There are a few words in Spanish that are just fun to say. They are long, strange and/or hard to pronounce the first time you try them, but once you’ve got them down, they are really fun -and impressive (impresionante) to your friends that you know how to say them!
For instance:
Sneeze: Estornudo (Es-Tor-Noo-Doe)
Parking: Estacionamiento (Es-Ta-See-Own-Ah-Me-En-Toe)
Unfortunately: Desafortunadamente (Des-Ah-For-Too-Nah-Dah-Men-Tay)
Early Morning/Late Night: La Madrugada (Lah Mah-Drew-Gah-Dah)
Rugrat/Squirt: Esquincle (Es-Quink-Lay)
Pants: Pantalones (Pant-ah-Loan-es) -Comes from the old word pantalooms
Regrettably: Lamentablemente (Lah-Men-Tah- Blay-Men-Tay)
Gossip (a person): Chismoso(a) (Cheese- Moh-So) If it’s a woman, it ends with the “a”
Gratitude: Agradecimiento (Ah-Grah-Day-See-Me-En-Toe)
Definitely: Definitivamente (Def-Een-Ah-Teev-Ah-Men-Tay)
Bat (the animal): Murciélago (Mur-See-A-Lah-Go) -This one is so cool they named a Lamborghini after it.
Mushrooms- Champiñones (Champ-een-yon-es) (another word for mushrooms is “Hongos”)
Sausage –Salchicha (Sahl-Chee-Cha)
Population- Población -(Poe-Blah-See-Own)
Cool Spanish Word =Cool Marketing for a Sports Car (Probably wouldn’t have seemed so cool if it were called a Lam Bat)
You’ll notice that some of the longer ones end in “mente”. This suffix is for most any adverb that ends in “ly”. Absolutely! ¡Absolutamente!
Because of things like this, on average Spanish words are just a bit longer and take a bit more space and time to say. To compensate, some people think Spanish speakers talk faster, but really, they are probably getting the information out at the same speed, but the syllables are coming out faster. For instance, here is a paragraph in English and Spanish using some of the above words.
Hello. I am calling about the pants my little squirt ordered off the Internet last night while we were sleeping. Regrettably, we can not buy the pants he ordered.
Buenos días. Estoy llamando sobre los pantalones mi esquincle ordenó por Internet ayer en la madrugada mientras estabamos dormidos. Lamentablemente, no podemos comprar los pantalones que él ordenó.
As you can see, for every two syllables, two words or two sentences in English, it takes about three in Spanish. But they are oh, so much more fun to say, so it’s worth it! 🙂
Cassie, your Spanish is awesome! You should have no trouble communicating in Puerto Rico. One minor thing: In my experience, madrugada ONLY means dawn. As you already know, there are regional differences in words used in different countries. For example, in PR, we are more likely to call squirts pibes rather than esquincles. Mushrooms: We can say either as you stated, or cetas. Then there is the ubiquitous Spanglish which I’m sure you’ll pick up quickly. For example, estacionamiento is also pronounced “par-keen”. 🙂 Fran
Thanks Fran. I learned Spanish around this area in Colorado (with most Spanish-speaking people coming from Northern Mexico) and from living in central Mexico, so it will take me a while to pick up all the regionalisms of Puerto Rican Spanish.
I’ve learned some like the “parkeen” example -ha-. I’ve always heard “amanecer” for dawn and “madrugada” for the wee hours in the middle of the night past midnight but not quite dawn but it could definitely be different in Puerto Rico. I hadn’t heard of “pibes” that’s a cute word though and “cetas” is new for mushrooms too.
I love Spanish and even though there’s a lot of Spanglish in Puerto Rican Spanish, I think it’s just a sign of the evolution and mixture of language in general, no matter where you go.
Here in the west you will find that many words and letters are dropped out or are substituted with other ones that have no relation to what’s gone missing! Amusing definately. A perro is a pejo in my area, carro is a cajo and whole words and conjugations just don’t show up! If I can catch the infinative I can usually figure things out but sometimes…. Expressions are wonderful- we were hiking in the wet, slick jungle and a friend (Spanish speaking with minimal english) said something about a pumpkin (none were around) and it ended up being about how the slope was so steep we were going to roll like pumpkins down it! A version of a rock rolling in the river I suppose – hysterical once I figured it out!
That translation is so literal that sounds unnatural.