# Do Spanish speakers do anything to Spanish words to make them sound more English? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073 "2020-05-18T22:43:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/61 "2020-05-24T08:32:11Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > I’m thinking of the opposite of what is common in English to make words sound more Spanish. Usually, this is done by adding an “o” to the end of a word or prefixing the word with an “el” or “la”. Among Spanish speakers, is there any equivalent to try to make Spanish words sound English? Not Spanish, but when I lived in Brazil, “mocking” English sounded very much like English speakers trying to mock Chinese. Maybe gibberish is universal. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/62 "2020-05-24T08:51:26Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Not Spanish, but when I lived in Brazil, “mocking” English sounded very much like English speakers trying to mock Chinese. Maybe gibberish is universal. Yes but how often do people stand around speaking gibberish?? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/63 "2020-05-24T15:41:59Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > Yeah, that’s the Upper Midwest. But what’s our excuse in San Francisco for pronouncing “Cabrillo” street “cah-BRILL-oh”? I was speaking with a customer once whose name was Joaquin Bonilla. We have a fairly large Spanish speaking population in these parts, so I knew to read it “hwa-KEEN bo-NEE-ya”. Guy stopped me right in mid sentence and corrected me indignantly, "It’s ‘bo NILL-a’. OK, fine, whatever, it’s your name and I’ll pronounce it ‘Throatwarbler’ if you want, but you’re the one being unusual so don’t go getting pissy from the get-go. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/64 "2020-05-24T18:45:19Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > The name Vueling gets badly on my nerves. I don’t know if they mean it in earnest, if they are making fun of me or calling me and their customers in general an idiot. Making fun of the general trend. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I’ve had the same problem with empanada (thinking the ‘n’ was an ‘ñ’.) I think it’s more just an error than a hypercorrection. It’s a perfect example of a hypercorrection: believing that the correct version cannot be correct. > [@Retzbu\_Tox](#): > > Regarding oh and slow, cocoa might be a word Anglophones pronounce without turning the final vowel into a dipthong. I hear and say the two syllables the same: “co-co”, without getting that hint of the “w” sound on the end. Problem being: one, the “final vowel” is written with two vowels but in people who pronounce it as one actual vowel the “a” is there for decoration; two, some people pronounce it almost cow-cow; three, and some pronounce it cow-co. Sometimes I think we should just nuke y’all and let Og sort his own… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/65 "2020-05-24T18:52:29Z")
Oh, and that cow-cow or cow-co rhymes with slow, not with cow. Pardel-Lux, some of them actually get it. Michael Robinson managed to avoid that particular minefield the inmense majority of the time, for example. Dude always had an English accent but “sticks extra vowels everywhere and can’t syllabize to save his life” wasn’t part of it. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2020, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/66 "2020-05-24T20:33:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > […] > Pardel-Lux, some of them actually get it. Michael Robinson managed to avoid that particular minefield the inmense majority of the time, for example. Dude always had an English accent but “sticks extra vowels everywhere and can’t syllabize to save his life” wasn’t part of it. Yes, you are right: Michael Robinson was an exceptionally good one, and a great loss. He knew what he wanted to say and how to say it. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/67 "2020-05-25T11:59:29Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > One of the more delightful discoveries I made, as an English major studying abroad in Spain, was that the name “Shakespeare” has _six_ syllables: e-SHAHK-e-spay-AR-ay. I wonder whether that’s in revenge for the people of England’s pronouncing the name of Spanish literature’s probably most-loved character, as “Don KWICK-soat”? ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/68 "2020-05-25T17:05:53Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > It’s a perfect example of a hypercorrection: believing that the correct version cannot be correct. No, it isn’t. Firstly, I didn’t believe that empanada _could not_ be correct; I merely believed - until I was corrected - that it was empañada. If that’s a hypercorrection, then the word loses all meaning. It’s just an error. > [@](#): > > Problem being: one, the “final vowel” is written with two vowels but in people who pronounce it as one actual vowel the “a” is there for decoration; two, some people pronounce it almost cow-cow; three, and some pronounce it cow-co. English is funny - we use silent vowels quite frequently. It would surprise no one (no one fluent in English, that is) that the ‘a’ ending ‘cocoa’ is silent. Silent letters aren’t generally for decoration only, since they often affect the pronunciation of other vowels in the word. But in this case, it really is for decoration only, since we’d pronounce ‘coco’ the same way, as in the name, ‘Coco Chanel.’ Cow-cow or cow-co, on the other hand, would be pronounced quite differently, and I’ve never heard anyone say it anywhere near that way. Are you mixing it up with cacao (ca-cow)? > [@](#): > > Sometimes I think we should just nuke y’all and let Og sort his own… 😛 No Spanish-speaking countries have nukes. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/69 "2020-05-25T21:45:24Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > . But in this case, it really is for decoration only, since we’d pronounce ‘coco’ the same way, as in the name, ‘Coco Chanel.’ Cow-cow or cow-co, on the other hand, would be pronounced quite differently, and I’ve never heard anyone say it anywhere near that way. Yet I hear many English speakers say “cocoa”, “coconut” or “Coco Chanel” who in at least one of the syllables, usually the first one, still do the fadeout effect on the “o”. (And I think that’s a better way of thinking of it: In English the sound of an “o” that ends the syllable tends to have a bit of a tailing-off “fadeout” rather than just stopping. A Spanish speaker parodying an English accent will exaggerate that into something rhyming with “slowww…”) BTW: Spanish pronunciation of “[coco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6DJ3qTo_k4)”. > [@](#): > > No Spanish-speaking countries have nukes. That we know of… OTOH we have settled on one pronunciation of “nuclear”, that oughta help save time. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/70 "2020-05-25T23:27:43Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > One of the more delightful discoveries I made, as an English major studying abroad in Spain, was that the name “Shakespeare” has _six_ syllables: e-SHAHK-e-spay-AR-ay. Do all Spanish words that might otherwise begin with S necessarily have that “e” stuck in front of it by default? Seems to appear in a lot of Espanish words. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/71 "2020-05-26T00:20:46Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Do all Spanish words that might otherwise begin with S necessarily have that “e” stuck in front of it by default? Seems to appear in a lot of Espanish words. No (e.g. salsa, segundo, etc.). Spanish speakers don’t add an “e” when an initial “s” is followed by a vowel, [but only when it’s followed by a consonant.](https://spanish.yabla.com/lesson-%22S%2Bconsonant%22--216) Very few Spanish words start with an “s” followed by a consonant. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/72 "2020-05-26T05:30:46Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > No Spanish-speaking countries have nukes. The USA. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/73 "2020-05-26T15:57:35Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Yet I hear many English speakers say “cocoa”, “coconut” or “Coco Chanel” who in at least one of the syllables, usually the first one, still do the fadeout effect on the “o”. (And I think that’s a better way of thinking of it: In English the sound of an “o” that ends the syllable tends to have a bit of a tailing-off “fadeout” rather than just stopping. A Spanish speaker parodying an English accent will exaggerate that into something rhyming with “slowww…”) Yeah, I’ll stipulate that we may do something with long-o sounds at the end of words that I can’t really distinguish, even if I do it myself. Phonology isn’t my strong suit. In that post I was really responding to the claim that the ‘co’ sound is anything like the sound in ‘cow.’ It’s possibly that by ‘cow’ Nava meant a work that starts with a hard-c and rhymes with ‘slow’, like one of the syllables of cocoa, but with the trailing off you describe. > [@Nava](#): > > The USA. Zing? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/74 "2020-05-26T21:17:48Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Sometimes I think we should just nuke y’all and let Og sort his own… 😛 > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > No Spanish-speaking countries have nukes. > [@Nava](#): > > The USA. We should nuke ourselves? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![CeleTheRef](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@CeleTheRef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CeleTheRef)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/75 "2020-05-26T23:49:13Z")
