slang vs spanglish

Hola a todos,

quiero pedirles su opinión respecto al título.
Leyendo esta área del forum, me dió mucha risa algunos términos
que usan los hispanos que viven en USA y me hizo pensar en la
diferencia que hay entre los slang o modismos de los diferentes paises latinos
y el spanglish que se habla en USA.

Por ejemplo leí que "call you back" lo traducen como "te llamo para atrás" ,
creo que al traducir de esta forma están haciendo una traducción literal
de cada palabra,como lo hacen algunos softwares
de traducción por ejemplo,o sea es una mala traducción del inglés al español
para entender que se trata de "te llamo después","te llamo de vuelta",
"te vuelvo a llamar" y en fin todos los modismos o frases que se
usan para esa "acción",que es devolver una llamada telefónica pero
esa "acción" traducida como "te llamo para atrás",la verdad es que
no no tiene nada que ver
con ninguna
acción que se haga normalmente y por lo
tanto,sólo es una mala traducción .

En resumen:
Spanglish: una mala traducción literal del inglés al español
Slang o modismos : palabras o frases que difieren de un país al otro y
que definen ciertas acciones en español.

que opinan?

saludos

Mario

Saludos Mario !!! Tus definiciones me parecen muy acertadas, aunque yo particularmente en ocasiones he utilizado el término Spanglish para referirme a la costumbre de mezclar en una misma frase palabras del vocabulario inglés y del vocabulario español: por ejemplo: “voy a tomar el subway” “Nos vemos en el Lobby”, etc.

Sabes tu ejemplo me recuerda algo que me sorprendió . Tengo un tío (a quien quiero mucho) que no habla para nada inglés y una vez me salio con la frase "te llamo para atrás”. Obviamente éste no fue un caso de mala traducción; pero me quedó la duda ¿De donde sacaría esa expression? :)

Hi Mario,
I don't think incorrect grammar is spanglish, I just think it’s incorrect grammar. When I think of spanglish I think of speaking or writing that is in Spanish and that has an English word thrown in here and there. Or, when English words are given a Spanish sounding ending on them like "defendente" instead of "acusado".
There are many semi Spanish-speaking people in New Jersey from so many nations and I have to say it causes me a lot of confusion. This is why I am so glad to have found this forum where I can see examples of authentic business/general Spanish.

El Spanglish tiene muchas facetas. Algunas de ellas ya las han mencionado, pero también se construye a partir de la hispanización de términos del inglés. Por ejemplo, "parkear" para referirse a "estacionar". Observen que la conversión al infinitivo es, valga la expresión, una buena adaptación de "to park".
En otras ocasiones, tenemos sustantivos que respetan el género que deberían tener en español, por ejemplo "la troca" (the truck) que es femenino como "la camioneta".

Curiosidades de la mezcla de idiomas.

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Originally Posted by Hebe

Saludos Mario !!! Tus definiciones me parecen muy acertadas, aunque yo particularmente en ocasiones he utilizado el término Spanglish para referirme a la costumbre de mezclar en una misma frase palabras del vocabulario inglés y del vocabulario español: por ejemplo: “voy a tomar el subway” “Nos vemos en el Lobby”, etc.

Sabes tu ejemplo me recuerda algo que me sorprendió . Tengo un tío (a quien quiero mucho) que no habla para nada inglés y una vez me salio con la frase "te llamo para atrás”. Obviamente éste no fue un caso de mala traducción; pero me quedó la duda ¿De donde sacaría esa expression? :)

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Hola Hebe,
ahora sé porqué puse este mensaje,y fué por culpa de tu tio!!!
había perdido el hilo de la frase "te llamo para atrás",y ahora me
lo recordastes...pero será una frase
de spanglish común? o solo tu tío usa en USA?

Bueno Hebe,hablando en serio (y saludos a tu tío:) ,estoy de
acuerdo contigo en que el spanglish es una mezcla de palabras en español e
inglés,pero también cuenta lo que dice Julio,que se refiere a cambiar algunas
palabras en inglés y adaptarlas quizás para más fácil pronunciación,
como el ejemplo que dió de "parkear" vs "to park" o "la troca" con
"the truck".Ahora recuerdo que leí aca otra palabra inventada con
inglés y español que encuentro muy especial ,es que que para salir de
una carretera al parecer dicen "exitate"!!! por tal o cual carretera
hacia otra,claro ahi mezclan me imagino el "exit" de salir
con una terminación personal en español.Lamentablemente en los paises latinos
no la entenderían de la misma forma no?

