wasted / Hammered |
| Hacer perro muerto | To skip out on a bill or not pay | Dine and dash / Skip out |
I hope this list is entertaining. Not sure, though, if it should be useful. :)
