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Saludos & Cortesía
How Colombians greet, thank, and charm strangers within ten seconds.
- ¿Quiubo, parce?What's up, dude?
- ¿Bien o qué?All good or what?
- Con mucho gustoWith pleasure / You're welcome
Colombian Spanish · for gringos with taste
Speak like a paisa, not a textbook.
Ditch the robotic Duolingo voice. Learn the slang, rhythm, and warmth of everyday Colombian Spanish — from Bogotá taxis to Medellín cafés to a beachside cerveza in Cartagena.
- Phrases
- 120+
- Regions
- 6
- Accent
- Paisa
Phrase of the day
A daily dose of Colombiano.
One phrase, one cultural note. Drop it into conversation today and watch faces light up.
Idiom · Proverb
No dar papaya
[no dar pah-PAH-yah]
Means → Don't give papaya — i.e. don't make yourself an easy target.
Colombia's unofficial national proverb. If you flash valuables, you're 'dando papaya'.
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Type it in English. Get the Colombian way to say it.
Hear the pronunciation, then save it to your personal flashcards and lessons.
Lessons
Four corners of everyday life.
Each card unlocks the phrases you'll actually use — sorted by where you'll need them first.
🔥02 / 04
Parlache & Slang
Street-level vocabulary that makes you sound like a local, not a textbook.
- ¡Qué chévere!How cool!
- BacanoAwesome / cool
- Parcero / ParceBuddy, dude
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Comida & Café
Order arepas, bandeja paisa, and a tinto without pointing at the menu.
- Un tinto, por favorA small black coffee, please
- ¿Me regala la cuenta?Could you bring the check?
- Está muy ricoIt's really delicious
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Viajando por Colombia
Survive taxis in Bogotá, buses in the Eje Cafetero, and Cartagena heat.
- ¿Cuánto vale hasta…?How much to…?
- Déjeme aquí, por favorDrop me here, please
- ¿Hay wifi?Is there wifi?
The full lesson library
Browse every lesson, by category.
Major topics, then specific areas, then individual lessons. Click any title to jump straight in.
Featured starter sets
The four corners of everyday life — open them up on the home page.
- 👋 Saludos & Cortesía — How Colombians greet, thank, and charm strangers within ten seconds.
- 🔥 Parlache & Slang — Street-level vocabulary that makes you sound like a local, not a textbook.
- ☕ Comida & Café — Order arepas, bandeja paisa, and a tinto without pointing at the menu.
- 🌄 Viajando por Colombia — Survive taxis in Bogotá, buses in the Eje Cafetero, and Cartagena heat.
Language Basics
→The building blocks — letters, numbers, and colors.
Alphabet & Numbers
- 🔤 The Alphabet — The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters — same 26 as English plus ñ.
- 🔢 Numbers — From bargaining at the market to reading a bus number, numbers are non-negotiable.
Conversation
→Greet, ask, answer, and keep a conversation moving.
Essentials & Greetings
- 🧱 Essential Everyday Words — These ~50 high-frequency words show up in almost every Colombian conversation.
- 🧩 Essential Words, Round Two — Round two of the highest-frequency Colombian Spanish: the heavy-lift verbs (ser, estar… well, almost — tener, ir, hacer), question words, prepositions, and the…
- 🔗 Esenciales 3 — Pronombres & Conectores — The pronouns, possessives, and connecting words that wire everyday Spanish together — la, se, este, cuando, durante, ustedes, mío, tuyo, and the rest of the sm…
- 🤝 Friends, Meeting & Marrying — The verbs that build a social life — liking, meeting, marrying — and the people you do them with.
- 🙏 Polite Phrases — Colombians are famously polite.
- 💬 Everyday Sentences — A working sentence bank — family, friends, colors, school, transport, time.
- 🗣️ Everyday Conversation — The exact phrases you'll use in your first ten Colombian conversations — greetings, introductions, telling people about yourself and your family, and politely…
Questions & Communication
- ❓ Question Words — Six words unlock every Spanish question.
