English-speaking Americans from places where Spanish is significant, do you try to pronounce Spanish names with Spanish accent while still speaking English? What do you think about people doing this?

27 comments

  1. I’m Mexican and i always say things in Spanish ie, tacos, burritos etc, there’s no need for me to “American/westernize” a word that I use every day in my life.

  2. I’ve got a Georgia mountains accent, so I’m not gonna lie any attempt I make at speaking a Spanish name with a Latin American/Spanish accent is gonna sound funny at best, unintentionally racist at worst. I just speak the name as best I can in *my* accent, and if the person corrects me, I’ll try my best to mimic their speech patterns.

  3. I do yes because it’s proper and not very difficult but in large most people around don’t. Living in southern California can be cringe as fuck when you hear how people ponounce cities like El Monte or Calabasas or LA Mirada.

    Then for no discernable reason at all for Rodeo drive they insist on overpronouncing Ro Day O

  4. I follow the lead of the person I’m talking with. Mostly, I don’t try for accuracy as the people I’m talking with understand that I’m trying not to drop into a stereotypical, cartoonish accent.

  5. The school I teach at has a large Hispanic population, I do my best to pronounce it in a Spanish accent. Some are pretty easy, some I just can’t.

    Also I despise anyone named Xavier. We have a lot of them.

    White kid 1: Zave-yer

    White kid 2: X-ave-yer

    Hispanic Kid: Av-ee-air

  6. This is actually a very good question, and the short answer is that I’ll feel it out. Also usually, no lol. I’ve met people who live on farms and “talk slow” with a “drawl” in English and will drop a word like “quinceñera” in full Spanish, but they aren’t going to get extra frisky with “burrito” or something.

    If you’ve ever seen Bruce Almighty, this conundrum is played out by the character Susan Ortega, who pronounces the *shit* out of Ortega on-air but otherwise speaks US broadcaster English. You find a lot of local news stations in border states with broadcasters like that.

  7. We kind of half-ass the Spanish pronunciations. Like, Spanish pronunciation with a strong American accent.

  8. I do it since I speak Spanish. It depends who I’m talking to tho. Sometimes I change pronunciation if they wouldn’t get it

  9. I’d only try to use a Spanish accent if I was speaking Spanish. I don’t speak it, though, I just use my normal accent.

  10. If it’s overexaggerated to try to pronounce it as pure Spanish would, it’s obnoxious IMO. With people’s names, I try to pronounce it like they do but I also don’t try to change my accent while doing so.

    Although you didn’t ask about them, place names are completely different and Texas has its own way of pronouncing them. Long a’s(Salado, for instance, is pronounced “suh-lay-doe”) and heavily anglicized in most situations(for instance, Am-uh-rill-oh for Amarillo, rather than Ah-muh-ree-yo as Spanish would pronounce it.)

  11. Sometimes, but it depends on the person. Some people introduce themselves with a Spanish pronunciation and I’ll honor that and others do it with an English pronunciation and I’ll honor that as well.

    Some Spanish places and famous names get objectively butchered but I genuinely wouldn’t know what people are talking about if they pronounced it correctly in Spanish while in an English conversation. Someone from out of California once referred to a town here as San Rafael (pronounced as expected). It took me a moment to work out that she was talking about the town even Spanish speakers in the Bay Area often pronounce San Ra-fell. The other classic example is Junipero Serra. Which gets pronounced “You-nipero Serra” which makes sense in neither Spanish nor English but is just the generally accepted way to say it.

  12. People’s names, yes. Place names, not really. Food, sometimes, especially if I feel like there’s a chance of not being understood if I don’t say it right.

  13. Ok in my experience this is who pronounces the Spanish place names in Spanish in Florida (not Miami)
    – if your first language is Spanish and you speak English with an accent anyway
    – tourists or new residents

    People who say it the English way:

    – If you’re local and English is your first language
    – you’re bilingual

    Miami is completely different and I have no authority to speak on it.

  14. If you’re asking about people names. No I do not, unless I am speaking Spanish with them.

    I don’t do this with any language i speak. I pronounce the name in the language I am speaking. I find it hard to switch between accents. It feels cringy too idk.

    My name is not Spanish but it’s not English and I pronounce it the English way when speaking English. Albeit a little closer to the original than conventional.

