Escuela, escucho and Escudo

My escuela (school) was in the vibrant, bohemiam part of the city, Barrio Bellavista, near the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal - a hill with a 22m-high white statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that looms over the highrises and rises out of the smog.

In 2011, Chile was named the ninth metropolis in the world with the fastest growth, and new, gleaming multi-storeys are shooting up, slicing up the skyline, as I write.

But Bellavista stays true to the old Santiago and it's crumbling heart: single and two-storey buildings with flat roofs, painted orange with deep blue doors or hot pink with green windows; riverbeds coloured by artistic murals and dogs lazing in the heat of the day; rusting tables and unchanging menus litter uneven walkways; and crumpled papers linger in the gutters, all that remains of the recent, student protests.

Meanwhile, standing as a reminder that this was no ordinary city in no ordinary continent, the backdrop to all of this is one of hazy, snow-capped mountains seen above a skyline of pick 'n' mix skyscrapers.

Bellavista was once the home of Chile’s Nobel Prize winning poet - Pablo Neruda - and there is now a museum, and spontaneous street art, devoted to his memory

down a peaceful cul-de-sac, lined with colourful houses.

Lessons were more fun than I had ever imagined, with our brilliant teachers Baba and Daniela breaking up taxing grammar lessons with language jokes and Chileno argot (slang). And then continuing our lessons for free over Escudo cervezas, pisco sours and the humdrum of fellow drinkers in the evenings.

Learning Chilean Spanish (and trying to translate English into Spanish in your head) helps you gain a new perspective on your own culture and language.

It reminds you just how many English words and phrases make no sense whatsoever and do not directly translate into another language. From words like "cheeky" and "posh", to phrases such as "sod's law" and "not my cup of tea". My mind was working faster than it has had to in many months and I even started to muddle the order of English words when chatting to friends.

There are also plenty of opportunities for error when learning Spanish, including mixing up words that should not be mixed up. For example, it's perfectly normal to use caliente to talk about hot foot, but it is definitely not acceptable to use caliente when you are personally hot. Especially over breakfast.

I also kept referring to Med as mi polola (my girlfriend), when I should have been saying mi pololo (my boyfriend). I'm walking through a Spanish-speaking minefield.

What's more, Chileans are notorious for speaking fast and actually quite badly. They hardly every pronounce the “s”; they skip “d” in nouns and adjectives (like estado and complicado), making the endings sound like “ao” instead of “ado"; and they pepper their speech with colorful phrases and plenty of swear words. Anyone under the age of 35 adds huevon or huevona to the end of almost every sentence. Huevon is the Chilean equivalent of dude, but literally derives from the slang word for testicles!

The Mapuche were the indigenous people living in Chile before the Spanish arrived. As the two cultures mixed, the Spanish adopted many Mapuchan words: cahuín (gossip or party), guata (belly), and malón (potluck). In class, we were taught the South American words; out of class we heard the Chilean.

I was fortunate to meet many young, Chileno people in my few weeks in Santiago and we had no trouble understanding each other, even if I still didn't have the right words. They listen to the same music, watch the same films, and spend their time on the same internet that we do. Of course, even if Chile as a whole is considered the third world, Santiago is most certainly first world. It is comprised of business people, those going to university, and people everywhere on iPhones and Macbooks (except me, I didn't even have a phone).

Yet, with all this familiarity, there was plenty of the weird and wonderful: hot dancing halls, dog houses built in the park and our daily game of 'food lottery' where we gambled with confusing menus and hoped we'd picked something relatively edible.

Many long lunches and even longer evenings in Bellavista peppered our Spanish lessons, and we followed the Chileno students to the cheapest lunch places and coolest bars. Chileans appear to have an amazing capacity for alcohol but no 'off switch'. Bellavista’s as chaotic as Soho, with live folk venues fighting for space alongside neon-lit clubs, hot dog joints, and salsa hangouts.

Then there was the karaoke after a few vinos de frutillas; I can now claim to have received a standing ovation from a room full of Chileno people - most over the age of 60.

As part of our course with Escuela Bellavista, we were taken on a (very long) tour of the Cementario de Grand Central - one of the largest and oldest graveyards in South America. 85 hectares of land in the city were set aside for the cemetery (almost 80 football fields), which features many earthquake-damaged ornate mausoleums and crypts, millions of dedications by the living and other displays surrounded by palm trees.

In this well-loved, colourfully adorned and artistically wonderful cemetery, it struck me once again how other countries deal with death with much more flamboyancy and openness than we do.

Many of Chile's past presidents and heroes are buried here, except of course Augusto Pinochet (Chile's dictator who killed and tortured thousands). Fresh flowers line endless walls stacked with small, square tombs and the rows of elaborate mausoleums influenced by Aztec and Egyptian architecture.

The tombs that fascinated me the most were flooded with flowers, Christmas decorations, various other gifts and thousands of scribblings in permanent markers.

These were the people who had been taken too soon, by car accidents or murders for example. It is thought that there souls remain here and the living should give gifts to them, in return for a favour. Some tombs are for money prosperity and job success, others had notes asking for luck in love and marriage.

As the fast Spanish words of our tour guide, Lidia, washed over me, I considered leaving my own gift and message. If these lost souls can make people rich, surely they can give me a tiny, helping hand with my Spanish?