Comments on: Having Spanglish Fun

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:13:28 +0000

The word I cannot get my son to correct is “bringar” instead of traer. In the reverse, he tells my husband in English that salsa “piques” him and my husband has now adopted it. ¿Quien sabe?
My absolute favorite favorite that I actually encouraged was when he started talking about “Salsa Clause” at Christmas when he was barely 2 years old. This past Christmas he kept correcting me like I had gone crazy: “How could mom get Santa Claus wrong?!?”

By: Ana Flores

Ana Flores — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:35:04 +0000

This has to be one of my favorite topics..it’s so fun!
My girl is stuck with several words. One of them is “tochar” for touch and today she made up the funniest one so far: Palepop for popsicle/paleta!! We really laughed with that one!

By: BethO

BethO — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:47:11 +0000

LOL Jessica, that’s my life!!!
This is actually a big challenge I face.
There are so many words people are using deep in the heart of Mexico that are actually English words. Then here in Houston people can get by for years without learning English. People in our family mostly don’t speak English & don’t know what’s “Spanish” and what’s “Spanglish”.
Examples:
Sueter = a coat or jacket for use outdoors (but ironically, an actual sweater that you’d wear indoors is an abrigo…)
Wipers = baby wipes (and don’t try to say wipers when you can’t remember the word for car wipers, I already tried that, and they had no idea what I was trying to say)
My stepkids, nieces, nephews speaking English use the English words sweater or wiper — but with the Spanglish meaning. I guess (hope?) they will figure it out as they get older. At their age their circle doesn’t reach much beyond their neighborhood and school, where the other kids are doing the exact same thing.
Recently I was asking my two brothers-in-law if a friend of theirs still wanted to buy used pallets because I had a client wanting to get rid of some. They didn’t understand me and said, Que son tarimas? Now, I’ve worked with shipping internationally for years, and I know that’s the word. I was lost, but my husband came walking up and said, Quiere decir paletas. Ah, they said, Si. I laughed — popsicles??? But yeah, of course… paletas = pallets. At work I talk with people all over the Spanish-speaking world, and they’re coming from a different perspective.
So to me, that is the point. Nothing against Spanglish per se; I even think it is really cool. But I would like my son to learn the words that will allow him to communicate with anybody, not just in the neighborhood. It is challenging to get him exposed to those words when my husband is the only native speaker who is actually able to speak like that (and has to remember to do it).
Kudos to you, Kim, for being able to turn it all into a laugh. I have a hard time with that sometimes. It almost makes me physically cringe, some of the stuff I hear. I get anxious about whether my boy will be able to get beyond it. I know I should give him a bit more credit….!!!

By: Jessica

Jessica — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:27:13 +0000

My husband is from Mexico and has lived in the US for about 14 years. He uses the word carpeta for the carpet. I was taught to say ‘alfombra’ in school, but switched to using ‘carpeta’ because he always used it. I had no idea it was wrong. You’d think he would know that!