Learning Spanish

Where do you live?

Hi Jnine

I can suggest you to post and advert in Valparaiso classifieds under Classes> Language classes

Hope it will help
Armand

Hello Janine! , i from Santiago but i live near from Valparaiso ... a small town call ConCon, try going to Universities like Valparaiso or Catolica de Valparaiso.. there a lot of exchange students that can you help , i can help sometimes by facebook, do you have one?, add me
http://www.facebook.com/rpadro

Regards!

Ricardo

Hi Janine ,
  mi name is Claudio and i am from Santiago, I suggest to you inlet to chat rooms and search for chilean slangs in internet such as:
natalislang.com/english/slang.html
for complicated chilean jargons to undesrtanding better.
Good luck.

wow!! so good to read in this post some Chileans..sending my regards from Saudi Arabia..miss my people:)
Maria Isabel

Hi Jnine.
Other suggestion for you.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Tokerov

saludos/regards
Claudio.

Hi Jnine,
My two cents worth is that it's not Spanish you need to learn, it's Chilean Spanish - which is an entirely different language than you probably studied in school.  There is a lot of slang, which includes shortening/changing words.  For example, you'll hear people saying "Como estai?" in place of "como estas?", and will become quite familiar with the terms "po" and "cachai."  My advice is to try to spend as much time as possible chatting with Chileans, and eventually you'll understand most of what they're saying, most of the time.

One of my favorite list of chilenismos is Cachando Chile - Glossary of Chilenismos, and I try to capture useful slang and phrases as I hear it on my blog as well at Living in Patagonia. 

However, it's always a good idea to have an understanding of basic Spanish vocabulary as well, as nurses get confused when you ask them about beef for newborns (my lesson for the week was that "vacuna" and "vacuno" are two very different things!)