"El inglés es ideal para hablar de negocios, el alemán se hizo para las ciencias, el francés es la lengua del amor y el español... Ah, el español, es el idioma para hablar con Dios…" note
TV is produced in California, and California has a frontera
with Mexico (Baja California, to be specific), it is only natural that U.S. TV writers would insert Spanish words and phrases into their series to make things seem extranjero
. This trend has recently become popular in Japan, though it has a way to go before it becomes as popular as alemán
Often, what occurs is that a Spanish hablante will only use Spanish terms that most English users know
(such as "sí" meaning "yes", or "amigo" meaning "friend") but otherwise speaks in perfecto
English. It's a way for the writers to remind us that the character is from a Spanish-speaking país
and therefore exotic, but exactly why
the character needs to slip back into Spanish for such simple terms is nunca
quite explained. There is a little bit of Truth in Television
here — as anyone who's bilingual will tell you, sometimes you will say automatic responses (such as "yes") in your materna
tongue without even thinking about it — but this trope generally extends far beyond normal levels of this. In certain places, such as Southern California, the high number of Spanish speakers makes a cursory knowledge unavoidable, and even non-native speakers will use common Spanish words in conversation. See also Poirot Speak
This has become muy
common among childrens' educational shows, both live action and animated. The Primo Óliver
may be added to existing shows, or by starting with the Five-Token Band
right off the bat. It will obviously carry over to any branded books, video games and web site/games también
If a series featuring Gratuitous Spanish is doblada
into Spanish, the Spanish terms often become Gratuitous English
See Everything Sounds Sexier in French
for some of the connotaciones
of the use of Spanish, such as the promedio
Internet male talking about Penélope Cruz
. Compare also with El Spanish O
. For the Spanish language de verdad
, see Spanish Language
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Anime & Manga (Anime y Manga)
- Gaku from Absolute Boyfriend does this, starting with very simple words in Spanish to a few middle ones that everyone wouldn't know, and he's not even supposed to be Spanish. (Night also does this when his speech functions aren't working and he starts speaking entirely in random languages, starting with Spanish)
- Axis Powers Hetalia... Well, Himaruya tried in the comic, at least. When Spain is trying to teach Romano Spanish, the blackboard has some generally correct, if misspelled and incorrectly punctuated, Spanish on it (specifically, "¡Holla!" and "¡¡Dame un beso!!" [sic]) in the comics. In the anime, the board says... "dome uh beso." Here's a screenshot.◊
- Tomo occasionally breaks out the Spanish in Azumanga Daioh. The English dub uses Spanish in place of most of the Gratuitous English.
- In the dub, Yukari throws it around too. A notable example is in the first episode, where she congratulates a group of kids in Spanish while the captions point out the fact that she is an English teacher.
- Also in the dub, the foreigner Kagura tries to help is a stereotypically Aryan-looking speaker of Spanish. (He speaks Engrish on the Japanese track.)
- Roberta in Black Lagoon, with an atrocious accent to boot. Which is odd since Japanese and Spanish aren't that different, but she still manages to sound funny.
- Most Hollows in Bleach have Spanish-sounding names, and most things related to Hollows are named with Spanish words, with varying degrees of success. Note that the Japanese characters used to render the Spanish terms often have equally relevant meanings (for instance, Cero, a Wave Motion Gun-type attack used by high-level hollows, is Spanish for "zero", but is also written with kanji which mean "hollow flash"). Most of the time they aren't universe-shatteringly bad but they can leave much to be desired if you happen to be conversant with the language.
- Nearly all of the Spanish-flavored tracks on the 3rd OST have Spanish titles too.
- Chad's powers and attacks are also in Spanish, but it's okay because he is half-Mexican. (Although, we eventually find out that his powers are almost like those of a Hollow.)
- A case of research failure. Chad's half-Mexican and raised in Mexico. And yet apparently he—like everyone else in the series—can't get simple phrases right.
- Special mention for Dordonii, who litters his sentences with Spanish words like Niño(boy) and Bebé(baby)
- Another special mention: for Szayel, which sword is called "Fornicarás" which basically means "You will Fornicate".
- The bounty hunters' TV show in Cowboy Bebop employs this along with other cheesy Western stereotypes; for example, "¡Amiiiigo!". The Latin American dub renders this as an exaggerated Northern Mexican and a Guadalajara accent.
