THE Chilean version of Spanish is known for its voluminous slang, its absorption of English words and its bizarre pronunciation.

Various phrasebooks have been written by foreigners to help newcomers understand the street speak of Los Chilenos, to ask for a taxi to the airport or to simply avoid being thrown into the Pacific for being a first world Communist.

I've learned a lot about the usage and abusage of the English language in the last ten months of teaching it and every day I learn something new about grammar, context and function and why Cockneys say 'ouse, 'ammmer and fink instead of house, hammer and think. Swansea Jacks also say the first two – but with a wholly different twang. And this topic leads me nicely into a recent class I gave.

I prepared the workbooks, wrote a few warmer tasks on the board and sat down and waited for the class of seven to show up.

Twenty minutes later only one had. His name was Jaime (pronounced Hi-Me) and he liked beer, so we almost had two things in common.

In these situations I abandon the class and kick off a one-to-one conversation instead – unless I get zero response, low cerebral activity and a blank expression (for reference, ask any McDonald's branch manager what he thinks of the clearing of large tracts of the Amazon for the rearing of cattle).

But Jaime was a good one. So, we got around to talking about the different English accents and language found in Australia, USA, and South Africa.

I explained that in Britain too the accent and vocabulary changes vastly from town to town, city to city and even by following a relatively short and unbroken road – Fabian Way to Mumbles Road for instance.

Pocket money becomes an allowance; football morphs into soccer and, most queerly, a pint of Russell Crow evolves into a half a lager top. That sort of thing.

Halfway through the conversation I thought of Swansea.

Suddenly, phrases seeped from my cortex and spewed from my mouth like, 'Alright love?', 'Ow zit goin'?', 'Innit', 'Ew does my 'ead in 'ew does', ' I'll knock 'ew head off now like', 'Out tonight or what?', 'Starvin' I am mush', and 'Gosh! I so can't believe we're back in the second division – I might just go and buy a season ticket, darling'.

Jaime was baffled.

'Wow', he said, shaking his head. 'And I thought we were bad.'