> [@uncle\_squeegee](#): > > This song was written to sound like English (but by Italians, not Spanish speakers). > > [https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m\_Nt8](https://youtu.be/-VsmF9m_Nt8) Another good example from Italy is this Almost everything said about Spain in this thread applies to Italy as well. That’s what happens when a totalitarian regime keeps people from using foreign languages for decades. > [@Colibri](#): > > In fake Italian you wave your hands around a lot more.😃 > > Actually, in fake Italian you add “a,” not “o.” And in fake Spanish, you put “el” in front of everything. That’s-a not-a true… :smack: [https://www.ftmentertainment.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/la-ruota-della-fortuna-88be3fc551.jpg](https://www.ftmentertainment.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/la-ruota-della-fortuna-88be3fc551.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/76 "2020-05-27T00:40:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > We should nuke ourselves? :dubious: You put names on nuclear missiles that then you cannot pronounce (have you heard Dave Mustaine try to pronounce “Polaris”?, I think he broke at least 3 vocal cords), and given your current standards of governance I wouldn’t be surprised if you did 😛 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/77 "2020-05-27T01:54:01Z")
We \*have \*accidentally dropped a couple of live nukes on ourselves over the years, fortunately the Big Boom part did not go off. > [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > It’s possibly that by ‘cow’ Nava meant a work that starts with a hard-c and rhymes with ‘slow’, like one of the syllables of cocoa, but with the trailing off you describe. She clarified as much in post #65. > [@](#): > > > [@Nava](#): > > > > The USA. > > Zing? Hey, one of the Academias de la Lengua Española _ **is** _ that of the United States (interestingly under the “Norteamericana” designation as opposed to “Estadounidense”) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/78 "2020-05-27T03:46:56Z")
> [@CeleTheRef](#): > > Almost everything said about Spain in this thread applies to Italy as well. That’s what happens when a totalitarian regime keeps people from using foreign languages for decades. The second part, not true. Many people in Spain could speak foreign languages during Franco’s regime. Those languages simply weren’t English; mainly they were German and/or French (plus of course Latin, since you didn’t graduate anything without it), the same languages which had been useful internationally for centuries. Despite what some people believe there are other languages out there and some of those languages were dominant in the diplomatic, trade and scientific worlds for centuries before the privileged geography of the US brought English to prominence. > [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > One of the more delightful discoveries I made, as an English major studying abroad in Spain, was that the name “Shakespeare” has _six_ syllables: e-SHAHK-e-spay-AR-ay. Anyone who put an e- there was either pulling your leg or saying “eh… sha-kes-pe-A-re”. And if there’s a secondary stress it’s in KES, not sha. Oh, you’ve also managed to place pretty much every consonant in the wrong syllable. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/79 "2020-05-27T05:09:23Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Anyone who put an e- there was either pulling your leg or saying “eh… sha-kes-pe-A-re”. [This guy](https://youglish.com/pronounce/shakespeare/spanish) is certainly sticking a bit of an “e” before the “s” both times he says it (although it’s not very distinct), so at least some Spanish speakers do. However, he’s also not trying to pronounce it in a Spanish manner, but just using the English pronunciation with an “e” tacked in front. I agree the proper Spanish version shouldn’t tack on an “e,” since “h” isn’t really treated as a consonant in Spanish, so that the “s” should be treated as if it is followed directly by the vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2020, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073/80 "2020-05-27T10:32:34Z")
Sorry, **Colibri** , **Nava** is more right than you on this one. And on the “other languages spoken that are not English” **Nava** is not only right, but it was high time somebody said it, so thank you for it. The triumph of English as a diplomatic language was not cemented until the East European countries joined the EU, until the end of last century the language of diplomacy was French. It’s preeminence had been eroding for ages, but it did not collapse until around the mid-90’s. I was working in the EU then, I saw it, and it was quite impressive and unexpected for many. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-spanish-speakers-do-anything-to-spanish-words-to-make-them-sound-more-english/854073.md?page=5)