- El Cazador de la Bruja, especially the dub. Justified since it's set in the US southwest.
- In Eureka Seven's world there's a city called "Ciudades del Cielo". Which is wrong because „ciudades“ is plural.
- One episode of Excel Saga had Il Pallazzo suddenly making a speech in Gratuitous English that was changed to Gratuitous Spanish in the ADV Films dub. Also, That Man's final words are "¡Adios, amigos!"
- Similarly, in episode 17, what was originally Gratuitous English spoken by Excel was changed to include some Spanish words: "Yo yo homies! Feliz Navidad. Me llamo Excel. You my bitches!"
- Moerumba of Futari Wa Pretty Cure Splash Star makes this his entire schtick. Nothing like a Quirky Miniboss Squad member randomly shouting "¡Señorita!" when he's trying to kill you.
- The El Dora Five. (¡AAAAADIOS! AAAAAAAAAA... MIIIIIIIIIIIIGO)
- In Meda Bots During the World Championship arc, the Mexico Team consists of three guys that wear Ponchos and "sombreros" and just spout the word "Amigo" over and over (as in THE ONLY THING THEY EVER SAY, and they say it a lot).
- In One Piece, Sir Crocodile and Nico Robin both use Gratuitous Spanish in their attack names; though Crocodile likes to switch it up with the occasional Gratuitous Italian, and Robin's combines Spanish numbers (or body parts), the French word for flower, and English words like "clutch".
- For whatever reason Yellow in Pokémon Special is often called "Amarillo del Bosque Verde", or "Yellow de Tokiwa Grove" in Japan.
- Dahlia says "Que Sera, Sera" a few times, though it's justified since she's implied to be latina in the games.
- In School Rumble Nakamura when he was disguised as Eri in the School War said "Hasta la vista" when he was going to "kill" Asou. Probably a tribute to some movie, where a robot says that before killing the main antagonist.
- A much, much, MUCH bigger example of the series is Lala González, being a Mexican girl who speaks loudly and uses random Spanish words in her otherwise fully in Japanese speech.
- In Shaman King, a Mexican called Peyote frequently says "¡Eres Correcto!", which would literally translate to "You're correct!". However, the correct translation would be "¡Estás en lo correcto!" (You are on the right assumption) or "¡Es correcto!" (That's correct).
- Sol Bianca has several examples of Gratuitous Spanish: the name of the show itself and the eponymous space ship is an incorrect attempt to say "white sun" in Spanish (the correct phrase would be "sol blanco"; "bianca" is Italian and "bLanca" is the feminine form of the adjective); some characters have the surname Delapaz ("of peace"); and there are two planets named Uno and Tres.
- In one of the Wandering Son episodes a sign said "Ropa Inperior". They were probably going for "Ropa Interior".
- Yotsuba breaks out with an "¡Olé!" when she, Ena, and Miura are on their way to get cake.
- Parodied in commercials for the Bing search engine. The commercials are done in telenovela style with dialogue all in Spanish (other than proper names and the word "links") and subtitled. However, when the Mysterious Stranger displays his laptop showing Bing, it's apparent that the characters are in San Jose, California (showing movie listings for local theaters or airline fares from the city) — almost 700 miles from the Mexican border.
- The recent State Farm commercials feature an obnoxious man trying way too hard to appeal to viewers. He's often seen standing near groups of people trying way too hard to act like regular people, and then telling you to "Ask your neighbors/friends/family" about State Farm, because they probably use it. In one commercial, he says "Ask your neighbors- tu familia.", with absolutely no setup for the sudden burst of Spanish. It's assumed they did this to make the commercial even MORE obnoxiously trying-too-hard, but the "tu familia" part has been removed in later airings.
- There's this one anti-drug PSA where a Hispanic teenager is talking with a friend on her cell phone. Their conversation is entirely in English, except that she calls her friend chica (which really doesn't make sense, since if both characters are fluent in English they really should know the word for "girl").
- To be fair, chica is a popular term of endearment among the Hispanic community and female teenagers.
Comic Books (Historietas y cómics)
- Nancy from Afterlife With Archie is latina and peppers her speech with spanglish.
- Blue Beetle: the third's series has most of the main and supporting characters being Hispanic, they even have a whole issue that is almost entirely in Spanish.
- Justified in that they hail from El Paso, where 86% of the population is Hispanic and almost as many are bilingual.
