Spanish words used in English

"Hombre, the Spanish word for “man,” which in English is often used in a slightly more informal fashion to refer to a “guy” or “fellow,” spiked 120,000% over the hourly average after ´…´used the word in the final presidential debate.

How frequent is it to encounter spanish words in English?

It will depend on the country: in the US more often than in the UK, I think. But who could give you an exact answer?

in america it more common but they can also be used as insults ,or to demean spanish speakers or spanish /mexican culture

There are quite a few that come up relatively frequently: aficionado, patio, … come to mind. They’re certainly more usual than “hombre”. “Cojones” seems to be used at times as a loaned swearword, as well. Some get distorted: “desperado” from “desesperado”. Some have become “anglified”: lasso.
There are many more, but these are those I can name from the top off my head

Oh! “político” of course is very relevant right now.
Wikipedia has an article on this but, of course, some words are much more common than others:

“no problemo”…

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The English language is composed of words with origins from MANY other languages, including Spanish. Standard American English adopts words directly from Spanish these days for a variety of reasons. One is to denigrate people who speak Spanish, one is to make fun of the Spanish language, one is because the Spanish word means/represents something that the English speaker has no word for in English, Foreign-language influences in English - Wikipedia Trump’s use of the word “hombre” was personal. I would think that the incidence of English speakers, speaking English, randomly use “hombre” will speaking English to be very rare, very low, indeed.

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We also have “mañana” which we use to talk about delaying doing something. And “vamoose” (from “vamos”) to mean “let’s go!”

And of course we use lots and lots of Spanish words when we eat: burritos, mojiitos, paella… And off the top of my head is a “sombrero”, that I might give to my “amigo” when we meet in the “cafeteria”. My amigo is a bit “loco” but really a good “caballero”.

By the way, that orange guy on the telly the other night wasn’t using “hombre” to mean “guy” or “fellow”, but to mean Mexicans or Latinos. So it wasn’t so much informal, as pejorative and racist.

It’s more frequent for kids to say a Spanish word here or there than it is for adults. This is because I would say around 50% of kids end up taking 1 semester of Spanish in school, and they use Spanish words more so as a joke. The adults who do it, usually do it to sound more “cultured” or “intelligent”.

I live in the South, and Spanglish is pretty common in my town, so I hear Spanish mixed with English a lot (Not necessarily Spanish words in English).

Names of places/foods in the US, it is quite common “taco” “burrito” “churro” “pico de gallo” “chicharrones” etc.

But overall, I feel if it’s a younger person, it is used jokingly, and an adult it is used to sound more cultured.

There’s actually a wikipedia article on this

It is not frequent at all. Hillary Clinton did the same thing when she randomly said “Basta” in a speech. It’s a way to get more attention and it is not representative of how average folks speak.

Yes, no problemo is definitely pseudo-Spanish. In the UK we also have “scorchio!” (from “scorching” in English) used to describe hot Spanish style weather. This comes from a 90s TV sketch show with a Spanish weather forecast in which all of Spain is “scorchio!!”. I grew up thinking this was really the Spanish word for hot. No problemo :wink:

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Funny story! )

Many years ago the first Spanish phrase I picked up was in the movies, while watching Terminator 2. I still remember the famous." Hasta la vista, baby!" phrase.

Also I remember the scene when young John Connor was teaching the Terminator some slang and he told to him to use the phrase “No problemo”.

This mixture of the two of my favorite foreign languages - Spanish and American English - fascinated me then and this is probably why I am now learning these two languages. :slight_smile:

“nada”, “amigo”, “Comprende?”

Other Spanish words which are used in English all the time are: macho, pronto and mosquito

And then of course, there’s: guerrilla, vigilante, embargo, piña colada, salsa, taco, tequila, fiesta, tango, suave, siesta
…and many more

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