Spanish Text Slang Native Speakers Use

Can’t understand what your Spanish friends are saying online? Learning to read and write in Spanish isn’t as easy as it used to be.

In this world of tweets and text messages, you’ll need to learn Spanish text slang to follow what’s going on.

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Common Spanish Text Slang

Here’s a table of some of the most common Spanish text slang. If this looks a bit intimidating, don’t worry: we’ll go into the “rules” for writing text slang in Spanish later!

Spanish Text Slang	What It's Shorthand For	English Translation
-	menos	minus less
+ o –	más o menos	so-so sort of kind of
+	más	plus more
=	igual	equal same
100pre	siempre	always
100to	siento	I feel like
5mentarios	sin comentarios	no comment no words
aber	a ver	let's see
aki	aqui	here
al -	al menos	at least
alv	a la verga	f**k it (offensive)
amig@s amigxs	amigos amigas	friends
amix	amigo amiga	friend
aora	ahora	now
asies	así es	that's right
ayno	¡ay, no!	oh no!
bb	bebé	baby babe
bbr	beber	to drink
bn	bien	good
bno	bueno	fine all right
bnx	buenas noches	good night
bs bss	besos	kisses
bsto	besito	little kisses
cdo	cuando	when
cdt	cuídate	take care
chale	chale	damn
chic@s	chicos chicas	boys girls
cm	cómo como	how
cmo stas?	¿cómo estás?	how are you?
d	de	of
da =	da igual	it's all the same it doesn't matter
de+sia2	demasiados	too many
dnd	dónde donde de nada	where you're welcome
dtb	Dios te bendiga	God bless you
F	F	F (used to express frustration or disappointment, similar to the way it's used in English slang)
finde	fin de semana	weekend
gfe gfa	jefe jefa	boss father mother
gnl	genial	great
gnt	gente	people
gpi	gracias por invitar	thanks for the invite (used jokingly to reply to other people's fun/tasty-looking posts)
grax grx	gracias	thanks
hla	hola	hello hi
hno	hermano	brother
hna	hermana	sister
k ke	qué que	what
k ase?	¿qué haces?	what are you doing? what are you up to?
kdmos	quedamos	let's meet
keseso?	¿qué es eso?	what's that?
kienes	quiénes	who
kiero	quiero	want
kn	quién quien	who
kntm	cuéntame	tell me
komo	cómo como	how
ksa	casa	house
kual	cuál	which, what
kuxa	escucha	listen (to me)
kyc	cállese	shut up be quiet
kyt	cállate	shut up be quiet
m gusta	me gusta	I like it
m parece bien	me parece bien	looks good to me
mdi me da =	me da igual	I don't care
msj	mensaje	message
mua muak	-	xoxo
mxo	mucho	much
namas	nada más	only that
no c	no sé	idk (I don't know)
npn	no pasa nada	it's okay don't worry
ntc	no te creas	jk (just kidding)
ntp	no te preocupes	don't worry
ola	hola	hello hi
onde	dónde donde	where
pa	para papá	for to dad
pco	poco	little
pera	espera	wait
perame	espérame	wait for me wait up
pk pork pq	por qué porque	why because
pos	pues	well then
pti	para tu información	fyi (for your information)
q	qué	what
qdmos	quedamos	let's meet
qnes	quiénes	who (plural)
qiero	quiero	want
qmple	cumpleaños	birthday
re100	recién	recently just
salu2	saludos	greetings
sbs?	¿sabes?	you know?
sisoy	si soy	relate
srt	suerte	good luck
stld	si tú lo dices	if you say so
t	te	(to) you
ta	está	it's
ta bn	está bien	it's okay
ta weno	está bueno	okay it's okay
t amo	te amo	I love you
tan	están	you're they're
tb tbn tmb tmbn	también	too also
tbj	trabajo	work
tkm tqm	te quiero mucho	I like you very much
tlj	te lo juro!	I swear! (informal)
tmc	te me cuidas	take care of yourself
tnces tonces tons	entonces	so then
to	todo	all
toy	estoy	I am
tq	te quiero	I love you
tvo	te veo	I see you
vamo	vamos	let's go
vasir?	¿vas a ir?	are you going?
vdd? vrd?	¿verdad?	right?
vns?	¿vienes?	are you coming?
voa	voy a	I will
wapa wapo	guapa guapo	beautiful handsome
x	por	for by
x favor	por favor	please
x nada	por nada	you're welcome
x2	por dos	same (lit "by two")
xa	para	for
xa k? xa q?	¿para qué?	what for?
xau	chau	bye
xdon	perdón	I'm sorry
xfa	por favor	please
xk xq	por qué porque	why because
yen2	yendo	on my way
ymam ymm	llámame	call me
yo tb ytb	yo también	me too

The Characteristics of Spanish Text Message Slang 

Omitting letters

Like in English, omitting vowels (vocales) is one of the easiest way to shrtn wrds. Genial becomes gnl, for example.