  15. I don’t… not because I can’t (grew up in AZ, learned a ton of Spanish in school)… but because people think I’m being pretentious if I do.

    I mean, I don’t pronounce tortilla like “tor- till- ah” or quesadilla a la Napoleon Dynamite, like someone who can’t speak the language. But I don’t make the effort to pronounce it cleanly with the accent because either a) the non- Spanish speaking people I’m with think I’m a pretentious ass or b) the Spanish people I’m with may think I’m fluent and I’ll
    make an ass of myself.

  16. Spanish isn’t very prevalent in my area. I mean, it’s there, but nothing like, say, Albuquerque or San Diego. Even the Spanish people here (Puerto Rican, mostly) always speak English.

    That said, I do try to pronounce Spanish words correctly. I don’t go nuts and do things like roll my R’s for 5 seconds: Burrrrrrrrrrrito. And I certainly don’t commit the sin of “tacko” (looking at you, Midwest and Britain)

    Speaking Spanish probably helps.

  17. I’m a Hispanic dude from Long Island and I’ll usually read the room when determining this. Naturally my default is to pronounce Spanish words with their Spanish pronunciation, but if I know I’m in an environment where no one is gonna understand me then I’ll anglicize the pronunciation.

  18. I grew up in a state with, um, questionable Spanish pronunciations of Spanish words. You other Coloradans knows what I am talking about. So I do a mix of both. I go for the correct Spanish as much as possible unless I know it’s been bastardized by Midwesterners (who screwed up Colorado).

  19. It really depends on the word and how much it has become part of the English language.

    There’s an apparently and accent from Southern California that I realize that I’ve picked up. I had never noticed it until someone pointed it out to me. Instead of pronouncing place names like Santa Ana, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, etc. like they would be pronounced in Spanish, I run the two words together and almost completely drop the “T”. So they sound like Sanaana, Sanamonica, and Sananarabara.

    My wife does it as well when she speaks English and she’s a native Spanish speaker.

  20. My husband and I are both white and bilingual. I always prounounce Spanish names of Spanish speakers. I’m also a teacher, and I ask kids their preferred pronunciation. I also read the names for awards assemblies, and if I don’t know the kid, I try to pronounce it Spanish lite so as not to offend either way.

  21. It’s a balancing act, and it’s hard to give a systematic answer. I would say that for most of us, the respectful thing we aim for is to pronounce things with the correct sounds but within our natural accent. For example I wouldn’t say the name Jose with a hard J sound like “Joe”, because that would be wrong. But I also wouldn’t want to sound like I’m putting on a Spanish accent I don’t naturally have to say it. It’s hard to explain via text but hopefully that makes sense.

  22. I’m Dominican and fully bilingual, raised in the US. I do not pronounce people’s names especially last names. “in Spanish” when speaking English. Not even my own. I have a somewhat common last name and pronounce it in an anglicized way with English speakers. However, places names I pronounce in Spanish. And foods. I don’t pronounce “pernil”, for example, like an American.

    Edit to add: if a non native Spanish speaker were to try and pronounce my name “in Spanish”, I’d think it was weird.

  23. If it’s a Spanish-origin place name in the US (fairly common in my region, many of the early explorers here were from Spain and Mexico and many of their names have persisted despite us now being a long way from Mexico), I generally do not. If it’s a Spanish-origin place name in a Spanish-speaking country, I do.

  24. Specifically for names of people, I try to do my best to accommodate because that’s their given name and it’s how they presumably want to be called. So like, I’m not going to call Raul “Rall” or Pedro “Peedro”. That’s just not considerate.

    I’m also not, however, going to attempt “flicking” the R because I’m a southerner and my R’s are gutteral, and it’s going to sound really forced if I try to mix it in with my vernacular way of speaking.

    People who really go out of their way to do the 100% correct pronunciation when they aren’t speaking Spanish and/or aren’t connected to the culture and language like that are kinda cringe IMO

  25. No, I mostly pronounce in the accent of the main language I’m speaking. If I’m speaking in English, I pronounce most Spanish words with an English accent, and when speaking Spanish, I pronounce most English words with a Spanish accent.

  27. So here’s the major difference between American and British people.

    Americans who here the way Spanish speakers pronounce names will say the names as close as they can to the way the spanish speakers do. Brits will stubbornly refuse to acknowledge any other language exists.

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