- When Yolanda Montez was introduced as the second Wildcat during Crisis on Infinite Earths, she had an endearing habit of letting Spanish phrases slip into her internal monologue followed immediately by the English translation as though she were trying to teach spanish to any listening telepaths.
- In the second issue of IDW's "New Ghostbusters", Melanie Ortiz yells, "Idiota! Nunca dispares cuando hay un inocente!" at Ron Alexander after he blasts a ghost that's holding a woman several feet in the air, causing the woman to fall to the ground. She also provides a translation, though "inocente" naturally means "innocent".:
Ron: Whoa, Chica, speak American if you're gonna flirt.
Melanie: (punches him in the face, knocking him down) Did that translate well enough for you? Don't you ever take a shot when a civilian is in the line of fire, not ever again. Do I make myself clear?
- Eric Powell's The Goon uses a Bilingual Bonus variation with El Lagarto Hombre. Also an example of Stylistic Suck since the Spanish is intentionally bad with little regard for proper grammar or coherence.
- Mexican-American Victor from Runaways uses random Spanish words and phrases all the time. However, once in a while he'll actually subvert the trope by using a phrase that the average American probably wouldn't know or be able to guess from the context. It's very accurate Mexican Spanish though, and he's displeased when fellow teammate Chase insists on calling him "amigo".
- Superman comics' third-rate villain Encantadora is from Spain and the writers will remind you of it by generously peppering her dialogues with unnecesary Spanish words and phrases. It gets really annoying after a couple of pages...
- the 2000 Superman Annual was part of the "Planet DC" event, featuring familiar heroes going to foreign countries and teaming up with new heroes from those countries. Superman teamed up with three Mexican heroes, Acrata, Iman, and El Muerto, all of whom are extremely prone to this; El Muerto describes his amazing stealth as allowing him to disappear and reappear at will, "like a fantasmo."
- Teen Titans's 2011 relaunch features Bunker, a teen metahuman from a small village in Mexico, who peppers his speech with random Spanish words. He's actually pretty restrained compared to most examples, using one or two Spanish words or phrases per issue (as opposed to "per word bubble"). At one point he even lampshaded it.
Madre...you know the rest
- According to her official Marvel biography page, Silverfox was known to use the (identical in meaning) alias "Zora del Plata". Uh, you mean "Zorra de Plata"? Not to mention that you really wouldn't want to name a woman that: calling a woman a "zorra" is calling her a slut in most of Latin America and Spain. (Also, the Rio de la Plata is actually a river in South America. If they were actually trying to make it sound like the actual name for the animal, it should have been zorra plateada.) Marvel at The Silverslut!
- In fact, when the X-Men comics are translated into Spanish, her name is "Zorra plateada".
- Following the name change from Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, several fans joked that the team is now Los angeles de Los Angeles. In fact, (at least after winning 2002 seria mundial), el equipo was referred by newspapers in Mexico as los serafines.
- San Francisco has had "Gigantes" jerseys for their local baseball team, the Giants, for years on appointed Spanish Heritage games.
- Baseball teams that have Spanish Heritage nights will generally have the opposition teams play in Spanish translated team names as well. Such as a game in San Francisco with the Gigantes de San Francisco v. Cerveceros de Milwaukee (Milwaukee Brewers).
- In fact, as a rule of thumb, American baseball, basketball and football teams are translated depending of the country: In Mexico, per example, the Chicago Bulls are ALWAYS translated in Mexican media as "Los Toros de Chicago", but in Hispanic media in the U.S., the names are not translated due possibly to cultural and legal reasons. But, for some reason, soccer teams from the Major League Soccer are left untranslated in Mexican Media (something that normally does happen sometimes with some foreign teams, like the ones from the Japanese J-League, from all the foreign soccer leagues they want to translate the names in Spanish.)
- Several sports leagues have had Spanish events where the team names or mascots were changed to their cross-border equivalent. They don't always go all the way. For example, the Phoenix Suns chose to wear uniforms that said "Los Suns." Grammatically, the proper way should be "Los Soles de Fenix".
Fan Fiction (Ficción hecha por Fans)
- Calvin and Hobbes: The Series: Calvin responds "Si?" when someone taps him on the shoulder.
- Da Princess In Da Gle Club features an extreme example of this when Spanish teacher Mr "Shoe" tells Princess, in Spanish, that he loves her and that flamers are retards. The problem? He's actually talking Slovenian. And most of what he says isn't even translated anyway. (To be fair, Spanish is immediately below Slovenian on Google Translate.)