Mario

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Originally Posted by serrabecerra

Hi Mario,
I don't think incorrect grammar is spanglish, I just think it’s incorrect grammar. When I think of spanglish I think of speaking or writing that is in Spanish and that has an English word thrown in here and there. Or, when English words are given a Spanish sounding ending on them like "defendente" instead of "acusado".
There are many semi Spanish-speaking people in New Jersey from so many nations and I have to say it causes me a lot of confusion. This is why I am so glad to have found this forum where I can see examples of authentic business/general Spanish.

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Hi Claudia,

creo que el spanglish se ha transformado en un dialecto español ,como una
especie de españolización de la lengua inglesa,y diseñada por la
creativa población hispana de los Estados Unidos.
Pero en definitiva queda clara entonces la diferencia con los
famosos slang de cada país.
Claudia disculpa que no te conteste en inglés,pero reconozco
que no es mi fuerte.
Best regards
Mario

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Originally Posted by direct6

será una frase
de spanglish común? o solo tu tío usa en USA?

..... se refiere a cambiar algunas palabras en inglés y adaptarlas quizás para más fácil pronunciación, como el ejemplo que dió de "parkear" vs "to park" o "la troca" con "the truck".Ahora recuerdo que leí aca otra palabra inventada con inglés y español que encuentro muy especial ,es que que para salir de una carretera al parecer dicen "exitate"!!! Mario

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:) Hola Marío , tu nota está muy simpática. Con respecto a mi tio te cuento que él nunca ha estado en USA y no habla inglés por eso me sorprenió que dijera esa frase.
El ejemplo de "exítate" está comiquísimo !!! ¿Sabes? cuando estaba en la Universidad de Boston escuhé a unos estuidiantes latinos decir "Voy a dropear la materia" ... (ja ja ) Ese es parte de nuestro encanto latino ;) .
Warm regards

The "exitate" was hysterical!!!

jaja creo que a veces es bueno poner un poco de humor a la vida,
por lo menos hace bien a la salud,dicen...

Mario

I heard a teenager tell her boyfriend this: "Hey, Dame una quebrada!"
Meaning "give me a break" !!! (accent on the "a" in Dame)
Literal Spanglish translation and sounds very funny...
But, how would you translate "give me a break" into Spanish?
Maybe: something like "Dejame en paz?" Realmente ni idea...
"Give me a break" is similar to "cut me some slack" --don't take things so seriously...pardon me..Wow!....it's my native language and I can't think of how to get the point across without using one of those 2 expressions. :( Perhaps, show me some consideration...as in: "Mija, you haven't cleaned your room for a week!"
"Hey mom, show me some consideration, I've been studying for finals all week."
Or, FAR more common, "Give me (Gimme) a break, I've been studying for finals all week."
Any ideas??
Thanks :)

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Originally Posted by Fresno22

I heard a teenager tell her boyfriend this: "Hey, Dame una quebrada!"
Meaning "give me a break" !!! (accent on the "a" in Dame)
Literal Spanglish translation and sounds very funny...
But, how would you translate "give me a break" into Spanish?
Maybe: something like "Dejame en paz?" Realmente ni idea...
"Give me a break" is similar to "cut me some slack" --don't take things so seriously...pardon me..Wow!....it's my native language and I can't think of how to get the point across without using one of those 2 expressions. :( Perhaps, show me some consideration...as in: "Mija, you haven't cleaned your room for a week!"
"Hey mom, show me some consideration, I've been studying for finals all week."
Or, FAR more common, "Give me (Gimme) a break, I've been studying for finals all week."
Any ideas??
Thanks :)

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How about old reliable: "Are you (you gotta be) kidding!!!":D

or "Are you serious?!" or "Get real!".

Es un hilo muy interesante! Es fascinante ver la evolución de los idiomas pero hay que tomar en cuenta que casi todos los idiomas "prestan" palabras de otros, que Spanglish no es la única mezcla (estoy pensando en "Portuñol") y si la finalidad de un idioma es comunicar una idea nada más, para los que hablan "Spanglish", el idioma cumple con tal fin. Los ejemplos que uds. dieron son muy buenos...me encanta lo de "la quebrada"!! :p

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But, how would you translate "give me a break" into Spanish?

