Use vos with almost everyone
In Buenos Aires, vos is the everyday you for friends, family, coworkers, shopkeepers and strangers alike. A porteño who uses vos with you is treating you as an equal; it is warm, not rude.
✽ A little culture ✽
Buenos Aires culture
How porteños greet, eat, talk and what their words actually mean, so your Spanish lands like a local's.
Vos, tú or usted?
The Buenos Aires rule is simple: vos is the local you, usted is for formality, and tú is nobody here.
Use usted when it counts
Reserve usted for someone much older you don't know, a doctor, a judge, a very formal letter, or a customer. Many workplaces simply use vos even with the boss.
Tú sounds foreign here
Porteños understand tú perfectly because of media from other countries, but nobody uses it in Buenos Aires. A sentence like tú eres sounds like a textbook or a Spaniard. If you are unsure, vos is the safe local choice.
Ustedes for a group, never vosotros
For any group of people, porteños say ustedes: ustedes van, ustedes son. Vosotros exists only in Spain. If you are addressing a crowd, ustedes always works.
How vos conjugates
Take the tú form, drop the final i or s, and stress the last syllable.
- vos sos
- you are
- From vos sois, the old plural form. Never say vos eres.
- vos tenés
- you have
- The stress moves to the last syllable: tenÉS.
- vos querés
- you want
- QuerÉS, not querÉIs. That i sound is Spain, not Buenos Aires.
- vos podés
- you can
- vení
- come
- Imperatives put the stress on the last syllable: venÍ, mirÁ, contÁ, hablá.
- vos estás
- you are (right now)
Where the slang comes from
Lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires, was born in the port neighborhoods in the late 1800s, shaped by Italian, Spanish and African immigrants.
che
hey, buddy: the word porteños use to get someone's attention
Of disputed origin: some trace it to the Mapuche word che, meaning person; others to Italian settlers. It is now the single most Argentine word there is.
laburo
work or job
From lavoro, Italian for work, brought by Genoese immigrants. El laburo, laburar: to work.
quilombo
a mess, chaos
From kilombo, a Kimbundu word for the fortified settlements of escaped enslaved people in Brazil. In Argentina it drifted to mean any mess: un quilombo.
birra
beer
Straight from Italian birra, itself from German Bier. Vamos por una birra: let's go for a beer.
gamba
leg, and also a thousand pesos
Italian gamba, leg. In lunfardo it became slang for leg, then for 1,000 pesos, and hacer la gamba means to help someone out.
morfi
food, a meal
Classic lunfardo, likely from morfar, to eat, which traces back to French morfer. ¿Hay morfi?: is there food?
bacán
great, classy, excellent
Possibly from Genoese bacan, a family head or a wealthy man. Now it just means something is really good: está bacán.
guita
money
Old lunfardo, from guita, thin wire, stretched into slang for cash. No tengo guita: I'm broke.
bondi
bus
Popular porteño word for the colectivo, common in the neighborhoods and in cumbia lyrics.
feca
coffee
Cockney style backslang: feca is café backwards, a lunfardo trick called vesre. Así que toma feca: so he drinks coffee.
Local customs
The kiss on the cheek
One kiss on the right cheek, el beso, between everyone: women and women, men and women, and men and men who know each other. Porteños give it when they meet and when they say goodbye, even in the office. A handshake is for formal business only.
Che is everywhere
Che just means hey or hey you, and porteños use it a hundred times a day with anyone, even people they just met. Che, boludo is for close friends only; boludo among men is affectionate, but never use it with a stranger, a boss or a woman you don't know.
Mate is shared, not served
People drink mate from one gourd with a metal straw, the bombilla, and pass it around a circle. When you want to stop, say gracias after drinking: that is the polite signal you're done. Refilling your own mate is for when you are alone.
Late meals and the sobremesa
Lunch runs from about 12:30 to 2. Dinner rarely starts before 9, and restaurants and clubs fill up after 10. After eating, porteños linger at the table talking: that is the sobremesa, and it can last hours.
The ñoquis of the 29th
On the 29th of each month many families eat ñoquis (gnocchi), an Italian inheritance. Tradition says to put a banknote under the plate for luck, so telling someone you are el ñoqui de la empresa, the person who shows up to work only on the 29th, is a gentle joke about laziness.
Being late is normal
Arriving 20 to 30 minutes after the stated time to a dinner or a party is expected. Showing up exactly on time can even catch the host mid cleanup. For work, punctuality is normal; for friends, flexible.
Close talking, busy hands
Porteños stand closer than North Americans, touch more, and gesture a lot while they talk. Stepping back can read as coldness rather than politeness.
¿Bajan? on the bus
On a crowded colectivo you say ¿bajan? (are you getting off?) to the people in front so they move to the rear door. On the subte, people hold out a hand to strangers to ask them to pass, and it works.
Teaching this in a classroom?
The teacher guide has ready to use lesson plans and printable vocabulary sets built around voseo, lunfardo and these customs.
Open the teacher guide