- The suspiciously Spain-like country that the Lancre witches visit in Witches Abroad is elaborated on in the Discworld fanfic of A.A. Pessimal. In this expanded universe, the country is called Toleda, and its inhabitants, when speaking Morporkian with an accent, are marked by gleefully random and gratuitous use of the tilda over the letter "ñ". This is used very freely, together with the inverted "¡" at the front of exclamations and the inverted "¿" at the start of questions.
- In Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami, Naomi thanks Dark by saying "¡GRACIAS!" The problem? The character is supposed to be speaking Gratuitous French (although it's difficult to tell, as she says things like "I fortez je was mort!").
- My Little Unicorn has Dyno and Myte, who are blatant ripoffs of Más y Menos.
- The main character of the fic Rainbow in the Dark speaks in English, but his mother language is Spanish. There's a few times when he speaks in Spanish, one of which is a title drop: Arco iris en la oscuridad (Rainbow in the dark). Given that the writer is Spanish too, it could count as Bilingual Bonus.
- The Seven Names of Envy Angevin (Fullmetal Alchemist) has a hilariously-subverted version of this; Envy is disguised as an Arizona girl called Julia Vasquez; he proceeds to insert random Spanish words, curses and pet names everywhere. Where did he get these? Two years of Spanish class and the Internet.
- Parodied in Those Lacking Spines, where Pence speaks an unintelligible mess of Spanish, English, and Gratuitous Japanese.
"Watashi wa wanta tots domo muchos, minna-san!"
"Iie, iie, no way Jose."
"¿Dónde está la biblioteca? ¡La biblioteca esta allí! ¿Dónde está Pedro? ¡Pedro esta en la biblioteca! ¡Pedro esta allí!"
- In the Bones fanfic, "The When and the How; A Bone to Pick", when Booth and Bones are enjoying a romantic dinner, Bones whispers a sentence in Spanish in Booth's ear; "Un día, nos vamos a duchar juntos. Y ese día, cuando nosotros estemos por fin solos, voy a enseñarte cuanto te quiero." Translation: "One day, we will shower together. And on that day, when we are finally alone, I will show you how much I love you."
- In the French dub of The Addams Family, Morticia drives Gomez mad with passion by speaking Spanish (it was French in the original).
- Vasquez in Aliens. "Pendeja jerkoff!"
- In the English subtitles for Banlieue 13, the French word banlieue, meaning "district" or "ghetto," is translated into the Spanish word barrio. Although barrio is used in English, it's as a Spanish-speaking section of an American city, and just looks ... weird ... in a movie that's set in France.
- In Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, the many Mexican characters slip in very few Spanish words, and always easily understood words, such as occasionally replacing "buddy" with "amigo".
- In Jumanji, the store where the hunter gets his BFG, has the Himno Nacional Mexicano (Mexican Anthem) playing in the background.
- In Legend, Blunder, the helmeted goblin, tends to spout Spanish sometimes. When Blix sets his butt on fire, he yells "Aye, carumba!" and when he is dropped down a pit he cries, "Adiós, amigos!"
- The title of the song "Que Sera, Sera" from The Man Who Knew Too Much does not actually translate into "Whatever will be, will be", but something more like "What's it going to be?" Composer Jay Livingston had seen the 1954 film The Barefoot Contessa, in which an Italian family has the motto "Che sarà sarà" carved in stone at their ancestral castle; he later translated the phrase to Spanish (the original Italian is also incorrect). Something closer would be "lo que sea será".
- In the Spanish dub the Spanish lyrics are kept while the English part is translated, which could have been redundant if they didn't mean completely different things. For those interested, the song goes: "Qué será, será; lo que quiera ser será..."
- Puss in Boots in the Shrek films, by virtue of being voiced by Antonio Banderas. The Mexican dub replaces it with Antonio Banderas speaking with a heavy Andalusian accent. In the Spanish dub, Banderas exaggerates his own Malagueño accentc
- "Jai Ho", from Slumdog Millionaire, is in Hindi, but features an entire section in Spanish ("¡Baila! ¡Baila! Ahora conmigo, tu baila para hoy, Por nuestro día de movidas los problemas los que sean, ¡Salud! ¡Baila! ¡Baila!").
