By rosiehilder Last updated:
hla amig@s
Can’t understand your Spanish friends’ Facebook statuses, or having trouble compressing what you want to say into 140 Spanish characters on Twitter?
Learning to read and write in Spanish isn’t as easy as it used to be.
In this world of tweets and text messages, you’ll need to learn Spanish text slang to follow what’s going on.
Contents
- Why You Need to Learn Spanish Text Message Slang
- The Characteristics of Spanish Text Message Slang
- Omitting letters
- Switching letters
- Abbreviations
- Numbers and Symbols Used in Spanish Text Slang
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
For more colloquial Spanish, click over here (it contains a list of links to all our other Spanish slang posts):
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/spanish-slang-phrases/
Why You Need to Learn Spanish Text Message Slang
It’s not just a case of keeping up with the cool kids.
There are several practical reasons why learning Spanish text message slang is useful for anyone.
If you hear the “no credit” beep in your dreams (or nightmares), it’s probably time to cut down your text messages and make them shorter.
You can simply saylessin your messages, or you can use fewercharacters to say the same thing. I think you’ll agree that the second option is more appealing. Cutting down on characters will save you money on texts in the long run and your friends will be glad to no longer receive your four-message-long essays.
Squeezing what you want to say into one text message is also great practice for when you want to make your Spanish debut on Twitter.
Even if don’t regularly write text messages in Spanish, Spanish text slang is used across social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as on messaging services like WhatsApp. Using and understanding this slang will make you sound like an authentic member of the Spanish-speaking community.
Which you are, of course. Right?
Deciphering all those signs and symbols can be a fun way to use the Spanish you already know in a new way.
So, chic@s, let’s get intosome Spanish text slang.
The Characteristics of Spanish Text Message Slang
Omitting letters
Like in English, omitting vowels (vocales)is one of the easiest way to shrtn wrds.Genialbecomesgnl,for example.
Losing consonants works too.Ahorais often written asaora.
But of course, it’s not always just a simple case of getting rid of the vocales.
When a word begins with es, drop those first letters. So estoybecomes toyand estabecomes ta. Ta bmeans esta bien. Aren’t you glad you started reading this guide already?
It’s suddenly all becoming crystal clear…or perhaps just about as clear as mud. Stick with it to avoid being a total stick in the texting mud.
Switching letters
Another Spanish text slang characteristic is switching letters. For example, the letters qand c bothchange to k, so quierobecomes kiero, aquibecomes akiand clasebecomes kls.
Note that the word queon its own can either change to kor q.
X is another letter that’s used a lot in Spanish text slang. Xusually symbolizes por, so por favor(please) becomes xfa.Porqueandpor qué?(because and why)become xqand xq?,respectively.
As por and para are similar (though sadly not exactly the same!)parabecomes xa. Para qué? (another version of “why?” or “what for?”)becomes xa q?
The third and final way you can use the Xin Spanish slang is toreplace ch. For example, muchobecomes mxoand chaubecomes xau.
Abbreviations
In English we have FYI, LOL, ROFL and various other abbreviations. In Spanish there are plenty of phrases that work in a similar way.Te quiero mucho becomes tqmor tkm,for example.
A basic chat message might start like this:
In “normal Spanish” this means:
Hola(Hi)
¿Qué tal?(How are you?)
Bien, gracias ¿y tú?(Good, thanks. And you?)
Bien.(Good.)
Have lots of jajajaja in the middle while you chat about silly things and have fun.To “laugh” in Spanish, you can use jajaja, jejeje orjijiji.
An end to a chat might look something like this, assuming you guys like each other:
The “normal Spanish” translation for this one looks like:
Te quiero mucho(Love you)
Yo también(Love you too)
Besos(Kisses)
You can also end a text with bst (which means besito, or “little kiss” in English) and a scattering of emoticons won’t hurt matters either.
Along withTQMandTKM, another popular slang phrase isTAM, which doesn’t refer to the Brazilian airline but stands for: te amo mucho.
The equivalent of FYI (for your information) is PTI (para tu información).
It’s important to note that some Spanish speakers, especially young people, may use the English phrases instead of the Spanish equivalent. For example, they might use LOL (laugh out loud) or OMG (oh my God) in their English forms,sincemost people already know what they mean in English.
Got all that? Still can’t understand the text message you’ve just received from your Spanish-speaking friend? Here are a few more words and phrases to fill in the gaps in your slang knowledge:
kn = quien = who
tonces/ntnc = entonces = so, then
gnl = genial = great!
k risa! = qué risa = that’s so funny!
kyat! = cállate = shut up! or be quiet!
fin d = fin de semana = weekend
q/k acs? = ¿qué haces? = what are you doing?/what are you up to?
KO = estoy muerto = I’m in trouble
vns? = ¿venís? = are you coming?
tqi/tki = tengo que irme = I have to go
npn = no pasa nada = it’s ok/don’t worry/nothing’s happening
Numbers and Symbols Used in Spanish Text Slang
In English, we might end a text with “cul8r.”
We can also say something is gr8!
The same concept of using letters for the way they sound applies to Spanish words. What do you think salu2means?
Salutwo?
No, remember, that we’re speaking Spanish here so 2 is pronounceddos.
Saludos!
There you go. You can now send greetings to people in your text messages.
Otherphrases using numbers are:
re100 = recién (recently)
100pre = siempre (always)
You could end your text message with: Tqm xa 100pre.
That would mean, te quiero mucho para siempreor “I love you forever.” Or simply end withSalu2, to play it a bit cooler.
Symbols can also be used in fun ways to make phrases.
How do you think you would say “me da igual” (I don’t mind)?
You could choose from:
MDI
me da =
da =
(= is pronounced igual in Spanish).
The phrase más o menosisused a lot in Spanish, to mean “so, so,” “sort of” or “kind of.” Mathematical symbols are used here (más = plus, menos = minus) so the phrase becomes:” + 0 – “
Yes, you read that right.
You might have also noticed that some Spanish speakers use the @ sign in words like amig@s or chic@s.
This isn’t just to look cool, but rather it’s a way of representing that the friends or people could be boys or girls, (where they’d usually be either amigos or amigas)and making Spanish more gender neutral. Got that,+ o –?
You’ll also notice that, to save space, the upside-down question and exclamation marks aren’t used in Spanish text slang.
So there you have it, you should be able to impress your Spanish-speaking friends and bombard them with tweets, Facebook messages, hashtags and WhatsApp messages. And of course now your text messages will be much shorter.
Next on your list should be spoken slang. That’s basically like audio text messages, right? Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. But if you want to sound natural in Spanish, it’s always a good idea to learn some common slang that’s actually used by Spanish speakers.
One way to learn useful Spanish slang is on FluentU, where you can hear it in use through authentic videos like movie clips, music videos and vlogs.
You can check the definition of any word from the video’s subtitles, and these definitions are contextual. That means you’ll see if a word is being used as a slang word (or if it’s just a regular word you haven’t heard before). Plus, you can save words as flashcards and make entire decks dedicated to slang study.
Go for it,chic@s! Bst!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)