my amigos latinos give me a change in my english
Last night I read this article that says contact between English and Spanish speakers has given rise to a new English dialect in Miami, which I found intriguing.
That article reminded me of my own spanish learning story. I have made a large number of Spanish-speaking friends online, even more than I did during college. My Spanish-speaking friends have their own way of speaking English. I have picked up some of the peculiarities of their English. Sometimes I even include them in my own speech.
My Spanish is so rusty that it doesn't allow me to discover all peculiarities in their English that are caused by their Spanish. But here are the ones that I've noticed so far—please correct me if I'm wrong.
1) They drop subjects.
Even though I have noticed that some English natives drop subjects too sometimes, Latinos and Latinas do so much more frequently. They often say things like "is so cute" or "is a girl". That's probably because the verb conjugation in Spanish can indicate the subject so they don't have to say it.
2) They use "they/them" when they mean "you".
I'm not sure why they use "them" instead of "you", because both these two pronouns have their equivalents in Spanish, i.e. "ellos/ellas" and "ustedes". My guess is that these Spanish pronouns are all considered as third-person plural and share the same verb conjugation so they often mix them up in English.
3) They overuse the structure "they give me x, y, z".
While English natives might say "it makes me laugh" or "it makes me curious", my Latin friends would say "it gives me laughter" or "it gives me curiosity". I believe the reason lies in their Spanish expressions "me da risa" or "me da curiosidad". I think this is probably the biggest change that my Latin friends have brought to my English. Sometimes, when I talk to them, I say things like "that gives me a headache" or like "they give me goosebumps".
And that is the reason why I made this post under the title "My Amigos Latinos Give Me a Change in My English". 😝
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