Does the sentence - “Aunque me gustaba divertirme con mis compas del barrio, era bastante chancón, sacaba buenas notas y los idiomas me encantaban.” - mean: Although I enjoyed my buddies in the neighbourhood, I was almost ???_, getting good grades and enjoying languages. ???
My dictionary says “swotty”, “hard-working” and that would fit nicely into your translation. “I was a bit of a swot” is in common usage in the UK, clearly only among people who would admit to having been a swot.
That seems to be the meaning according to the rae(it’s a peruvianism), which gives it as a synonym of “empollón” (nerd, as in UK “swot”). http://dle.rae.es/?id=8Y0QvYT
Just let me point out that “bastante” does not mean “almost”. Literally it means “enough” but can be used in the sense of “pretty” (as in pretty funny) or “rather”
Something else, in case you find it interesting or useful.
As I’ve said, I’ve read this particular novel (and many others by the same author, who happens to be one of my favorite ones). I am Spaniard, so of course I know the vast majority of words (even made-up funny expressions as “miliunochescos”) and can guess the meaning of many others, which are mostly variations on a range of Spanish expressions (“templarse al cien”).
However, there are words that I don’t understand, such as “chancón”, which seems to be a very particular peruvian slang expression. The author’s very much aware of which words may be difficult to understand so, he almost invariably “explains” them.
Notice that both in this case and with the “templarse al cien” example, the sentence is mostly a gloss of the meaning of the expression. I, as a native speaker, would take it as such:
Sacaba buenas notas, los idiomas me encantaban = era chancón
I mostly read the novel like that, only very seldom did I look up some word, mostly out of curiosity, not because the meaning escaped me.
This is not very different from reading “The Clockwork Orange”, the characters speak a fictitious slang derived from Russian. However, English speakers don’t usually have to look up the meanings because the context’s designed to make it clear.
Hmmm…good point. My take away is that a “chancón” is likely to refer to someone that is percieved as being rather nerdy, as expressed by ‘getting good grades and enjoying languages’.
yes, same thing as “empollón”