#Gay people in Venezuela use English gay slang a lot

[meitoscringe]

my zulian mom when her child came out speaking valencian gay spanish instead of maracucho or formal spanish

[spanishskulduggery]

it throws me so much when i hear people speaking spanish and throw in things like "look" or "little black dress," are there other english words/phrases that are pretty reliably used as slang?

Yes, and no. I feel like I might answer your question. I feel like I also might not and simultaneously bombard you with information, so I apologize.

Yes, anglicisms [words derived from English] are used heavily in Spanish in some fields… specifically technology, internet / information technology, some scientific fields, and things in the media like LGBT+ issues, fashion, social justice

But not all countries use the same anglicisms, and not all countries use them all the time.

Latin America very freely embraces anglicisms. Spaniards do unofficially, but the RAE will always supply an alternative.

For example gay as an adjective is super common and means exactly what it does in English. The official is homosexual, but media and dubbing make gay the easiest option… basically because “gay” is one syllable, voice actors are normally forced to use it even if the RAE would maybe prefer homosexual.

If you’re on social media, los fans or el fandom are common. But in Spain if you’re talking about some sports fans you’ll see los ultras where they’re the kind of people who would start a riot if their team lost.

For “to bingewatch”, Latin America prefers bingewatchear and Spain kind of goes for maratonear “to marathon” or ver de una sentada “to watch in one sitting”

Some people say dar cringe “to be cringe-worthy”, some people would rather go traditional dar vergüenza “to bring shame”… My personal favorite is dar grima which does get translated as “to be cringe-worthy”, but also more literally is “to disgust”… I like to think of it as “to make someone grimace”

Technology is a tricky one, el hashtag, el blog, el blogueo (blogging), el vídeo, el tráiler, and things like that do exist pretty freely. I’ve seen laiquear “to like” or likear, I’ve seen rebloguear “to reblog”… so many things.

Most people will say navegar “to navigate” or surfear la red “to surf the net”… literally la red is “net” but has come to be “network” as well, and some people say el internet as well.

If Spanish can adapt a word they will… el infrarrojo “infrared”, los rayos X “X-rays”, la ultravioleta “ultraviolet”, or los seguidores “followers”

But at the same time, while someone might say el feedback for “the shrill sound a microphone sometimes make”, you might see la retroalimentación which is literally “back-feed”… I’ve seen “bio-feedback” as both el biofeedback or la retroalimentación biológica

But the best example of loanwords being very different would be “popcorn”. Most people say palomitas in the media; it’s more common in Spain and Mexico.

Some people will say el popcorn or el pop, and then Venezuela has cotufa which comes from “corn to fry”. Things like that. A lot of countries have their own regionalism for it, but would understand palomitas 

Some of the funniest ones come from brand names. For the longest time it was el kleenex for “tissue”, though you might also see el pañuelo (lit. “handkerchief”), el pañuelito, or el pañuelo desechable “disposable handkerchief”. 

But a clear example of anglicisms not being the same everywhere is “jogging”. In some cases, the anglicisms sound odd for the actual English-speakers.

In Spain, that’s hacer footing “to go jogging” or el footing “jogging”. For us English speakers, “footing” normally refers to “where you put your feet” so for us it sounds like “balance” like “I lost my footing”.

In Latin America, they say hacer jogging or el jogging more.

Another weird one for English-speakers is hacer zapping or hacer zapeo in Spain which is “to channel surf” or “to quickly change channels”… “zap” in English sounds more like an electrical shock, but in Spanish zap can be that or it can be the sound effect which is probably why it caught on that way.

When you say “to freak out”, I’ve seen “frikear” or “friquear”, I’ve seen it as tener un freakout… or in Spain it’s normally flipar which is “to flip out”; like te vas a flipar “you’ll never believe this” / “you’re going to flip”…

The basic is volverse loco/a “to go crazy” or alucinar “to amaze / to hallucinate”

Fun Fact: if you’re “losing your damn mind” (in a good way or a bad way) in Spain is flipar en colores “to flip out in colors” don’t ask me why, but it’s my favorite.

So, yes, anglicisms are used a lot. What country you’re in decides what anglicisms you’re going to see. 

This is also why there are so many names for “jeans”… los jeans, los bluyines “blue jeans”, los vaqueros “cowboy (pants)”, los tejanos “Texans”, los mahones (named for Mahon which has deep blue waters)…

It’s simultaneously my most favorite and least favorite part of Spanish because sometimes I just don’t know what words make sense to people.

Side Note: If you’re on twitter or tumblr etc you can really just use basic Spanish and then just sprinkle in your English memes. Like “eso es un Big Mood” is becoming more common online