Spanglish in the States

[chileno]

I guess it depends from the point of view.

In Chile, we use the word "franglish", as it became trendy to name restaurants and business in general with name in French or English.

Spanglish for Spanish speaking people living in the US, is the mix of the language in such a form which becomes a new word or verb in Spanish.

To Mop = mapear

Truck = troca (troka, trocka?) = camión

etc...

It isn't so much the fact of mixing English words with Spanish word when talking...

I'll be tocando the door = I'll be knocking on the door

or vice-versa

Voy a knocking la puerta

But the fusion of the word in the effort to make it more "Spanish"

To knock = noquear.

To me, the latter is Spanglish.

[HomoVulgaris]

Originally Posted by Kalmetam

Because I'm an American, I know that we include a variety of words from different languages in our everyday life. Why? Probably because saying the same English equivalents gets boring. All over the US we say "Hola" as an informal word for "Hello.". Americans pretty much use basic words of other languages if they feel like it.. People use Spanish basic words pretty much all over the US, probably French in Louisiana, oh and in New York, you HAVE to know how to curse in Italian. These words are not actually in the English language, and I'd consider all of them to be informal if spoken in an English conversation.

You can call me an old fart, but mixing words from other languages just comes and goes. I remember myself playing with foreign at school but not so in the university.

My current stance is, that if there are equivalent words in one language and synonyms are abundant, there is no need to introduce new words from other languages. And if person is substituting perfectly acceptable words with something foreign, I find it as an expression of one's bad taste or as a lack of confidence.

Our ideas are making our speech interesting, not words we are using to decorate the language.

[JPablo]

I agree... with some flexibility, of course...
Ideas, not battles, mark the forward progress of a civilization... (Quoted by memory... but you get the idea... ¿verdad?)

[Chris]

But people have no problems when writers or whatnot enter Latin words ergo we should use other idiomas as well. badumching

[Kalmetam]

I also find actual spanglish really annoying.. because people think that they're actually speaking spanish when they say "No Problemo" or "uno momento por favor"

And

Originally Posted by HomoVulgaris

You can call me an old fart, but mixing words from other languages just comes and goes. I remember myself playing with foreign at school but not so in the university.

My current stance is, that if there are equivalent words in one language and synonyms are abundant, there is no need to introduce new words from other languages. And if person is substituting perfectly acceptable words with something foreign, I find it as an expression of one's bad taste or as a lack of confidence.

Our ideas are making our speech interesting, not words we are using to decorate the language.

Hmm... and I am pretty young haha
Maybe it depends on the person as well
My dad mixes italian in his english all the time..
A lot of people I know mix spanish into their english
And most of my new yorker friends curse in italian as well
Here in Hawaii, a lot of people mix Tagalog and Hawaiian into their English (people call this "Pidgin)

just from my personal experiences... and living on the opposite ends of the US (New York, now Hawaii).

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Kalmetam

I also find actual spanglish really annoying.. because people think that they're actually speaking spanish when they say "No Problemo" or "uno momento por favor"

They are just uneducated. More than likely repeating what they have heard. Sometimes they heard it wrong and sometimes they just didn't hear it right.

[HomoVulgaris]

Originally Posted by Chris

But people have no problems when writers or whatnot enter Latin words ergo we should use other idiomas as well. badumching

Maybe I am cynic, but I have a feeling, that in most cases people overuse and misuse Latin. I have seen very few correct and in place usages of Latin, most of them serving as useless text decorations in italic. Latin itself is very special language made of brevities, traditions and unsaid ideas hidden in history and context.

All this leads me to this: most of writers using Latin use it to give a more "intelligent" or "mysterious" appearance to their works. With no proper education in Latin many utterly fail. Other gullible people give higher evaluations for these works. The army of imitators repeats the same ad nauseam.

The result: tons of hardly comprehensible texts and books with passages difficult to understand because of Latin phrases which make no sense.

Ba-dum-ching!

Originally Posted by Kalmetam

Maybe it depends on the person as well
My dad mixes italian in his english all the time..
A lot of people I know mix spanish into their english
And most of my new yorker friends curse in italian as well
Here in Hawaii, a lot of people mix Tagalog and Hawaiian into their English (people call this "Pidgin)

Sometimes we compromise using slang, professional or intimate family language. But communicating ideas effectively and being understood are the primary language functions. So concocting languages rarely serves the purpose.

Assimilation is a natural process in families with foreign ancestry. Your father is an example of it. I am trying not to mix my languages (unless I am very, very upset and I have an urge to curse badly ).

From my experience, well educated people rarely mix languages. This behaviour is common with people with not so stellar one. Maybe they have a need to tell everyone how "smart" and "educated" they are. Oh, really?

If you need to impress other people with your language skills to boost your motivation, try to do it in a smart way. Not by sticking foreign words everywhere and baffling people, but by taking your phone in public and having a call in Spanish with your study partner: ba-dum-ching! (I foresee the eyebrows flying high in the faces of your friends).

[vita32]

In trying to communicate in a language (Spanish) that I'm trying to learn, I'm tempted to use Spanglish when I fail to remember the Spanish word that I need to finish the sentence. I think this is a better option than not even trying which is what I usually do but then I don't advance in learning Spanish.

I understand that there are people who may mix languages intentionally as had been discussed in the thread but in my case if I do it, it is because I'm desperate to learn and communicate my meaning clearly.

I think Spanglish should be a stepping stone on the way to mastering the Spanish language or vice versa but not the end in itself.

[pjt33]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code-switching

Yo suelo elegir en cuál idioma hablar, pero ha pasado algunas veces que cambio de uno al otro sin darme cuenta. No es raro que alguien medio-bilingüe lo haga al pronunciar un nombre "bien".

[JPablo]

Well, I tend to agree with you. You can have "Spanglish" due to ignorance (probably the most common?) and/or you can have "Spanglish" due to "over-scholarlyness" (if such a word exists...?)

At any rate, it is always better to try to say things, and be willing to be corrected...
When I was starting to learn English (as I am right now...) I'd get really flustered if I had to talk to an audience of more than 20... something that would not happen to me when talking in Spanish... (I can tell you about feeling "retarded" in a big way...) And to one degree or another one may sound "retarded" or simply "foreign" or "uneducated" or whatever... The bottom line is that if you don't practice you are not going to develop the skill... any skill for that matter.

So, there you have my 2 Euros... (cents are getting cheaper every day...)