About two weeks ago I caught up with an old friend who had spent a bit of time in Nicaragua. As we were talking about various things she said ¿Cuánto tiempo dilata? . With what I’m sure was a perplexed look on my face, I said ¿Cómo?. I had most certainly not heard the word dilata (from the verb dilatar) before.
Para no alargar el cuento (to make a long story short), it turns out that in Nicaragua the verb dilatar is used a synonym of tardar
Let’s look at an example:
Using tardar you can say:
¿Cuánto tiempo tarda el vuelo?
How long is the flight?
But in Nicaragua you might hear:
¿Cuánto tiempo dilata el vuelo?
Pretty sweet right?
**UPDATE:
Since I wrote this post I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Nicaragua myself and got some first hand exposure to the Spanish of Nicaragua. If you’re interested in more Nicaraguan Spanish, check out these posts on Nicaraguan Spanish from my sister blog, My Spanish Notes:
Diachimba and Tenemos Chinelas.