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Here in Cuba we would say something like:

Dame un chance.
Dame un respiro.
or something like "Suéltame" but this is not something to tell to a boyfriend...you don't really want him to let go, unless you really want him to. ;)
but we could also say something like (and this is the translation for "take it easy")
Cógelo con calma.
...cause at the end if "you take it easy", "you also give me a break"...

A los traductores no nos gusta, ¡digámoslo de una vez! Queremos que el español se mantenga puro y el inglés también. Pero... ¿podemos o debemos hacer algo para desterrar el spanglish o detener su avance? Y además... ¿es tan malo que exista? ¿Y qué es, en definitiva: un idioma nuevo, un dialecto, o simple slang? Los hijos de nuestros hijos, de todas partes de Latinoamérica y de los Estados Unidos también, seguramente se reirán de nuestros miedos de hoy y comentarán (en spanglish, seguro) lo que ahora ignoramos, suponemos e imaginamos...

Los invito a volver a pensar un poco más sobre este tema, desde una perspectiva un poco más seria que este post, aunque no es que no me hayan divertido los ejemplos de ustedes, ¿eh? Y los mencioné en mi blog Spanglish: el futuro tan temido, donde me puse a investigar un poco y encontré interesantes definiciones, explicaciones y opiniones a favor y en contra del spanglish. ;)

There's no stopping Spanglish. It's out there and no one is going to be able to stop it. We might as well embrace it as yet another way that living languages grow. Speakers of English and Spanish and all languages definitely deserve a good education including knowledge about how the languages they speak are put together, but if that could be accomplished (not likely) it still wouldn't erase Spanglish or stop its development.

I prefer to embrace the change, and try to understand it. Languages are fascinating because they live and grow and change and intermingle.

Laura Lei tu post, y a mi mente cayeron un monton de ejemplos mas......ahora ya no estamos de rebajas ahora estamos On SALE!
No tenemos mas tragos dos por uno tenemos Happy Hour!
El domingo pasado escuche un relator de futbol decir "el arquero tomo la pelota con la Hands!"
En algunos sectores sociales podria interpretarlo como aspiraciones a un determinado status de vida, copiar modelos de cultura extranjera y esto ya no se convierte en un intercambio cultural sino q todo lo contrario empezamos por el desapego, el destierro de terminados términos q son propios de cada pais o de cada idioma.
Ultimamente hasta miramos con asombro cuando escuchamos algun término en ingles mal pronunciado pero no nos preocupamos por enriquecer nuestro vocabulario.
No veo mal la incorporacion de palabras extranjeras a nuestra lengua madre pero tampoco exageremos.

It might seem to some that "Spanglish" is relatively new but far from it. It certainly is more widespread and has a name now but the practice of incorporating Spanish words (and murdering the pronuciation) into English and English words into Spanish has been happening for hundreds of years.

I have to disagree with Laura;). I don't think that English speakers are concerned about keeping English "pure". We have always been open to "borrowing" words. I think Spanglish scares native Spanish speakers who want to protect their "mother tongue" from corruption far more than it bothers anybody else.

It is part of everyday life in some parts of the US. We have generations of bi-lingual people who grew up in Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona speaking both languages.

My wife's family members are fourth or fifth generation Mexican-Americans who have lived on the Mexican-U.S. border forever and if you listen to their conversations you will hear a mixture of English/Spanish and many Spanglish terms. Some of the older folks still speak Spanish as their first language and some of them prefer English and they all mix the two at times. They use whichever word first comes to mind or the one that best fits what they want to say and they have been doing that for decades and decades, long before anybody ever thought to call it Spanglish.

Sometimes we have problems right here in this forum finding the right word, the best translation, to describe what we want to say. That's not a problem in the real world for people who are not worried about mixing the two languages. For the most part they simply use the English word. Spanish, for all its beauty, does not have the wide variety of words to describe things in the same detail as can be done in English, at least, not to the average speaker. Example: camioneta=small truck, suv, station wagon, pickup. van, mini-van, etc. To my knowledge, there are no specific words for these vehicles individually in Latin America. If there are, they are not well known, so if I am trying to say I own a Ford pickup I have to say "pickup" because "camioneta" does not tell you which Ford product I'm talking about.

I don't understand the fears that some people have about Spanglish. It is not going to destroy Spanish in Spain or Argentina or Cuba or Mexico and it is certainly not going to destroy English. It's all about communication and if it helps facilitate understanding then what's wrong with it?

