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ADDED DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT TRYING TO BERATE MONOLINGUALS OR PEOPLE WHO CANNOT SPEAK SPANISH. THIS THREAD IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY TO SPANISH-SPEAKERS. ANY STUPIDITY INFERRED IS SOMEONE ELSE'S PROBLEM, NOT MINE.
1) "No problemo." Uh, yes there is... and it stems from your inability to say the freaking word right. Problema. See the "a" at the end? Not an "o," is it. Right. Remember it. In general, just stop sticking os at the end of English words and acting like it's Spanish. You sound dumb. (BTW, "problema" is actually masculine, so don't start saying "la problema" just because it has an "a" and you've mistakenly come to believe that all words that end in "a" have to be feminine in Spanish. In fact, words derived from Greek, like "problema" and "tema" often end in "a," but are masculine. Just in case you were wondering, which I doubt.)
2) El chupacabra. "The sucker of one goat"? Christ almighty. Look, when you form compounds this way, with an action preceding the object of that action (and when that object is a count noun), the noun element retains the plural ending even if the compound is being used in the singular. So "goat-sucker" is "chupacabras," just like "bed-wetter" would be "meacamas" and "ball-breaker" would be "rompebolas." You need to start getting freaking Spanish-speaking consultants for your cheap-ass TV miniseries.
3) Los Ángeles. Yes, well, you spell it more or less correctly, but there's a major issue. You've noticed that Las Vegas has an "a" between the "l" and "s," I assume? Have you ever thought (again, I doubt it), "Gee, why are there two spellings for the same pronunciation?" Well, guess what, bright guy... you're bungling the pronuciation. Try pronouncing that "o" like the one in "ho" and you'll be closer.
More to follow soon...
[ February 15, 2005, 09:29 AM: Message edited by: David Bowles ]
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I don't see why you're so hung up on the "Loss" part when there's the whole "Ann-juh-less" part, too. Besides, it's much easier to just say "LA."
Probably best to stay out of conversations involving the location of the Port of Los Angeles, David, unless "Sann Peedro" wouldn't send you off the deep end.
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4) Breakfast Burritos. Uh, no. You don't put breakfasty stuff in burritos. You must mean breakfast tacos or taquitos. Yes. We'll just pretend that's what you're really saying.
5) "Vie-uh kun Dee-ose". Okay. Deep breath. Let's try this one all together. "Vaya con dios" is actually pronounced as follows: BAH-yah kohn (short "o" sound without any lip-rounding "w" nonsense at the end to dipthongize its purity) THYOHS (more or less the hard "th" from "the" blended with the glide of the "y" plus that short "o" I mentioned above). God's name isn't bisyllabic in Spanish, folks.
6) "Jala-peenoz". Yeah. Could you, uh, please stop inducing shudders in the millions of Mexican-Americans living in this country? "Jalapeños": Ha-lah-PEH (as in "pen," for those of you who pronounce that one correctly)-ñohs (we'll even accept a "nyohs" from you if you can't do eñes).
7) Voice actors doing Hispanic characters in cartoons: give up. Let a real Hispanic do it. There are enough around... what do you want to steal their jobs for? Take "Mucha Lucha" for example, Farmgirl. Last night I actually caught an entire episode of this show my four-year-old loves so much. I was appalled! The villains were voiced by obvious monolinguals trying hard to sound Mexican and ending up sounding insulting. In general, people need to catch on to the fact that Latinos/Hispanics are the largest minority group in the nation, and they're pretty much fed up with the condescension. Heads up.
[ February 09, 2005, 03:42 PM: Message edited by: David Bowles ]
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It's important to encourage a little bit of linguistic understanding, especially in a bilingual country, but there are also accepted anglicizations.
I don't pronounce anglicized French words like hors-d'œuvres and maitre d' with a correct French accent if I want to be understood and don't want to be thought a snob.
There's got to be a little give and take when you're dealing with the general public.
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Duchovney couldn't pronounce anything. But boy, is he hot...
And if you don't like "Los Angeles", how about "Sepulveda Blvd." pronounced "sep-ULL-vih-duh", or *shudder* "tor-TIL-a", as in sounds like "till"?
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I agree that Americans need to be more informed. I even think that American schools should be bilingual - not as in "reform the hispanic kids," but as in "make everyone speak both languages."
But you still have to accept anglicization. English words that make it into Spanish change pronunciation as well.
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Were this a serious thread, rather than a tongue-in-cheek one, I'd agree. As it stands, no. No anglicizing jalapeños. Totally unnecessary. Posts: 5663 | Registered: Jun 2000
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It's probably good you don't live here, then, DB. You haven't lived until you've heard someone order ja-LAP-uh-noze.
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Yeah, well, we're raising up a generation of Latinos down here that'll be invading a shopping mall near you soon enough, Annie...
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I think I live in the only region of the United States with a latino population of zero. It's pretty depressing - especially when I want to buy some nice imported chiles and the closest I get is a Mexican aisle full of taco shells and mild Pace picante sauce.
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Are Hispanics in general really offended by the mispronunciations in the U.S.? I mean, many of these are words that have pretty much been worked into the English language. Saying "no problemo" is not some veiled insult. It's just a cheerful way of saying you'll do something. Sure, it's a bastardization of the Spanish phrase, but most of the English language is a bastardization of some language anyway. Most of the time, there's no offense intended.
