BILINGUAL BLENDS FAMILIAR HERE : SOME SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS SWITCH TONGUES WITHOUT NOTICING.Byline: Luz Villarreal Daily News Staff Writer It's the last day of school before spring break at Valley College and inside the campus cafeteria, Dinorah Leiva and Maria Guadalupe Garcia are talking about school, exams and work. ``I have a test today and I studied a lot y estoy muy cansada,'' said Garcia, 26, of Burbank. (Spanish for ``and I'm very tired.'') ``Me gusta hablar en Ingles This article is about an American supermarket chain. For a town in Gran Canaria, see Playa del Inglés. Ingles (NYSE: IMKTA) is a regional supermarket chain based in Asheville, North Carolina, where Robert "Bob" Ingle opened the first store in Asheville, NC in and that's why I practice speaking English a lot,'' Garcia continued. (Me gusta hablar en Ingles is ``I like to speak in English.) ``I don't like to mix my two languages, but sometimes I do it on accident.'' Leiva giggled at Garcia's use of Spanglish, a mixture of Spanish and English. It's a hybrid language that comes easily to them. In Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, , Spanglish is popping up everywhere. In schools, the workplace, boardrooms, on the radio, even behind the pulpit - though not always on purpose. Spanglish usually involves people speaking in one language and peppering it with words or phrases of another. Many times, new words are created by changing the spelling or adding a common Spanish ending. Fast food is ``fafu.'' A vacuum cleaner vacuum cleaner, mechanical device using a draft of air to remove dust, loose dirt, or other particulate matter from dry surfaces. It is especially useful on highly textured surfaces, such as carpets and upholstery, that are difficult to clean by wiping or brushing. is a ``bacuncliner.'' A car is a ``carrucha.'' ``When I went through the cafeteria line I asked for vegetables,'' instead of vegetales, Leiva, of Encino, explained in Spanish. ``I use it with my sisters a lot,'' said Dalila Perez, a 22-year-old CSUN CSUN California State University Northridge student who is first-generation Mexican-American. ``It's not that we do it on purpose. It's just that you tend to integrate both languages. We are made of both cultures.'' She slipped into Spanglish last week after going to the movie theater to see ``Selena,'' a Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . film about Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez, who was murdered two years ago. ``I came home and said you guys have got to watch `Selena,' '' she told her family. ``There's a part where (Selena) is crying and me da mucho sentimiento (it gives me a lot of sad feelings).'' Albert Melena melena /me·le·na/ (me-le´nah) the passage of dark stools stained with altered blood. me·le·na n. , a project coordinator for the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. Partnership and an adviser for the Blythe Street Youth Leadership group in Panorama City, rattled off common Spanglish words he hears on the streets. ``A lot of kids call a car a carrucha,'' he said. ``They'll say `wachale' for watch out, but there's no such word in Spanish. They'll say `parque' for parking the car.'' Many times, Spanish words and phrases Words and Phrases® A multivolume set of law books published by West Group containing thousands of judicial definitions of words and phrases, arranged alphabetically, from 1658 to the present. are used in the Latino culture to emphasize certain emotions, Melena said. ``Like `you have to have ganas,' '' Melena said, using a phrase he tells children when they are playing sports. `` `Juega con ganas,' or `echale ganas,' '' he said. ``It means to give it your best.'' The Rev. Tom Rush, a priest at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima, said it's easy to marry Spanish and English when he encounters parishioners and others in the Pacoima community. ``I start Mass sometimes in English when I should have been speaking Spanish and vice versa VICE VERSA. On the contrary; on opposite sides. ,'' he said. ``I catch people's looks. That's a big clue. There has been a time when someone has called out, `This is suppose to be in English.' ``I guess it's just kind of automatic,'' he said. For some, it's a matter of choice. Take Fliberto Gonzalez, a CSUN student majoring in Chicano Studies Chicano studies is an academic discipline. Like most branches of Ethnic studies, it incorporates aspects of various other disciplines, including history, sociology, psychology, and literary and textual analyses from the academic studies of the English and Spanish languages. . A call to his voice-mail pager will leave you with this message: ``Leave a message on my voice mail and I'll get back to you as soon as possible, al rato (in a little while).'' ``I think it's kind of neat that we can do that,'' said Perez of Arleta. ``It's like we have this little dictionary in our head. We have to translate everything. It gives us a uniqueness.'' |
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