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[Weona]

You know, I'm not a big fan of that Italian tone I get when I hear Argentines speak. I know a lot of it has to do with the heavy influx of Italian immigrants, but there's just something about it that I find rather annoying!

On the other hand, they speak pretty clearly... which is always helpful.

[matttheboy]

The thing about Chilean Spanish that i don't like is that i find it really harsh souding, mainly due to the continuous use of 'cachai', which is said at the end of almost every clause and which contains 2 hard "c' sounds. It sounds to me that they've got something caught in their throats! The Chileans that i know all profess to be 'ashamed' of their nation's Spanish but they don't actually really care. They know that they can speak Castellano if they need to so why not speak how they like when at home? Fair enough, really...

However, for any English people out there, i'd suggest that learning Chilean Spanish from the off would be a bit like going to Newcastle not knowing any English and leaving speaking Geordie...i met a couple of guys who lived and worked in Santiago for a year, spoke good (Chilean) Spanish but couldn't understand a word of what was said to them in Bolivia and Argentina and who weren't understood by anyone either!

The Spanish in Argentina does get on some people's nerves but i like the sing-song sound of it and it's generally easy to understand once you get the hang of the Italian intonation and use of 'vos' instead of 'tu'.

[naturegirl321]

[grahamb]

"Vos" is an old form that's redundant in Spain, although I heard it recently in a line of a love song ("moriria por vos"). They still use "vosotros" for the (informal) second person plural, of course.