3 ms·

So I've been watching Spanish language soap operas for 20 years (no judgement please). Lately, the Mexican ones have some characters in them speak in half-Engli

So I've been watching Spanish language soap operas for 20 years (no judgement please). Lately, the Mexican ones have some characters in them speak in half-English, half-Spanish sentences, with no subtitles, or even full on English sentences, between Spanish sentences. Note that these TV series are targeted at a broad part of the audience, so that implies that they kind of require the watchers to know english to understand them. There is no question about it, english is eating the world. Bonus: English is the official working language of the EU, even if English is spoken officially only in Malta.

poszlem 5y ago
Wait, is English not also spoken officially in Ireland?
- gpvos 5y ago
  AFAIK, each country may only designate one language as official for EU business. Otherwise, the number of language combinations for translating (which is n * (n - 1)) becomes unmanageable. Ireland chooses Irish. English, French and German have a higher status as general EU working languages.
dhosek 5y ago
Calling telenovelas “soap operas” is a bit dismissive of them. The best are on par with the top-quality productions of HBO/Netflix/BBC, at least from a writing/acting standpoint. They don't always have the production budget of those others, but there's a reason why they get global distribution into a lot of non-Hispanophone markets. Anecdata: Among my wife's family, I think everyone speaks/understands English and most have at least one additional language if not more (one of her cousins is fluent in and speaks accentless English, Spanish, French and Arabic and has a working ability in German as well). English speakers, in contrast, tend to be stubbornly monolingual.
- kntmckenebrt 5y ago
  Soap opera is the english translation of telenovela, nothing dismissive here (see wikipedia). I would argue that (some) Turkish soap operas/telenovelas are even better produced than spanish language ones.
lentil_soup 5y ago
And Ireland I imagine, no?
- andylynch 5y ago
  Yes, the Irish constitution gives the Irish language first rank and English second, though English is used more widely.
reaperducer 5y ago
Lately, the Mexican ones have some characters in them speak in half-English, half-Spanish sentences Pre-pandemic, part of my job included face-to-face time with poor Latin American immigrants in the southern part of the United States (Mostly Mexican, plus a lot of Colombian, Guatemalans, and the occasional Venezuelan). 90% of the first generation people I'd work with would only speak Spanish. But their kids would flip back and forth just as you describe it: fluidly, and without apparently noticing. Those kids are now in their 20's and 30's, so I'm not surprised that the TV stations are going after that prime demographic. But even if their parents didn't speak English, they very often understood what was said. They just didn't have the confidence to speak aloud. So, another market for programs that use both languages. There is no question about it, english is eating the world My father was one of those international businessmen stereotypes in the 1970's, doing deals from London to Chicago to Sydney. (His two teletype machines in the den were what got me interested in computers.) He always said that English is the international language of business. He told me that if I wanted to be a businessman, it was important to master the English language more thoroughly than my competitors. He said if I wanted to be a diplomat, learn French. If I wanted to be an engineer, learn German. If I wanted to be a scientist, learn Greek. I took Latin.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  > If I wanted to be a scientist, learn Greek. This last one isn't a serious suggestion – in the 1970s or 1980s, reasonable advice would have been to learn German. Plenty of research papers were being published in German back then. (I was advised to learn German by a postgraduate student, who said he had examinations in German at an English university.)

poszlem 5y ago

Wait, is English not also spoken officially in Ireland?

gpvos 5y ago
AFAIK, each country may only designate one language as official for EU business. Otherwise, the number of language combinations for translating (which is n * (n - 1)) becomes unmanageable. Ireland chooses Irish. English, French and German have a higher status as general EU working languages.

dhosek 5y ago

Calling telenovelas “soap operas” is a bit dismissive of them. The best are on par with the top-quality productions of HBO/Netflix/BBC, at least from a writing/acting standpoint. They don't always have the production budget of those others, but there's a reason why they get global distribution into a lot of non-Hispanophone markets. Anecdata: Among my wife's family, I think everyone speaks/understands English and most have at least one additional language if not more (one of her cousins is fluent in and speaks accentless English, Spanish, French and Arabic and has a working ability in German as well). English speakers, in contrast, tend to be stubbornly monolingual.

kntmckenebrt 5y ago
Soap opera is the english translation of telenovela, nothing dismissive here (see wikipedia). I would argue that (some) Turkish soap operas/telenovelas are even better produced than spanish language ones.

lentil_soup 5y ago

And Ireland I imagine, no?

andylynch 5y ago
Yes, the Irish constitution gives the Irish language first rank and English second, though English is used more widely.

reaperducer 5y ago

Lately, the Mexican ones have some characters in them speak in half-English, half-Spanish sentences Pre-pandemic, part of my job included face-to-face time with poor Latin American immigrants in the southern part of the United States (Mostly Mexican, plus a lot of Colombian, Guatemalans, and the occasional Venezuelan). 90% of the first generation people I'd work with would only speak Spanish. But their kids would flip back and forth just as you describe it: fluidly, and without apparently noticing. Those kids are now in their 20's and 30's, so I'm not surprised that the TV stations are going after that prime demographic. But even if their parents didn't speak English, they very often understood what was said. They just didn't have the confidence to speak aloud. So, another market for programs that use both languages. There is no question about it, english is eating the world My father was one of those international businessmen stereotypes in the 1970's, doing deals from London to Chicago to Sydney. (His two teletype machines in the den were what got me interested in computers.) He always said that English is the international language of business. He told me that if I wanted to be a businessman, it was important to master the English language more thoroughly than my competitors. He said if I wanted to be a diplomat, learn French. If I wanted to be an engineer, learn German. If I wanted to be a scientist, learn Greek. I took Latin.

Symbiote 5y ago
> If I wanted to be a scientist, learn Greek. This last one isn't a serious suggestion – in the 1970s or 1980s, reasonable advice would have been to learn German. Plenty of research papers were being published in German back then. (I was advised to learn German by a postgraduate student, who said he had examinations in German at an English university.)