¿Cuándo? ¡Ahorita!

If you’ve ever been confronted with the expression “ahorita” while talking to a Spanish native speaker and you were really confused about its specific meaning, then this blog post is for you!

Some might think it’s just a very cute way of saying “right in this moment”, but no, you will be surprised :rofl:.

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Hey @stefanierambow I really enjoyed reading this blog post!

My argentinian boyfriend uses “un ratito” a lot, that you also mention in the blog post. For him “un ratito” can be anything between 15 min and 4 hours. So most of the time I ask him to please tell me in “German Time” what time frame he’s thinking about… Sometimes the German in me just needs to know more precisely. :see_no_evil:

I’m curious if other people have funny stories or examples about their experiences with “ahorita” or planning things with Spanish speakers?

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Here in Ecuador “estoy a la vuelta” is used worse than “ahorita”. It means that your friends may come right now, or they just plan to come somewhere in the next hours… :wink:

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It’s funny how different dialects of the same language can have such distinctions! I’ve loved having co-workers during my years working in international schools who were from different parts of the English-speaking world. Sometimes I swear we speak different languages!

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Great article @stefanierambow!

This sounds very similar to “see you soon!” in American English (not sure if it is like this for other native English speaking countries). It could mean see you in a few minutes, see you next year, or no idea when I’ll see you, but hopefully soon! Same goes for “be there soon!” - could mean in a few minutes, hours, days, months, etc. The only difference, I think, is that the person receiving this message knows exactly when you’ll be there.

So if I say to a friend back home “see you soon!” as I am leaving California, they know that it probably means in a year or so :sweat_smile:.

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Even worse than “ahorita” is “estoy a la vuelta”. That means that you can wait a long, long time for your friends :smiley:

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Or “estoy saliendo” when you’re actually still at home changing and washing the dishes :slight_smile:

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Si, uno se adapta rápidamente viviendo en Latinoamérica jajajajaja

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Another one we use a lot in Colombian and I haven’t seen mentioned here is “voy en camino”. When people say this, they are probably taking a shower.
:rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Time is so different depending on the culture one is :sweat_smile:. We use “ahorita” or “más tarde” and no one know when that is. I remember saying to mom I would clean “más tarde” and she would get so angry and ask: “¿cuándo es más tarde?” :sweat_smile: :upside_down_face:.

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