Nubia Varguez / Mexico
Spanglish is a real thing. Grammatically speaking, it obviously isn’t, but it’s what I would use to describe how I speak to my family. It’s not quite English, it's not quite Spanish. For me, a young Mexican girl who learned how to speak English and now has a hard time speaking Spanish, spanglish gets me through many conversations. It’s an effort.
English is not my first language, Spanish is. So when I started elementary school there were many words I didn’t know how to say in English, so I would just blend the Spanish word in an american accent and hope to get by when talking to my non-Spanish speaking friends, and it worked. I had found a way to talk and communicate to them. I remember not knowing how to say “molars” in Spanish so I would say “muela” really fast in a confused american accent hoping no one caught that I didn’t know the word. At this point I had figured out that many words in English and in Spanish were similar so I was hoping that was the case.
Fast forward to now, I speak and read English throughout 70% of my day that I have forgotten many Spanish words and now have a bit of trouble speaking. No fear, because spanglish is here. I communicate with my mom using spanglish. The common “parking” is turned into “parquing”, “click” is turned into “clickear”, “to check” is “chequear” and the classic “party” is “pari.” All of this words are not real. “Pari” is not a real word, if you want to say party in Spanish you say “fiesta” but me and many Hispanic kids in america know that “pari” is what you use. This is how I talk to my mom, and when I can’t even thinking of a spanglish word to use for a word I just repeat it and repeat.
Spanglish is a result of many people not quite knowing how say what they want to say but knowing there’s a way to say it, and also a result of two cultures coming together. The American and for me, the Mexican. In a country where the majority of people speak English and it being the dominant language on signs and papers, it’s important to know English, but head on down to a few restaurants and shops in Los Angeles and Spanish is very useful to know. Spanglish provides that in between. It may not be correct, but it’s an effort. Which is a thing I love about my culture and love being Hispanic. There is always effort for everything. Whether my mom can say a word or not she tries, my dad can understand it and he speaks it by trying. A few wrong words here and there, a little accent and flavor. Voila, you got spanglish. We don’t give up and I look at spanglish like that.
English is not my first language, Spanish is. So when I started elementary school there were many words I didn’t know how to say in English, so I would just blend the Spanish word in an american accent and hope to get by when talking to my non-Spanish speaking friends, and it worked. I had found a way to talk and communicate to them. I remember not knowing how to say “molars” in Spanish so I would say “muela” really fast in a confused american accent hoping no one caught that I didn’t know the word. At this point I had figured out that many words in English and in Spanish were similar so I was hoping that was the case.
Fast forward to now, I speak and read English throughout 70% of my day that I have forgotten many Spanish words and now have a bit of trouble speaking. No fear, because spanglish is here. I communicate with my mom using spanglish. The common “parking” is turned into “parquing”, “click” is turned into “clickear”, “to check” is “chequear” and the classic “party” is “pari.” All of this words are not real. “Pari” is not a real word, if you want to say party in Spanish you say “fiesta” but me and many Hispanic kids in america know that “pari” is what you use. This is how I talk to my mom, and when I can’t even thinking of a spanglish word to use for a word I just repeat it and repeat.
Spanglish is a result of many people not quite knowing how say what they want to say but knowing there’s a way to say it, and also a result of two cultures coming together. The American and for me, the Mexican. In a country where the majority of people speak English and it being the dominant language on signs and papers, it’s important to know English, but head on down to a few restaurants and shops in Los Angeles and Spanish is very useful to know. Spanglish provides that in between. It may not be correct, but it’s an effort. Which is a thing I love about my culture and love being Hispanic. There is always effort for everything. Whether my mom can say a word or not she tries, my dad can understand it and he speaks it by trying. A few wrong words here and there, a little accent and flavor. Voila, you got spanglish. We don’t give up and I look at spanglish like that.