It’s to learn how to speak Dominican Spanish!
Dominican Spanish & basic expressions are essentially a mix of Spanish and English.
Over the course of the last few years we have been teaching you how to learn every different dialect of Spanish.
I received a ton of feedback in regards to my statement that Chile speaks the worst Spanish.
That isn’t entirely true especially when one considers the Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominican speak a very bad form of Spanish.
The fact of the matter is those three countries now speak more Spanglish (English and Spanish mixed) than they actually to Spanish.
Due to the influence of American culture in the Caribbean many English words are now pronounced in Spanish and used as a part of daily communication in the Dominican Republic.
There are a few general rules that we can use to try and describe Dominican Spanish:
- Dominican Spanish is generally spoken very fast
- They do not enunciate words clearly (they often ignore the R and S in words)
- Many times the letter R is pronounced with an L (similar to Puerto Rico)
- there is a large abundance of English words that are pronounced in Spanish
There aren’t too many variations of Dominican Spanish considering that the country is so small. When visiting the island we drove from one coast to the other. It took us roughly 2 1/2 hours to drive from the city of Santo Domingo all the way to Puerto Plata in the north.
Click here to view the video on YouTube if you are having any issues
We did notice that everyone in the country spoke relatively the same form of Spanish. After leading Santo Domingo we arrived in Santiago which is in the center of the country. We eventually arrived in the coastal city of Puerto Plata. It was entire road trip!
Most people that visit Dominican Republic decide to visit Punta Cana which lies in the far east of the island. This is one of the most touristy and over commercialized sections of the island.
Would highly recommend that you get out a bit into the real parts of Dominican Republic. The beaches are spectacular in Punta Cana and you will most likely be staying in a resort. Most people who visit the city will not get a real taste of what the people of the country are really like.
Airport – Santo Domingo – Santiago – Puerto Plata – Bani – Boca Chica Beach – Airport
This is one of the reasons why we prefer to rent an apartment while living overseas and get to know many of the locals. We
One major idiom in Dominican Spanish that we forgot to mention in the video is the use of the word “heavy”.
This word is commonly used to describe something that is cool or awesome. The way that we pronounce it in English would be heavy but the word actually derives from the Spanish word chevere. Chevere means cool or awesome. Since many words in Dominican Spanish are cut short this is translated into jevi. All Jays in Spanish are pronounced with an H in English so the word would literally be pronounced like heavy. Here are some examples:
- “Esta heavy” – Defined as cool or awesome
- Esta bien heavy mano – That is cool bro
- Lo pase jevi – I had a great time
Other words when learning how to speak Dominican Spanish: Basic Expressions
- “Tigre”
- Pronounced “Tigreh”
- Defined as Tiger in English
- Comming Sayings:
- Como estas tigre – How are you tiger?
- Todo bien tigre – Everything is good tiger.
- “Loco”
- Pronounced “lokoh”
- Defined as Crazy in English
- Common Sayings:
- Como estas loco – How are you loco?
- Todo bien loco – Everything is good loco.
- “Como tu ta” (hysterical because this is like saying how you are in English)
- Pronounced: Comoh too tah (Correct Spanish is Como Estas)
- Defined as how are you
- Common Sayings
- Como tu ta tigre? – How are you tiger?
- “Que lo que”
- Pronounced “keh-loh-keh”
- Defined as what’s up? Or what’s going on?
- Common sayings:
- Que lo que tigre? – How are you tigre?
- Que lo que loco? – How are you bro?
- “De verdad” (Just an example to show how the pronunciation is different)
- Pronounced “De velda”
- Defined as for real?
- “Baboso”
- Pronounced “bah-boh-soh”
- Defined an idiot or stupid person
- Common sayings:
- Tu si eres un baboso! – You really are stupid!
- “Vaina”
- Pronounced “Vai=nah” (its used in a bad connotation)
- Defined as stuff, thing or thingy, crap
- Common sayings:
- Y que es esa vaina? – What is that crap?
- Que vaina! – This sh**!
- “Desgraciado” (generally used in a negative connotation)
- Pronounced “des-grah-siatho”
- Defined as a damn fool or idiot.
- Common sayings:
- Tu si eres un desgraciado! – You really are an idiot!
That is all for learning how to speak Dominican Spanish: Basic Expressions: See below for other variations and dialects on learning how to speak Spanish.
Love what you’re doing man! Keep being an inspiration to us aspiring nomadic travellers!
Hey that is kinda cool ma mom say that Puerto Ricans talk different they actually don’t Cuz I use these words but that cool lol
ahh dominican women. beautiful women.
it’s not a “bad” form of spanish. We need to stop this misconception and label it a dialect.
i agree its not a bad form of spanish i would call it evolving language !!
Are you kidding me! this is the equivalent of English that most uneducated black people uses.
Wow. No its a dialect of spanish. Like White rednecks say Howdy, Yall and well I reckon.. Thats southern dialect in US.
slick racist
“…that most black people “USES.” Who is really uneducated? Imbecile.
You’re the uneducated one talking about “uses” you must be crazy. SMH.
why do you say uneducated black people, like if only uneducated black people dont pronounce words right, and dominicans have an accent, They grew up talking like this, and is not like “uneducated black people” talk like
Fucking bitch… How about that for uneducated. Your mother should of swallowed you.
Really not the way you should be speaking to people Juan Enrique. Very disrespectful
We don’t speak bad spanish, we speak an idiom that reflects the maintenance of our culture that existed prior to the spaniards: indian and african with a few crossover words here and there. If you don’t know just say you don’t know, h/e don’t insult us, it doesn’t go over well past tourism dollars.
Sorry… but you guys speak horrible Spanish. #nooffense
I hate how the spell heavy jevi
They only insult us when they see something negative
And if Dominicans speak bad spanish, well so do the spaniards that taught us because on the average, they weren’t scholars, they for the most part working class, scoundrels, vagabonds, criminals, and the under belly of spanish mainland society (canary islands as well) at the time. They weren’t on the average rocket scientists, they were common people or criminal class. For goodness sakes, a great deal of spain speaks with a lisp because the king did…is that bad spanish…a great deal of spanish words moorish/arabic loan words…is that bad spanish…the single most important word a family’s idiom in spanish Abuela is rooted in a moorish loan word (hebrew or arabic “Abu”/”Abba”…is that bad spanish…
Thank you! No dialect is bad anything. It’s just merely that country’s dialect. That’s how they communicate to each other in their country. Don’t get mad because you go visit there and the Spanish is different than what you were taught in your one class that didn’t even take place in that country. That’s like someone learning English in India and getting mad that when they arrive to America they find out we use way more slang than what they learned in their little class in India 😆😂
Don’t get mad because you are not aware. Just man up or woman up and learn that shit so you can communicate in that country. If you don’t want to learn it, then keep it moving! But don’t insult a whole country and tell them that their language is construed.
I’m Domincan we speak they way we speak we are not from Spain so our Spanish is diffrent as long as we know what we are talking about dont worry about it if you wanna learn we are walcome to teach you
You forgot the essential ya tu sabe, primo.