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Originally Posted by vicente

(...) I have to disagree with Laura;).

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Nothing urges me more to reply than "I have to disagree with Laura" from my good friend... (hahahaha. Private joke! Vicente and I love a good disagreement!) Seriously, your opinion is really valuable, V, because you're "there"! And it's also true that those of us with Latin blood in our veins (Argentinians, for example:D) always feel the need to "defend" what's ours, more or less vehemently.

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Originally Posted by vicente

(2)
(...) Spanish, for all its beauty, does not have the wide variety of words to describe things in the same detail as can be done in English, at least, not to the average speaker.

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I should say now I have to STRONGLY disagree with you, and I'm sure someone else will say so... Spanish is truly beautiful, but English has its own beauty, too! They're just DIFFERENT, and used differently.

What I've been told is it's not a question of variety, but of specificity. English has more words to describe tangible things in technical or commercial fields, but there's not so much to work with in the fields of Philosophy and Metaphysics... So it's not a question of how many more words each language has, but of WHAT we use the words to talk about. So they say.:cool:

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Nothing urges me more to reply than "I have to disagree with Laura" from my good friend... (hahahaha. Private joke! Vicente and I love a good disagreement!)

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Hahaha...Always fun, mi amiga!

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Seriously, your opinion is really valuable, V, because you're "there"! And it's also true that those of us with Latin blood in our veins (Argentinians, for example:D) always feel the need to "defend" what's ours, more or less vehemently.

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Well, I think part of why we so readily accept Spanglish in the U.S. is that we have nothing that is "ours" to protect. We have no cultural or language history. We got English from the Brits, although lord knows they don't speak it very well, and our "culture", such as it is, is a mixture of cultures from all over the world.

In the case of language, we are not interested in the beauty of English (a questionable notion at best) but in its utilitarianism. We tend to refine things down to the most practicable and usable form and don't worry about whether some stuffy organization is going to disagree in the manner that the RAE monitors Spanish.

I think the point is that there is nothing you can do to stop or erase Spanglish. It is inevitable. There just isn't much point in railing against it. As people who love languages, we can respect that languages evolve in ways that we have no control over and we can respect that languages are alive and are constantly influenced by the environment. It's the very nature of language. It has been that way forever. We can embrace the change, study it, try to understand it, and enjoy it. In fact, we should celebrate that our languages are living, evolving, growing, changing.

Lamenting Spanglish is like complaining about the weather or wishing the waves wouldn't change the shoreline.

Inevitable is right...absolutely. We can complain 'til the cows come home but the younger generation is leading the way through the Internet and there's no stopping them.

I get more upset with the deliberate mis-spelling of words in our own languages (girlz, boyz, brotha, ur and ke, kiero, kasa, etc.) than I do with Spanglish.

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Originally Posted by vicente

Inevitable is right...absolutely. We can complain 'til the cows come home but the younger generation is leading the way through the Internet and there's no stopping them.

I get more upset with the deliberate mis-spelling of words in our own languages (girlz, boyz, brotha, ur and ke, kiero, kasa, etc.) than I do with Spanglish.

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To misspelling I add the incorrect grammar, the lack of a vast vocabulary (I don't mean we all have to be Shakespeares or Cervantes's, but at least have some more words to use!) :mad:

In 400 years the way we speak will be, to that new generation, as Shakespeare is to us. So, in a way we are Shakespeares who aren't appreciated in our time!

That's a very disturbing thought, Maria.:eek:

Hmmmm...but conceiveably, what we are writing here in the forum could still be archived somewhere on the Internet in 400 years. Maybe I should clean up my act and try to appear more scholarly.

Laura, you are so right. I've noticed on some other forums that people are losing the ability to write except in simple terms and they make such basic mistakes in grammar...they write "your" for "you're"...they don't seem to know that the word "than" exists...it is always written as "then"...even by people who claim to have college degrees.

What they do not need is to dumb themselves down even further by deliberate mis-spelling just to sound cool. I honestly believe that there are some of them who, by now, think boys is spelled with a z and the word "probably" is spelled "prolly"

El primer concepto que hay que revisar es el de "español". ¿Existe el idioma español? Es decir, un conjunto de palabras y reglas para expresar ideas y que es común a todo un grupo de hispanohablantes? La respuesta es sencilla: NO. No hay dos personas que tengan exactamente el mismo vocabulario ni sigan exactamente las mismas reglas porque esto depende de una variedad de factores muy grande: edad, región, empleo, estudios, grupo de amigos, religión, etc.