Losing consonants works too. Ahora is often written as aora.

But of course, it’s not always just a simple case of getting rid of the vocales.

When a word begins with es, drop those first letters. So estoy becomes toy and esta becomes ta. 

Switching letters

Another Spanish text slang characteristic is switching letters. For example, the letters q and c both change to k, so quiero becomes kiero, aquí becomes aki and quién becomes kn.

Note that the word que on its own can either change to k or q.

As you’ve seen, x is another letter that’s used a lot in Spanish text slang. X usually symbolizes por, so por favor (please) becomes xfa. Porque and ¿por qué? (because and why) become xq and xq?, respectively.

As por and para are similar (though sadly not exactly the same!), para becomes xa. Para qué? (another version of “why?” or “what for?”) becomes xa q?

The third and final way you can use the x in Spanish slang is to replace ch. For example, mucho becomes mxo and chau becomes xau.

Abbreviations

In English, we have FYI, LOL, ROFL and various other abbreviations. In Spanish, there are plenty of phrases that work in a similar way. Te quiero mucho becomes tqm or tkm, for example.

A basic chat message might start like this:

In “normal Spanish,” this means:

Hola (Hi)
¿Qué tal? (How are you?)
Bien, gracias ¿y tú? (Good, thanks. And you?)
Bien. (Good.)

Have lots of jajajaja in the middle while you chat about silly things and have fun. To “laugh” in Spanish, you can use jajaja, jejeje or jijiji.

An end to a chat might look something like this, assuming you guys like each other:

The “normal Spanish” translation for this one looks like:

Te quiero mucho (Love you)
Yo también (Love you too)
Besos (Kisses)

You can also end a text with bst (which means besito or “little kiss” in English) and a scattering of emoticons won’t hurt matters either.

It’s important to note that some Spanish speakers, especially young people, may use the English phrases instead of the Spanish equivalent. For example, they might use LOL (laugh out loud) or OMG (oh my God) in their English forms, since most people already know what they mean in English.

Numbers Used in Spanish Text Slang

In English, we might end a text with “cul8r.” We can also say something is gr8! The same concept of using letters for the way they sound applies to Spanish words.

For example, what do you think salu2 means? Salutwo? No, remember, that we’re speaking Spanish here so 2 is pronounced dos. So salu2 means saludos!

There you go. You can now send greetings to people in your text messages.

Other phrases using numbers are:

re100 = recién (recently)

100pre = siempre (always)

You could end your text message with: Tqm xa 100pre. That would mean, te quiero mucho para siempre or “I love you forever.” Or simply end with salu2, to play it a bit cooler.

Symbols Used in Spanish Text Slang

Symbols can also be used in fun ways to make phrases. If you want to say me da igual (I don’t mind), for example, you could choose between MDI, me da = and da =. (Remember that = is pronounced igual in Spanish.)

The phrase más o menos is used a lot in Spanish to mean “so, so,” “sort of” or “kind of.” Mathematical symbols are used here (más = plus, menos = minus) so the phrase becomes: ” + 0 – ” (Yes, you read that right.)

You might have also noticed that some Spanish speakers use the @ sign in words like amig@s or chic@s.

This isn’t just to look cool, but rather it’s a way of representing that the friends or people could be boys or girls, (where they’d usually be either amigos or amigas) and making Spanish more gender neutral. Got that, + o –?

You’ll also notice that, to save space, the upside-down question and exclamation marks aren’t used in Spanish text slang.

Why You Need to Learn Spanish Text Message Slang

It’s not just to keep up with the cool kids.

There are several practical reasons learning Spanish text slang is useful for anyone.

Cutting down on characters will save you money on texts in the long run. Your friends will also be glad to no longer receive your four-message-long essays. If you’ve ever had several messages “beep” in quick succession on your phone, you know how annoying this can be.

You can simply say less in your messages, or you can use fewer characters to say the same thing. I think you’ll agree that the second option is more appealing.

Even if don’t regularly write text messages in Spanish, Spanish text slang is used across social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, as well as messaging services like WhatsApp. Using and understanding this slang will make you sound like an authentic member of the Spanish-speaking community.

Which you are, of course. Right?

Deciphering all those signs and symbols can be a fun way to use the Spanish you already know in a new way.

 

So there you have it! You should be able to impress your Spanish-speaking friends and bombard them with messages, hashtags and threads. And, of course, your text messages will be much shorter now.

Next on your list should be spoken slang. That’s basically like audio text messages, right? Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. But if you want to sound natural in Spanish, it’s always a good idea to learn some common slang actually used by Spanish speakers.

One way to learn useful Spanish slang is on FluentU, where you can hear it used through Spanish videos like movie clips, music videos and vlogs.

Go for it, chic@s!

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)