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30/08/2011Learning English in Spain: A threat?

Learning English in Spain: A threat? It's not from teaching English in Spain, but Spanish in Spain is increasingly under threat. We examine the new ways English is creeping into daily use.

An article in a Spanish edition of women's magazine Marie Claire perhaps says much about how the Spanish language ma ybe changing. The magazine, whose target readership is intelligent, middle-class women, tried to explain to mystified readers what ‘work english' means.

This is the language of the world of work, whose English terms are widely used across Europe. Journalist Marta Auirregomezcorta asked readers: "Don't understand one word when your sister tells you about her new job for a multi-national?

"In the office, your boss uses three words of English and two in Spanish. Do you feel lost in this working world which has been invaded by English words? We will help you."

The magazine then goes on to give readers explanations of terms including: ‘brain-storming', ‘conference call', ‘end point', ‘home based', ‘home banking', ‘know-how', ‘management meeting', ‘mentoring', ‘networking', ‘asap', ‘benchmarking', ‘casual', and ‘coffee-break'.

This glossary continues with: ‘out-door training', ‘team-building', ‘reporting', ‘senior', ‘skills', ‘timing', ‘variable pay', ‘outsourcing', and‘outplacement'.

Auirregomezcorta adds: "If you want promotion, [workenglish] will make you more valued by the management."   

Perhaps the appearance of an article in a magazine like Marie Claire, whose readers might be expected to have learnt English, says much about how widely "work English" is used.

Or it might suggest that the Spanish attitude to learning foreign languages may not be much better than that of other European countries, notably Britain.

For any foreigner living in Spain, the odd word of "workenglish" will appear in conversation on an almost daily basis. Indeed, it seems more common than Spanglish, the strange mix of the two languages.

Typical phrases in Spanglish are ‘lonche' (lunch), ‘muy' (nice), ‘el bus stop', ‘emailear' (to e-mail), and even ‘el zip code'.
English in Spain

Or Spanglish speakers of either language will translate a phrase using the grammar and idiosyncrasies of their own language -- which do not, of course, actually translate.

But Spanglish does not satisfy either Spanish or English speakers. To English-speakers, it can sound like something out of a spaghetti Western. And for Spanish-speakers, each word in Spanglish can represent another inch conceded in the battle to preserve their language.

Recently, the body which governs the Spanish language pledged to prevent the steady growth of this hybrid.

The general secretary of the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language, Humberto Lopez Morales, said it was time to "put a brake on the rise of English" usage within Spanish.

Morales was speaking ahead of this month's Third Congress of Language to be held in Argentina, to where the no less than 22 academies which act as guardians to Spanish usage will discuss where the tongue, spoken by half a billion people, is headed.

But, despite their concern, they appear unlikely to be able to halt the rising tide of Spanglish.

With Britons and other nationalities whose lingua franca is often English flocking to establish a bolthole on Spain's sun-kissed Costas, the advance of the language of Shakespeare seems relentless.

The internet and English-speaking satellite and cable television channels are also having a huge influence on the spread of the language into not just Spain, but Central and South America.

"The Hispanic world will end up speaking Spanglish," predicts Ilan Stavans of Amherst College, Massachusetts, who is the author of the Dictionary of Spanglish.
The dictionary is a compilation of 6,000 words used on the streets of the US by its Spanish-speaking population.

Stavans's team of researchers trawled the US's Hispanic areas, listened to Latino radio stations, and analysed rap lyrics in their search for words such as ‘brode' (brother), ‘culisimo' (very cool), ‘lonche' (lunch) and ‘rufa' (roof).

A new Spanish dictionary is set to be published next year to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Miguel de Cervantes' epic oeuvre Don Quixote, considered Spain's greatest literary work.

But in reality it appears people are more likely to speak the workenglish of Marie Claire, than the Spanish of Cervantes.

Graham Keeley / Expatica


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