- 💬 Talking, Asking & Writing — The verbs and nouns of every conversation: ask, answer, say, talk — plus the words you exchange (palabra, frase, mensaje, carta).
People & Family
→Who's in your life, and how to describe them.
Family & Relationships
- 👨👩👧 Family & Body — The two vocabulary sets that come up in literally every conversation: who you're related to, and what hurts.
- 💞 Romance & Relationships — Beyond the basic besos, Colombian Spanish offers a rich vocabulary for affection, attraction, and commitment.
- ❤️ Love & Affection — Colombian Spanish has more shades of love than English.
Describing People
- 🧑 People, Titles & Feelings — How to describe people — by age, by title, and by how they're feeling.
- 🔍 Describing Things — Adjectives, comparisons, and the small words that let you describe anything — from the price to the weather to your mood.
- 🙋 Describing People — Adjectives that describe people — height, age, mood, vibe.
Daily Life
→Time, home, clothes, health, and holidays.
Time & Calendar
- 🌅 Times of Day — Yesterday, today, tomorrow — and every slice of the day in between.
- 🗓️ Calendar — Months, Days & Dates — Months and days of the week are not capitalized in Spanish.
- ⏳ Weeks, Years & Seasons — Manizales doesn't really have four seasons — it has 'season of rain' and 'season of more rain'.
Home & Clothing
- 🏠 House & Home — Rooms, doors, and the address you'll text to your friends.
- 👕 Clothing — Colombia ranges from snow-capped Andes to tropical Caribbean.
Health & Holidays
- 🩺 Health, Body & Doctors — EPS, droguerías, and a doctor visit in Spanish.
- 🎉 Holidays & Celebrations — Colombia is famous for its 'lunes festivos' — three-day weekends.
Food & Drink
→Order, cook, and shop for what you'll eat.
Meals & Drinks
- 🍞 Food & Drink — From the morning tinto to the late-night arepa, this is the vocabulary you'll use at every meal — plus the verbs to order, eat, drink, and cook it.
Fruits & Vegetables
- 🍎 Fruits of Colombia — Colombia is one of the most fruit-rich countries on Earth — lulos, guanábanas, maracuyás, mangostinos.
- 🥬 Vegetables of Colombia — A tour of the plaza de mercado: cabbages, onions, papas, and the carrots and tomatoes that anchor every sancocho.
Work & School
→Jobs, professions, classrooms, and studies.
Work & Professions
- 👷 Jobs & Professions — How to talk about what you do — and what your neighbor does.
- 💼 Work & Professions — Within minutes of meeting someone in Colombia, you'll be asked '¿En qué trabaja?' Have your answer ready, and learn the names of the professions you'll meet ar…
School & Studies
- 📚 School & Classroom — From 'el salón' to 'la biblioteca' — the vocabulary of student life in Spanish.
- 📚 School, Studies & City Places — Talk about what you studied or are studying, the supplies on your desk, and the places you'll point to around any Colombian city — plus a clutch of small conne…
Travel & Getting Around
→Move through Colombia by plane, bus, taxi, or on foot.
Travel & Tourism
- ✈️ Travel — Everything you need to move around Colombia — from El Dorado check-in counters to mountain-road peajes and boutique posadas in Cartagena.
- ✈️ Travel & Tourism in Colombia — Colombia rewards travelers who can talk their way through hotels, taxis, museums, and border desks.
Transport
- 🚌 Transport & Getting Around — Buses, trains, the metro in Medellín, and how to ask for directions when you're lost.
Directions & Places
- 🧭 Directions & Position — Whether you're guiding a taxista or telling someone where the bathroom is, these direction and position words come up constantly.
- 🌎 Places & Countries — From the village down the road to the continents across the ocean — the vocabulary of geography and nationality.
Shopping & Errands
→Buy, pay, and handle daily errands.
Shopping
- 🛍️ Shopping & Errands — Whether it's the supermercado or a corner tienda, here's the shopping vocabulary you'll use weekly.
