Some questions after watching a movie

Question

The movie was El Delantal de Lili from Argentina. I was watching with Closed Captioning on, and when I had a 'question' I would rewind the DVR and replay it to make sure I wasn't seeing (or hearing) things.

I heard .... and I saw in the closed caption ....

• sip. Does this mean yes? It seemed like it did. This lady was talking on the phone and she would say "sip" every now and then.
• te amo, cielo Is this literal or is there an idiomatic meaning? I don't understand cielo in this context. My pastor says 'cielo' all the time at the end of making a point.
• no me podés mirar? Is this a 'special' form of poder? or misspelling of podéis?
• si querés Is this a 'special' form of Querer? or misspelling of queréis?
• abrime A woman was standing at the door beating on it and screaming ¡abrime! I take it that this means "open up" or something like that, but the dictionary doesn't like it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Answer 1

I'll elaborate a little more on the verb questions you had, since waltieco explained the other things well. They are conjugated in the voseo form, which is an alternative to the tú form. It is only used in a few countries, like Argentina as he said, a little in Chile, Colombia, etc. Usually, with the exception of Argentina which ONLY uses the voseo form and never the tú form, it's informal, used with close friends or by/for young people. To conjugate, you drop the -r, accent the vowel that is left at the end, and add s. Poder -r + accent + s = podés, querer -r + accent + s = querés. For commands, you just drop the -r and accent the last vowel. The tú command for "open up for me" would be "ábreme" but the voseo form is "abrime".

Thank you for the clarification on the voseo forms. - waltico, May 27, 2010

Ditto. This is the first time I've been seen these, I really appreciate the explanations. - Jack-OBrien, May 27, 2010

I think Benz did something on this subject a while ago. - ian-hill, May 27, 2010

Answer 2

• sip is an informal contraction of sí pues; in some regions this is contracted to sips; in those regions that "swallow" final esses, it becomes sip
• cielo this can be used as a term of endearment - you are like heaven to me
• podés and querés are special conjugations of poder and querer which are used with vos (2nd person singular commonly used in Argentina and other regions; there is a recent, informative post about this)
• abrime means "open up for me" and I have heard it used in living Spanish even if it is not quite grammatically correct

Was it a good movie?

Thank you. You have made my day clearing this up! - Jack-OBrien, May 27, 2010

and yes, I thought it was a good movie. It really had some dark moments, and the ending really surprised me. - Jack-OBrien, May 27, 2010

Could your pastor be saying "cierto" after making a point? - waltico, May 27, 2010