021 – Español Callejero | Street Spanish

ByMadison Rowland-Davis

This week, Jim and May talk about the Spanish from the streets, not from textbooks. 

How people actually talk in everyday life is not the same as what you tend to find with traditional language study material. People can study a language for years in school and still not hold a natural sounding conversation with a native.

Jim breaks down his opinion of what español callejero or español de la calle is and how it is different from slang, even though the two are similar and can be used together.

An English example of this would be using “how ya doin’?” instead of “how are you doing?” Of course, we know which one is grammatically correct, but why do people use the first one? For efficiency and ease.

In Spanish, Jim explains that “pa” is used in place of “para” for the same reason.

May offers examples of podcasts and videos that you can check out to hear it yourself. 

As always, to learn a language, expose yourself to as much native conversation as you can. Since neutral Spanish isn’t really a thing, you will learn many different versions of “español callejero” depending on the type of Spanish you’re learning.

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