You’re speaking Spanish with native speakers, and all of sudden something odd happens. There’s a strangely familiar word that sounds distinctly un-Spanish. The reason for this is that Spanish has borrowed a number of words from English.
So while you may learn idioms, travel phrases and restaurant vocabulary for your impending trip, and you may even know slang to sound like a true Argentine, Mexican or Spaniard, you can also actually use some familiar English-language words while speaking Spanish.
While this word will look familiar to English speakers, it actually has a slightly different meaning from its English counterpart. In Spanish, panty or pantiactually refers to pantyhose or tights.
In English, “smoking” is a verb, but in Spanish it’s a noun. Smoking or esmoquin refers to a tuxedo or dinner jacket. Need an easy way to remember this? Think of the English term “smoking jacket.”
Though it’s sometimes known as a perforación, the word piercing is often used to refer to—you guessed it—a piercing of any shape, size or on any body part.
Taken from the English word “football,” this word is used to refer to soccer (or what everyone everywhere, aside from people in the U.S.A., calls “football”).
While it’s sometimes called baloncesto
, which uses the natural Spanish word for ball (balón ) and basket (cesto ), basketball is also known as básquetbol throughout Latin America.
While the English word “surf” is usually used as a verb to refer to the sport, in Spanish, surf is actually a noun referring to the sport, so it’s more similar in meaning to the English word “surfing.”
Master this sports in Spanish vocabulary, and you’ll feel like shouting “goooool”! We’ve included 86, from the most well known sports like “futbol” (football), natación…
While this is technically a noun, it’s used to refer to clicking anything online. Hacer clic
means “to click.” You may also hear clicar
or cliquearused to say “to click.”
This abbreviation is taken directly from English. To say the full words in Spanish, you would say disco compacto, so clearly the abbreviation is derived from English or it would be DC.
This abbreviation, along with all of the following, must be read out loud in Spanish letters with classic Spanish pronunciation.
This abbreviation also comes from the English abbreviation. After all, sistema de posicionamiento globaldoesn’t quite lend itself to the abbreviation GPS.
What with margaritas, piña coladas and sangria, you’d think English had taken more drinks from Spanish than vice versa. However, drinks know no language boundaries and English-language drink names are now common in Spanish. Whiskey and güisqui are both used to refer to whiskey.
Though historically used to mean someone from the northern states in the US, this term in modern Spanish now usually refers to any American (sometimes as a pejorative).
While there are many Spanish terms that are equivalent to the English word “hooligan,” the loanword hooligan is more used to refer to trouble-making students or young people.
In English, “parking” is a verb to refer to the act of parking a car. However, in Spanish it is a noun used to refer to a parking lot. You may also hear estacionamiento
or aparcamiento
used to say parking lot depending on the country that you are in.
Though sometimes called hostelería, catering or cátering can also be used to refer to caterers themselves, their businesses and the general services they offer.
Whether in Spanish or English, this is an agreeable term.
As you can see, Spanish uses a lot of English words and with new terms entering each language daily, the overlap between these two great languages will only grow with time. The best way to see which ones Spanish has acquired is by immersing yourself in native media to see how the language is used by native speakers.
There are so many ways to do this, for example you could watch videos in Spanish on YouTube, or you could even try a language learning program like FluentU.
FluentU uses authentic videos such as music videos, movie clips and interesting talks to help immerse you in the Spanish language. Each video on FluentU comes with interactive subtitles, enabling you to compare the languages and see definitions and information about the words used.
FluentU is available to access on your browser or by downloading the iOS or Android apps so you can learn wherever you are!
What Are Loanwords and Why Are They Noteworthy?
It’s no secret that all languages borrow words from other languages. After all, some very useful words begin in one language and other languages need them too.
These words that are taken from one language and used as-is in their adopted language are known as “loanwords.”
More specifically, we can call words that originally came from English but are now borrowed by other languages “Anglicisms.” This term indicates their English origin.
It’s important to be familiar with loanwords, and Anglicisms in particular, because they make learning and remembering new vocabulary words much easier. After all, you already know the word in English, so memorizing the same word in Spanish will be a breeze!
The following words all came from English (most recently—they may have some deeper linguistic origins) and are now used in Spanish.
Some of these words have multiple spellings included. This is because they often appear spelled in multiple ways. One version is usually closer to the English language while the other is made more traditionally Spanish.
If you've made it this far that means you probably enjoy learning Spanish with engaging material and will then love FluentU.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of videos, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.
Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re learning with the same video.
