Spanglish: how English and Spanish meet in conversation

Two friends can move between English and Spanish during a conversation without losing track of what they mean. They may quote someone, change topic or use an expression familiar to both of them. From the switch alone you cannot tell how well either person knows either language.

Spanglish is a broad label for different kinds of contact between English and Spanish. It is more useful to look at what a speaker is doing than to treat the label as one fixed grammar.

Switching languages and borrowing words

Code-switching means changing language during a conversation, sometimes within a sentence. An illustrative example is: “I already called her. Me dijo que viene mañana.” Both parts belong to the same exchange.

Borrowing is different. A word from another language can become an established part of Spanish vocabulary. Parquear, meaning to park, has Spanish verb forms such as parqueo and parqueamos. The RAE–ASALE dictionary records it as an American Spanish word. A speaker who uses it has not momentarily abandoned Spanish.

To tell borrowing from switching, you may need closer analysis than one isolated example allows. For a learner, the first question is usually simpler: what does this expression mean here, and who uses it?

What research shows about switching

In a 1980 study of 20 Puerto Rican residents of a bilingual community, linguist Shana Poplack found structured patterns in how people switched languages. More fluent bilinguals switched at varied points within sentences; less fluent bilinguals more often switched between sentences. Both groups could switch while maintaining grammatical structure.

Speakers with different abilities can participate in bilingual conversation in different ways. The patterns described in this study belong to the community studied. Other communities have their own habits.

The listener matters

Two bilingual friends who switch may exclude someone who understands only Spanish. You need to consider who can follow the conversation, just as you would when using an unfamiliar technical term or a local expression.

People also have preferences about how they speak. Some enjoy mixing languages; others prefer to keep them separate in a particular setting. Listen to what the people around you actually do, rather than assuming one habit applies to a whole city or community.

What this means for a Spanish learner

If you use an English word because you cannot recall the Spanish one, you have found something useful to practise. The conversation has not failed because of it. You can ask ¿Cómo se dice…?, describe what you mean or return to the word afterwards.

If your aim is to hold conversations entirely in Spanish, practise doing that. If you take part in bilingual family conversations, understanding their vocabulary and language changes is also a legitimate goal. With either goal, you do not have to dismiss the other way of speaking.

When you learn a local expression, note its setting as well as its translation. Would you use it with friends, in an email to a client or with someone from another country? Knowing an expression includes knowing when the person listening to you is helped by it.