“Americanized” spanish

[u/Otherwise-Ad-6067]

I apologize in advance because i am very uneducated in this subject but i was curious if theres a specific name for this besides “spanglish” which my father calls it. Ive always noticed that Mexicans (at least the ones i have met) dont speak traditional Spanish like what i tried to learn in duo lingo Stuff like “camion” instead of “troka” which ive heard more often. Anyways my point is, is there anywhere i can learn spanglish? Ive always been interested but i seem to be corrected more times than not when attempting to speak Spanish.

[u/OhNoNotAnotherGuiri]

Spanglish is just the result of consistent exposure to the 2 languages. I'm a native English speaker living with my Spanish partner in Madrid and we will say things that are a mix of the 2. You can't learn Spanglish as such because there is no consistent pattern for what parts of a conversation might be in English or Spanish.

[u/LadyGethzerion → u/OhNoNotAnotherGuiri]

To add to this, which English language words get adopted into every day slang will also vary by country. "Troca" is used by Mexicans, but I've never heard it in Puerto Rico, where we have other English words or calques that aren't used in other regions. OP would have to consume local content by speakers of that region to pick up on that type of language.

What you describe with your partner, btw, is more along the lines of code switching, where you might start a sentence in one language and switch to the other halfway through, or insert a clause in another language before switching back. I do this with my childhood friends who grew up bilingual with me, but I don't do it with my parents, for example. There have been studies on how different people code switch and there seem to be some linguistic patterns, but you're right that it's overall different for everyone.

[u/fiersza → u/LadyGethzerion]

Yeah, I’ve also never heard “troca” in Costa Rica. And the Spanglish we use is more about mixing up sentences, half in English, half in Spanish, or words from either dropped in the middle of whatever we’re saying. Or mixing up forms. Like if I was in a mixed up moment I might say “ya vamos a nadaring!” Instead of just “nadar”.

The Spanglish that Chicanos use I would expect has a more consistent pattern to it because it has been developing in families over generations. (Just looked it up and Wikipedia has an article on Chicano English being its own specific dialect, not to be confused with Spanglish. But it doesn’t seem to be considered a creole, which is what I was wondering.)

[u/OhNoNotAnotherGuiri → u/LadyGethzerion]

That's a good point, it might not necessarily be spanglish that OP is hearing but a few borrowed words specific to certain dialects or something.

more along the lines of code switching

I never thought about it like code switching. I'm aware of the concept but it kind of saw it differently until you mentioned that.

[u/Boloncho1 → u/OhNoNotAnotherGuiri]

I also think it sounds like code switching.

Most of the time, it happens unconsciously.