Che, boludo

Argentinians curse without consciously realizing it. It’s true. We use ‘Che, boludo’ a lot.

All the time.

We’ve lost sight of how agressive it may sound to foreign ears to know that we call each other something like ‘asshole’ or ‘idiot’ to show affection.

Once I read someone who said something in the lines of “what can we expect other than to be ‘un país de boludos’ if we call each other like that?”

The uses of CHE have already been covered in another post, but the combination of these two words is also really frequent and wasn’t included then.

I explained that CHE can be used to grab the attention of another person, alright? Well, the addition of BOLUDO or its feminine counterpart BOLUDA after CHE is redundant, as it serves the same function.

• Che, boludo, ¿tenés idea cuánta gente vive en Argentina?
• Che, boluda, ¿vos sabés si el feriado del 17 se pasa al lunes?
• Che, boludo, mirá esto.
• Che, boluda, ¿viste las fotos de Clara en Bariloche?

We could use the name of the person instead, but using it when it’s clear who we are addressing would be too obviously redundant. At work and with acquaintances, however, boludo would be the placeholder for the person’s name.

In spite of its intrinsic meaning, when we say it it’s clear for us that we don’t mean to offend the other person and no Argentinian would feel aggrieved.

There is yet another use. If a friend overreacts we can extend the “e” in CHE and say:

• Cheee, boludo/a, pará, ¿qué te pasa?

Like I said other times for other cases, it’s better to play safe and understand the use of Che, boludo or Che, boluda passively rather than to force it into your conversations.

Hope this post gave you some insight.

Let me know if you are up for a lesson!

Happy Spanish learning,

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