Most Common Colloquialism in Dominican Spanish?

[Lucas61]

The most common colloquialism in Dominican Spanish, I am not getting:

It is "vaina."

It gets sprinkled through every other sentence. My girlfriend tried to give me a simple example but I don't understand it.

It seems not to have semantic meaning but to be a kind of placeholder or interjection that occurs in specific contexts.

Can somebody explain this? Is there an English translation?

 

[bob saunders]

That thing, whatchamacallit, the thingamajig....etc.

 

[bob saunders]

That thing, whatchamacallit, the thingamajig....etc.

Urban Dictionary: vaina

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

A Vaina is the pod of a bean or vanilla plant or the scabbard of a sword. Those are the original meanings. But as others have said, it has also come to mean any unidentified object or subject.

Dame esa vaina. Gimme that thing.

 

[ExDR]

That thing, whatchamacallit, the thingamajig....etc.

Bob hit the nail on the head. You can also add: that sh*t

 

[Chirimoya]

Chunche in Central America.

 

[drstock]

I always thought people were saying "baina" with a B, as the two letters are practically interchangeable by Dominicans. I tried for ages to find a definition for it. Now I know why I couldn't!

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

V and B at the beginning of words in Spanish are pronounced the same: a bilabial semiexplosive.
V and B between vowels are also pronounced exactly the same: a biliabial fricative.

Spanish does not differentiate B and V: both consonants are pronounced the same when in the same position with regard to vowels. . The spelling is based on the language the word is derived from, most often Latin.


In Mexican Spanish, one word used as vaina is used is chingalera, which is slightly obscene.

 

[bob saunders]

Isnt the V labiodental?

 

[HUG]

It doesn't matter how you spell something if those reading it can not read. Spelling signposts in DR confuses people, they are often seen spelt as pronounced, therefor wrong.

Now that is settled, just before leaving DR I spend several months in several hotels awaiting legal and official stuff to be processed. While in these hotels I was absolutely ****ing myself with the amount of men (Yanks specifically) who are in DR visiting girls for the 8th time, trying to get her visa and yet they can barely communicate. And I don't mean they can't have a debate about micro surgery or manipulated DNA progress. I mean they can't even fukcing understand what the other wants to eat, do or thinks about any given matter. I met a few of these weekly. To be fair its been a while since I met this kind of person.
Left with my mouth open on many occassions, I find it amazing these weirdoes still play this oddball game. It even tops outright desperation.

Entertaining reminder of why I like the idea of distancing myself from the land of these fruits.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

In English, Italian and French, but not in Spanish. That is what the Academia Real de la Lengua Espa?ola says.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

The confusion between v and b is so deep that I have seen maps marked with Habana Cuba.

Tbat is not confusion: the correct Spanish name for the city is La Habana. Havana is the current English spelling: at one time the British spelled it Havanna.

 

[Lucifer]

In Mexican Spanish, one word used as vaina is used is chingalera, which is slightly obscene.

En M?xico lindo, la palabra es chingadera.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

chingadera, chingalera, I have heard both.

===============================

chingalera
little ****ing thing over there, esp. inanimate object. spanish slang.
Hand me that chingalera over there.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Mexico, vulgar) ****, crap (a thing of little value or quality, or an unspecified object)  [quotations ▼]
(Mexico, vulgar) bull**** (nonsense, stupidity, false statements)  [quotations ▼]

?Son chingaderas! — “Bull****!”
decir chingaderas — “to bull****”

Take your pick.