Wowrale!

Life has been different lately as new experiences dropped by. I moved from Jakarta to Mexico City. I have a new job, new boyfriend, new places visited, new language learned, and new friends that express "orale!" for many different reasons.

It is a magic word in Mexican Spanish language. Let me give some examples to explain the idea.

At San Marcos Festival, State of Aguascalientes

"Let's play football," I say. "Orale!" they say.
This means let's go.

"I bought a new dress for one dollar," I say. "Orale!" they say.
This means Oh my God!

"The traffic is unbearable," I say. "Orale!" they say.
This means I agree

There are many more Mexican slang I have learned since my arrival to this Northern American country. "Que padre!" is the Mexican expression of "Cool!", yet "padre" literally means father. Another expression of the same significance is "Que chido!".

"Mande!" is used when you do not hear clearly what someone is telling you. Not even other Spanish speakers would understand it. "Pardon me" is its English match.

Instead of the common Spanish word "trabajar", which means to work, Mexican love the word "chambear" more. Then it makes the noun addressed as "chamba" instead of "trabajo".

One of my sources to learn the slang is my Mexican roomie. When he is on the phone, he may repeat twenty "güey" in one minute call. This word means "dude". Then when he craves for beer, he would ask a glass of "chela" instead of widely-known Spanish "cerveza".

My favourite Mexican slang is "Aguas!", because it has the same message as in Indonesian "awas!", or "watch out" in English. The word "agua" in Spanish means water. This alerting expression rose in the Colonial era when the water drainage system was not well established. Therefore people used to throw dirty water from the balcony to the street, and to warn people who passed by, they shouted "aguas".

In my humble opinion, those slang words are what make Spanish language interesting, yet difficult to master. They reflects the culture, at some points education of one.

People with higher level of education in Mexico refuse to use such words, thus I would use standard Spanish to converse with important persons. Although I still sound like foreigner for lacking Mexican accent, I try to put some slang into my street conversation. I am glad that they do not judge me for trying too hard to blend in, contrarily they appreciate me of doing it and it often makes them laugh. Well, I don´t mind people laughing at me this way. After all it is always better to laugh than to frown.