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! 🙂