FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Things that sound better in foreign languages
Old Sep 4, 2013 | 2:39 am
  #124  
Michael
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Join Date: Sep 2003
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Originally Posted by cubbie
Well, I shouldn't say Chileans don't use the vosotros at all... in fact, most of them use it several times a day, in two particular Chilean expressions: "¿Cómo estai?”” for “how are you?” and “¿Cachai?” for, “Get it? Understand? Know what I mean?” In fact, among younger people, nearly every sentence in a conversation seems to end with “¿Cachai?”
But is this conjugation in the singular or plural? Vosotros (used in Spain only AFAIK) is very much a second person plural, as opposed to vos (used in Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica etc.) which is singular.

E.g. (in case I'm not expressing myself clearly), the English phrase "What do you want to do?" is translated into Spanish:

when said to a group of friends:
in most of Spain: " [Vosotros] Qué queréis hacer?"
vs
in Latin America: "[Ustedes] Qué quieren hacer?"

when said to a single friend:
in Spain: "[Tú] Qué quieres hacer?"
vs
in voseo countries (Argentina, Costa Rica etc): "[Vos] Qué querés hacer?"
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