La idea de UN español como ente perfectamente delimitado igual un cuadrado y que todo lo que está dentro existe y todo lo que está afuera no existe, es, por decirlo redundantemente, una idea cuadrada, anquilosada.

El español (y todos los idiomas con más de dos hablantes) es un concepto comparable a una gelatina más que a un trozo de acero grueso e inflexible.

Con esto, no quiero decir que existan usos incorrectos del idioma. Pero estos usos incorrectos no corresponden a reglas establecidas desde arriba y que se aplican en todas las situaciones y para todas las personas. El idioma se aplica correctamente cuando se apega a las circunstancias. En el caso del Spanglish, llámenlo o no aberración del español o el inglés, se apega a las circunstancias comunicativas, por lo tanto es, y nadie podrá detenerlo, nos guste o no.

No nos rasguemos las vestiduras. Los idiomas pueden ser sublimes herramientas artísticas, pero antes que nada son herramientas de trabajo. Las piernas están "diseñadas" para caminar, si se usan para bailar ballet es otro cuento (y si nos gusta el ballet o no, otro cuento más). Así que contentémonos con la oportunidad de observar e investigar este fenómeno que se cruza ante nuestros ojos y que podría ser nada menos que el nacimiento de un nuevo idioma, proceso inevitable aunque se nos retuerza el hígado.

Aprecio mucho los comentarios de Julio Jaubert. Y estoy de acuerdo.

(Y la expresión "rasgar las vestiduras" me es nuevo y me gusta---gracias.)

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Originally Posted by Fresno22

I heard a teenager tell her boyfriend this: "Hey, Dame una quebrada!"
Meaning "give me a break" !!! (accent on the "a" in Dame)
Literal Spanglish translation and sounds very funny...
But, how would you translate "give me a break" into Spanish?
Maybe: something like "Dejame en paz?" Realmente ni idea...
"Give me a break" is similar to "cut me some slack" --don't take things so seriously...pardon me..Wow!....it's my native language and I can't think of how to get the point across without using one of those 2 expressions. :( Perhaps, show me some consideration...as in: "Mija, you haven't cleaned your room for a week!"
"Hey mom, show me some consideration, I've been studying for finals all week."
Or, FAR more common, "Give me (Gimme) a break, I've been studying for finals all week."
Any ideas??
Thanks :)

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Well the phrase "dame quebrada, o dame una quebrada" refers to: waiting.
For example: Hey mom, wait!

Mija= Mi hija = My daughter

I hope it could help to answer your doubts :)!

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Originally Posted by vicente

... Spanish, for all its beauty, does not have the wide variety of words to describe things in the same detail as can be done in English, at least, not to the average speaker. Example: camioneta=small truck, suv, station wagon, pickup. van, mini-van, etc. To my knowledge, there are no specific words for these vehicles individually in Latin America. If there are, they are not well known, so if I am trying to say I own a Ford pickup I have to say "pickup" because "camioneta" does not tell you which Ford product I'm talking about.

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Hi Vicente,

I apologize for coming in late to this multivariate conversation, but I couldn't help but comment on this particular post.

I once believed this, too: that English had a lot more descriptive words than Spanish. But if you truly spend time living in one (preferably more than one) Spanish-speaking country, you'll learn that Spanish is at least as colorful and descriptive as English.

There are dozens of examples like the one you gave -- for both languages. Take the word "handle"...in Spanish, you have mango (broom, knife...), puño (umbrella), asa (cup, suitcase), manilla (door), empuñadura (racket, bat), etc.... I'm sure there are more.

Another one I remember being shocked by was the word "slice" (as in a slice of something)...in Spanish, there is porción (pizza, cake), trozo (cake), tajada (beef), rodaja (cucumber, etc), rebanada (bread), loncha (cheese...), etc.

These are just two good examples I have learned about along the way. There are MANY like this. Spanish is spoken as a native language in a lot more countries than English, and its slang and vernacular are accordingly diverse. Not to mention, you forgot a few common words in your example: furgón,
furgoneta, and la furgo, all used to describe slight variations of trucks, vans, etc, depending on what region of what country you're in.

Not to mention how much more descriptive all the conjugations in Spanish are! A few of them don't even EXIST in English!

All in all, after speaking Spanish for years, I think they're probably about equal.

Matt