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Source: You Tube (El Publicista) Key Words: habla español Grey RAE

Spain launches campaign to stop English 'invasion' 

The Royal Spanish Academy is fighting against the anglicization of Spanish with a new campaign.

The Spanish language has, over the past few years, been soaking up more and more anglicisms – from slang words to business vocabulary – these days many sentences in Spanish are peppered with a good dose of English… much to the distaste of the academy responsible for overseeing the Spanish language.

 The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) is so disgruntled by the wave of English words being used in Spanish that it has launched a campaign to fight against this so-called "invasion".

The campaign, called 'There’s only one mother tongue', features two fake adverts, full of anglicisms, which plays on the fact that many Spaniards do not actually understand the real meaning of the English words "invading" the Spanish language.

The video promoting the campaign begins with with the line "English is invading advertising from within" before some common anglicisms flash across the screen, including the words brainstorming, toolkit, anti-age, light, eco-friendly and wireless.

One advert is for the perfume "Swine"; the sultry voiceover calls it "a touch of magic by Rebecca Robinson". The advert is shown once in its original English and then a second time with the Spanish voiceover revealing that spritzing yourself with swine "means you smell of pig".

The model in the advert is shown scrunching up her nose at the realisation, while the tagline of the perfume is: "It sounds very good but smells very bad".

The second advert is for a pair of sunglasses "with blind effect". The advert reveals that the cool-sounding "with blind-effect" actually means the wearer cannot see out of the sunglasses.

The RAE has decided to "fight against anglicisms in an original and cheeky way" the academy writes in the video promoting the campaign.

"Advertising is one of the main sectors affected, and the excessive use of anglicisms in adverts shown in Spain not only affects the brands but also directly affects the public in general and how they perceive commercial messages," Enric Nel-lo, creative director of Grey Spain, which made the ad, told Spanish daily El País.

It is not the first time the RAE has criticized the invasion of English into everyday Spanish language. It was vehemently against sending a song sung entirely in English as Spain’s entry to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

The director of the RAE classed Spain’s choice of song – Barei’s Say Yay! as "inferior and idiotic".



 Source: thelocal.es

Does it really matter? Do you get annoyed with this "invasion"?

Vocabulary:

 

a wave of sth / fake (adj) -

 

Comments

Anonymous said…
The post and the video show that Spanish adverts overuse English, which is something no one could deny. The critic is done in an hilarious way, which make it surprising taking the old-fashioned style of the RAE into account. I am not used to agreeing with this Spanish institution, however, I have to say they're right in this case. I understand they prefer brands and companies to use our mother tongue language, but they ought to work not only against the English's use, but also about our own language use. The point is that they are often (more than they should) accepting new Spanish words which shouldn't be. Some people in Spain use them in a bad way, but that is not a reason to accept them by an institution as well known as our RAE. An example of what I am saying? Cocretas, almóndiga or murciégalo...
To sum up, I could understand that we have to try to use our mother tongue language but they have to work in making us aware of doing it correctly too.

Cristina Jaurrieta
Graham said…
Hi Cristina,

I see shop signs and adverts in English every day. I wonder what percentage of people understand the message. Perhaps it doesn't matter or it might be more effective if nobody gets it.


The post and the video show that Spanish adverts overuse English, which is something no one could deny. The criticism is made in a hilarious way, which makes it surprising if you take the old-fashioned style of the RAE into account.

I am not used to agreeing with this Spanish institution, however, I have to say they're right in this case. I understand why they prefer brands and companies to use our mother tongue language. Not only ought they to work against the use of English, but also higlight the use of our own language.

The point is that they often (more than they should) accept new Spanish words which shouldn't be accepted. Some people in Spain use them in a bad way, but that is not a reason to accept them by an institution as well known as our RAE. An example of what I am saying? Cocretas, almóndiga or murciégalo... (Do they really accept them? Surely they are just typos)

To sum up, I could understand that we have to try to use our mother tongue language but they have to work on making us aware of doing it correctly too.