- 🛍️ Shopping, Directions & Weather — The everyday survival kit: finding the park or the pharmacy, buying clothes and accessories, and chatting about the weather.
Nature & Environment
→Animals, plants, and Colombia's many climates.
Animals & Plants
- 🐄 Animals & Pets — From street dogs in Cartagena to cattle on the Llanos plains, Colombia is full of animals.
- 🌳 Nature & Outdoors — Colombia is parks, mountains, rivers, and three coasts.
Weather
- 🌦️ Weather & Climate — Colombia has every climate — costa caliente, Bogotá fría, Manizales con niebla.
Grammar
→Verbs and the rules that hold sentences together.
Verbs & Conjugation
- 🏃 Verbs in Action — Once you know the infinitive, the next step is hearing the verb in real-life conjugated form.
- 🏊 More Verbs in Action — Building on the first conjugation lesson — more third-person singular forms you'll hear in stories about what someone does daily.
- 🏃 Action Verbs — A working stack of everyday infinitives.
- 🛠️ Verbos Comunes — Forty-plus high-frequency verbs you'll need every day — from estar and volver to lograr, descubrir, and explicar.
Culture & History
→The story of Colombia and what it's like today.
Culture
- 🇨🇴 Colombian Culture — Colombia is six countries pretending to be one — Caribbean coast, Andean highlands, Pacific jungle, Llanos plains, Amazon, and the coffee axis.
History
- 📜 History of Colombia — From pre-Columbian Muiscas trading emeralds for salt to a 21st-century peace process, Colombia's story is layered: indigenous civilization, brutal conquest, in…
Citizenship
- 🛂 Becoming a Colombian Citizen — This is a plain-English overview, not legal advice — laws change and an immigration lawyer (abogado de inmigración) is worth every peso.
Colombian Cities
→Deep dives on Colombia's biggest and most distinct cities.
Cities
- 🏛️ Bogotá, Colombia — At 2,640 m on a high Andean plateau, Bogotá is the capital, the political brain, and the country's largest city (~8 million).
- 🌸 Medellín, Colombia — Once the world's most dangerous city, today Medellín is Colombia's most-photographed urban turnaround — a Paisa innovation hub of ~2.5 million in a narrow Ande…
- 💃 Cali, Colombia — Cali is Colombia's third city (~2.2 million), the hot, flat, tropical capital of Valle del Cauca, and the undisputed world capital of salsa.
- 🎭 Barranquilla — Colombia's Caribbean industrial capital, mouth of the Magdalena River, and home of the country's biggest party — the Carnaval de Barranquilla, declared UNESCO…
- 🏖️ Cartagena de Indias — Walled, sun-bleached, salsa-and-champeta-loud Cartagena is Colombia's Caribbean jewel and a UNESCO World Heritage city.
- 🌉 Cúcuta — Capital of Norte de Santander, pressed against the Venezuelan border.
- 🥁 Soledad — Just south of Barranquilla and bigger than many capitals — about 700,000 people.
- 🎼 Ibagué — Capital of Tolima, sitting in a green valley below the Nevado del Tolima volcano.
- 🌳 Bucaramanga — Capital of Santander, perched on a plateau in the eastern Andes.
- 🏘️ Soacha — Officially a separate municipality in Cundinamarca, in practice Bogotá's southern overflow.
- 🏖️ Santa Marta — The oldest surviving city in Colombia (founded 1525), capital of Magdalena, gateway to the Sierra Nevada and Tayrona National Park.
- 🤠 Villavicencio — Capital of Meta and the gateway to the Llanos Orientales — Colombia's vast eastern plains.
- ⛰️ Bello — Antioquia's second-biggest city (550,000+) and Medellín's northern neighbor — they've grown into one continuous urban valley.
- ☕ Pereira — Capital of Risaralda, heart of the Eje Cafetero (Coffee Axis), and a UNESCO Coffee Cultural Landscape.
- 🪗 Valledupar — Capital of Cesar, on the Guatapurí River at the foot of the Sierra Nevada.
