¡A_a_ay!

Let me explain. Kichwa (or Quichua) is a very difficult language, I have been told. I know very little of it, but I have learned several words in Kichwa which turn out to be very crucial words in Ecuadorian Spanish. The majority of the words I now know in Kichwa follow the following (and above) format - "¡A_a_ay!" - in which a random letter or group of letters is repeated twice, one in each blank, to create a word that is, generally, some form of exclamation. Here are several examples:

"¡Ayayay!" means "Ouch!"
"¡Achachay!" means "Cold!"
"¡Araray!" means "Hot!"
"Atatay!" means "Gross!"

That pretty much does it for today's Kichwa lesson. I only know two other Kichwa phrases off the top of my head. One of them is mashi and means "friend." The other I will use to say farewell. It means "good night." Cayecama.