The speech of the northern coastal area tends to exhibit phonological innovations typical of Caribbean Spanish, while highland varieties have been historically more conservative.

The educated speech of Bogotá, a generally conservative variety of Spanish, has high popular prestige among Spanish-speakers throughout the Americas.

[22] Many of the words have been popularized by the Colombian media, such as Alonso Salazar's book, No nacimos pa' semilla,[23] Victor Gaviria's movie Rodrigo D: No Future, or Andrés López Forero's monologue La pelota de letras ("The Lettered Ball") as well as many other cultural expressions, including telenovelas, magazines, news coverage, jokes, etc..

Some slang terms, with their literal translations and meanings, include the following: John M. Lipski groups Colombian dialects phonologically into four major zones.

This is the dialect spoken on the islands of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina in Colombia's Caribbean Region.

Syllable-final /r/ can be realized, in addition to the flap [ɾ], the trill [r], and the lateral [l], as the alveolar approximant [ɹ], the last being thought to be an influence of British English.

Word-final /r/, when followed by a vowel-initial word, is usually realized as a tap, an approximant, or the lateral [l], as in amo[ɾ~ ɹ ~ l] eterno ("eternal love").

If it is followed by a consonant or a pause, it may be realized as any of those sounds or as a trill or elided, as in amo[r ~ ɾ ~ ɹ ~ l ~ ∅] paterno ("paternal love").

Similar to Chocano and Isleño, there is a strong African influence in this dialect, owing to a large population of Afro-descendants in the region.

This dialect extends beyond the Department of Chocó throughout the Pacific coast and is said to reflect African influence in terms of intonation and rhythm.

Occasionally, the pronoun usted may be used briefly in extremely-informal speech between couples or family members or to reprehend someone, depending on the tone of voice.

The Opita dialect is spoken mostly in the departments of Tolima and Huila, mostly in the central and southern parts of the Magdalena River Valley.

The Paisa dialect is spoken in the Colombian coffee production areas, such as Antioquia, Quindío, Risaralda, Caldas, and the northernmost parts of Tolima and Valle del Cauca.

However, unlike Paisa, speakers typically conserve the "ll"/"y" distinction (the dialect has no yeísmo), and in some areas, the r is pronounced as a voiced apical sibilant.

In Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca, there is strong use of voseo (the use of the pronoun vos instead of other dialects, which use tú), with its characteristic verb forms.