- ⛰️ Manizales, Colombia — Perched at 2,160m on a ridge in the Cordillera Central, Manizales is the cleanest, coolest, and arguably friendliest city in the Eje Cafetero.
- 🚢 Buenaventura — Colombia's main Pacific port, on the western coast of Valle del Cauca.
- 🐂 Montería — Capital of Córdoba, on the banks of the Sinú River.
- 🎭 Pasto — Capital of Nariño, in the cold southern Andes near Ecuador.
- ☀️ Neiva — Capital of Huila, in the upper Magdalena valley.
- 🌿 Armenia — Capital of Quindío, smallest department in mainland Colombia, in the heart of the Coffee Axis.
- 🌴 Palmira — Just east of Cali, in the Valle del Cauca, about 350,000 people.
- ⛪ Popayán — Capital of Cauca, the colonial White City of Colombia.
- 🐃 Sincelejo — Capital of Sucre, in the savannas of the Caribbean coast.
- 🏭 Itagüí — Antioquia, just south of Medellín.
- 🍬 Floridablanca — Santander, just south of Bucaramanga.
- 🌽 Tuluá — Valle del Cauca, halfway between Cali and the coffee axis.
- 🌳 Envigado — Antioquia, just south of Medellín.
- 🥥 Tumaco — Nariño, on the Pacific near Ecuador.
- 🏝️ Riohacha — Capital of La Guajira, on the Caribbean at the edge of the desert.
- 🌊 Dosquebradas — Risaralda, just across a viaduct from Pereira.
- 🛢️ Barrancabermeja — Santander, on the Magdalena River.
- 🏛️ Girón — Santander, just west of Bucaramanga.
- 🚬 Piedecuesta — Santander, southeast of Bucaramanga.
- 🍌 Apartadó — Antioquia, in the Urabá region near Panama.
- 🛍️ Maicao — La Guajira, on the Venezuelan border.
- 🌴 Florencia — Capital of Caquetá, where the Andes meet the Amazon.
- 🛢️ Yopal — Capital of Casanare, on the eastern Andean foothills overlooking the Llanos.
- 🥁 Quibdó — Capital of Chocó, on the Atrato River.
- ⛰️ Ipiales — Nariño, on the Ecuadorian border.
- ☀️ Cartago — Valle del Cauca, in the northern Cauca valley near the Eje Cafetero.
Colombian Departments
→Each of Colombia's 32 departments, in context.
Departments
- 🌳 Department of Amazonas — Colombia's southernmost department is 109,000 km² of rainforest, rivers, and indigenous nations — bigger than Portugal but home to fewer than 80,000 people.
- ⛰️ Department of Antioquia — Antioquia is the engine of Colombia — mountainous, entrepreneurial, fiercely proud.
- 🐎 Department of Arauca — Arauca is llanero country on the Venezuelan border — flat tropical savanna, cattle ranches, oil rigs, and the lonesome ballads of the joropo.
- 🌊 Department of Atlántico — Atlántico is small, flat, hot, and loud — Colombia's Caribbean front porch.
- 🏰 Department of Bolívar — Long, skinny Bolívar runs from the Caribbean walls of Cartagena south along the Magdalena River into the swamps of La Mojana.
- ⛪ Department of Boyacá — Boyacá is colonial Colombia frozen in cobblestone — high green Andean valleys, whitewashed villages, the country's oldest universities, and the battlefield whe…
- 🏔️ Department of Caldas — Caldas is the small but mighty heart of Colombia's coffee country.
- 🌴 Department of Caquetá — Caquetá is the door to the Colombian Amazon — where the Andes flatten into rainforest.
- 🛢️ Department of Casanare — Casanare is open Llanos: flat, hot, oil-rich, cattle-rich, and bird-rich.
- 🌋 Department of Cauca — Cauca is mountains, volcanoes, sugar-cane valley edges, indigenous resguardos, Afro-Pacific coast, and Popayán — Colombia's white colonial gem.