I heard English words co-opted by the French all the time when I was over there. They pronounced "Minnesota" with French accents. They said "le week-end." Did I get up in arms?
I think you're kind of unnecessarily antagonizing your fellow jatraqueros here.
Edit: Oh, this is tongue-in-cheek.
[ February 09, 2005, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
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Yeah, well, that's gotta be tough. Won't belong before that changes, I'd be willing to bet. There are new Hispanic communities cropping up all over the nation, in places where, frankly, the local white bread populace is not ready for them.
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DB - I could never sneak up on my friend Pancho Villa. He said he could smell me coming for a mile. We once played a trick on the tracking hounds of those Americans soldiers. While they were following me, my friend Pancho Villa was stealing their horses. Posts: 35 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Chupichups, while your anecdote may strike others as anachronistic, I'll not antagonize you, but accept your story in the spirit in which it was told.
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afr - I love franglais. The best, imo, is le cow-boy. People would ask where I was from and I'd say Montana and they'd give me blank stares. I'd elaborate: "Dans le nord-ouest. Le pays des cow-boys."
That made me really popular, especially with old women who grew up on Gary Cooper. "Ah! Les cow-boys! Oui, oui, oui!"
Trying to explain to Mexicans where Montana was is similarly entertaining. They'd ask if it was near California or Chicago. "No - es norte, circa de Canada."
"Ah! Canada!" they'd exclaim knowingly (this was during the SARS scare) and then proceed to cough and nod happily.
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Dagoneado- I wouldn't, unless you are Hispanic or another minority. Or a major contributor to progressive causes. Don't you know that whites can't make fun of the way minorities speak Spanish (unless they move in the proper ideological circles)? Hel-LO?
Besides, there IS an "e" in "especial." That's a word.
Annie, is "le cowboy" really Franglais? I always imagined that dialect to sound a bit like this:
"Bouge pas, you hair-lipped enculé! Dudes, check out ce mec. I think he's a flic!"
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I think we ought to make a new dialect that combines Mexican slang with French slang. So a group of alcoholic screwups, for example, might go: "La regamos; ça s'arrose!"
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quote: Yeah, well, that's gotta be tough. Won't belong before that changes, I'd be willing to bet. There are new Hispanic communities cropping up all over the nation, in places where, frankly, the local white bread populace is not ready for them.
It's really ranchero music that gives the rest of the hispanic community a bad name.
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I wouldn't actually classify cow-boy as franglais - I think it's been OKed by l'Académie. I don't really know much of real franglais dialects - I'm not too familiar with Québecois, and that's the only real sizeable dialect where English and French are both close in proximity. The way we used franglais at the University was more to refer to fudged vocabularies on either end.
The funniest franglais I've heard is by entry level French students. I asked a kid I was tutoring once, "Est-ce tu as réfléchi un peu sur le sujet de ta présentation?"
He answered, "Yeah, I réfléchied a little bit and thought I'd..."
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"Storm Saxon": Jesús mío, hasta el nombre suena a neonazis británicos. Hey, you'd think ranchero and down-home country would mix real nice-like, what?
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I'd much prefer that my children learn how to read and speak english properly before inundating them with another language, and as a white, anglo-saxon male(read as "TARGET for every minority group with a grudge") I'd really like to just be able to order my food without having to speak a second language.
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Human Target - studies show that young children who learn another language are not "inundated" by all the extra information. It actually makes their brain better at learning other information. There's not a maximum capacity on their brains.
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Annie, if you'd ever like dried red chile pods from New Mexico, I'd be happy to send you some. They range from mild to extra hot, if you have a particular preference.
I'd offer green chile but we get ours freshly roasted so we can peel them and freeze them for later use, so I don't think they'd travel well.
Just let me know. Posts: 378 | Registered: Aug 2004
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Ooh - I'll keep that in mind, Uhleeuh. I already buy way more than I should from mexicangrocer.com, but I miss being able to find good chiles. You know what else really needs an export market? Oaxaqueño cheese.
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I don't know, I've just been in so many emotional discussions about bilingualism and English only that I can't be humorous about this. I mean, English speakers can't even pronounce their own language. Give us a break.
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quote:Trying to explain to Mexicans where Montana was is similarly entertaining. They'd ask if it was near California or Chicago. "No - es norte, circa de Canada."
Wisconsin is north of Chicago. And even then, most Greeks needed a bit of "East of New York, West of L.A. and close to Canada."
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So, speaking of Chupacabras - the Latin American Studies student association here on campus uses the Chupacabras as our mascot. Before intramural flag football games last fall, everyone would get in a circle with a hand in the center and shout, "Chupa, chupa, chupa!" Strangely enough, it turned out to be awfully prophetic 'cause we really did suck (0-4, Go Chupas!).
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My two Mexican-American daughters are fully bilingual and not only get As, but demonstrate a grasp of English (especially in creative or academic contexts) that excells that of other girls their ages.
My son, unfortunately, watches a lot of SpongeBob and Mucha Lucha, and I've pretty much given up on him.
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Annie, I think you may be right about your part of the country. Even my KKK-ridden home county is seeing large numbers of Hispanics these days. (Blacks remain almost unheard of.)
On a lighter note--you guys mean that n-with-a-tilde-on-top ISN'T pronounced nyah? (How is it pronounced? *curious*)
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