- 🪗 Department of Cesar — Cesar is the cradle of vallenato — accordion, caja, and guacharaca telling stories of love and cattle on the Caribbean plains beneath the Sierra Nevada de Sant…
- 🌧️ Department of Chocó — Chocó is the Pacific — drenched, biodiverse, Afro-Colombian, gold-rich, and historically marginalized.
- 🐂 Department of Córdoba — Córdoba is cattle country on the Caribbean — the Sinú river valley, fat ranches, porro and fandango music, and the longest stretch of beach along Colombia's no…
- 🏞️ Department of Cundinamarca — Cundinamarca wraps around the capital district like a green doughnut.
- 🪨 Department of Guainía — Guainía is remote eastern jungle on the Venezuelan and Brazilian borders — black-water rivers, ancient quartzite tepuis, and indigenous nations living much as…
- 🦜 Department of Guaviare — Guaviare bridges the Llanos and the Amazon — savanna giving way to rainforest, with rock paintings 12,000 years old at Cerro Azul that are rewriting Pleistocen…
- 🗿 Department of Huila — Huila gives Colombia coffee, the Magdalena River source, the Tatacoa Desert, and the world-famous monolithic statues of San Agustín — the largest pre-Columbian…
- 🏜️ Department of La Guajira — La Guajira is desert at the top of South America — Wayuu territory, salt flats, dunes meeting the Caribbean, and Cabo de la Vela where the wind never stops.
- 🏔️ Department of Magdalena — Magdalena packs the snowcaps of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Caribbean beaches, the Ciénaga Grande wetland, and the literary heart of Macondo into one imp…
- 🌈 Department of Meta — Meta is the gateway to the Llanos — joropo, cattle, and the river of seven colors at Caño Cristales.
- 🌋 Department of Nariño — Nariño climbs from the Pacific mangroves of Tumaco up to the Andean páramos and the snowcapped Galeras volcano above Pasto.
- 🌄 Department of Norte de Santander — Norte de Santander shares 421 km of border with Venezuela — Cúcuta, Pamplona, the Catatumbo region, and the place where Colombia's 1821 constitution was signed…
- 🌿 Department of Putumayo — Putumayo is the upper-Amazon transition — Andean cloud forest, the sacred yagé (ayahuasca) territory of the Inga and Kamëntsá, and oil-and-coca battles braided…
- 🌴 Department of Quindío — Quindío is the postcard of the Eje Cafetero — green hills, wax palms, coffee farms turned boutique hotels, and the smallest department on Colombia's mainland.
- ☕ Department of Risaralda — Risaralda is the third leg of the coffee axis — busy Pereira at its heart, Otún canyon trekking, and the Tatamá and Los Nevados parks pressing in from both sid…
- 🏝️ Department of San Andrés y Providencia — Colombia's only oceanic department — a Caribbean archipelago closer to Nicaragua than to the mainland, with a Raizal Anglophone-Creole culture and the world's…
- 🪂 Department of Santander — Santander is canyon country — the Chicamocha gash, the colonial gem of Barichara, paragliding over Curití, and the famous santandereano blunt-spoken hospitalit…
- 🥁 Department of Sucre — Sucre is gaita country — long bamboo flutes and Afro-indigenous drums on the savanna sabanera.
- 🥘 Department of Tolima — Tolima sits in the Magdalena valley, snowed-in by the Nevado del Tolima volcano above and the lechona-and-tamal capital of the country below.
- 💃 Department of Valle del Cauca — Valle del Cauca is sugar-cane plain, salsa caleña, the Pacific port of Buenaventura, and Cali — Colombia's most danceable city.
- 🌿 Department of Vaupés — Vaupés is deep northwest Amazon — Tukano-language country, almost no roads, river-only access, and one of the most linguistically diverse small territories on…
- 🌅 Department of Vichada — Vichada is open Orinoco — savanna stretching to the horizon, the wild Tuparro National Park rapids, and the second-largest department by area but one of the le…
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