- Most of the foreign language in Team America: World Police is total gibberish mocking the As Long as It Sounds Foreign trope, with the exception of the Panamanians' reaction to the Panama Canal blowing up: "¡No me gusta!"
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day: "Hasta la vista baby". Which becomes 'Sayonara, baby' in some Spanish dubs.
- In Toy Story 3, after Buzz's reset button is hit, he turns into a flamenco dancing version of his Space Ranger Persona. ¡Buzz Lightyear al rescate!
- Rosalita in Tremors breaks out in Spanish when excited or frightened.
- There's an HBO original movie by the name of Walkout, which despite being about the Chicano movement in Los Angeles, appears to have been written entirely by white people. The allegedly Latino characters only seem to be familiar with the phrases, "Que no" and "Que si", and the word "pendejo".
- The bad guy biker gang from Wild Hogs are called the Del Fuegos, literally "Of the Fires" or "Of the Flames." (The number is wrong, though; "fuegos" is plural, and so should be the definite article, so the right Spanish would be "De Los Fuegos"). So the individual members would be "Flamers." Allegedly Disney wanted the gang to be a chapter of Hell's Angels, but they were sued for attempting to use this.
- In 2046, the song "Siboney" is sung in Spanish.
- The children in Good Omens use Gratuitous Spanish (along with an assortment of stereotypically Spanish props, like onions and a straw donkey) to give their re-enactment of The Spanish Inquisition extra authenticity. They use such inquisitorial phrases as olé and viva España.
- Ivanhoe features a Black Knight who goes by the name "Desdichado" - "Unfortunate". He attends a tournament that takes place in England, but is not Spanish - it's a pseudonym to throw off suspicion.
Live-Action TV (Series de Televisión)
- Nearly all of the English-language songs on Mexican-American singer Selena's Dreaming of You have some sort of whispered content in Spanish. ("Mi amor, cómo te extraño" off the title track, etc.)
- Beck's song "Loser" has the chorus start with "soy un perdedor". "Hotwax" continues the theme by having the chorus entirely in Spanish ("yo soy un disco quebrado/yo tengo chicle en el cerebro"), ans similarly self-mocking (that second line means "I've got chewing gum in my brain".
- And let's not forget "¿Qué onda, Güero?" (Translation: "What's up, white boy?"), which is completely full of random Spanish words. Apparently it's meant to simulate the experience of being a white boy in LA. Like Beck.
- Beck mentions that he was the only white guy in his street and so was friends with many hispanic and black people, thus inspiring both his love of latin music and hip hop.
- Bowling for Soup's "No Hablo Inglés" is about getting out of trouble by saying "I don't speak english" in spanish.
- In the same song there's the line: A guy walks up and says "¿Dónde está la casa de Pepé?" ... He no habla Inglés.
- Brooks & Dunn's 2002 hit "My Heart Is Lost to You" contains a Spanish translation of the title ("Mi corazón, perdido en ti") in the chorus. It makes sense, since the song is very Latin-influenced.
- The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" features the song lyrics in Spanish (concurrently with the English ones at a certain point). So does "Spanish Bombs" , which makes at least a little more sense since the song references the Spanish Civil War.
- The German NDW (Neue Deutsche Welle — German New Wave) band Deutsche Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF) recorded a song called "El Que" which features refrains in German and a chorus in Spanish; this could be somewhat justified by the fact that lead singer Gabi Delgado-López and his family emigrated from Spain to Germany when Gabi was a little boy:
qué me dices
qué me dices
por qué me dices
- The name of Californian band dios (malos), which would translate to "(evil) god". They originally billed themselves as "god" in English with all lower case letters, simply because they thought it would be a funny name to see on the marquee of a concert venue. They then changed it to dios, only to run into legal complications with Dio and amend it to dios (malos).
- Dominican-American pop singer Kat DeLuna includes a lot of Spanish in her songs and occasionally does full Spanish translations of them.
- Want Gratuitous Spanish? Look no farther than Lady Gaga's "Alejandro". The only Spanish is the line "en su bolsillo".
- "The Leaving Song, part 2" by AFI has some whispered Spanish before each chorus. "He estado aquí... muchas veces antes... y regreso..."
- Brazilian satirical band Los Pirata, starting with the name, has many songs like this. (no, Brazil speaks Portuguese!).
- The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)": "¡Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, cinco, seis!"
- And in their song "Why Don't You Get A Job?": "But she wants more dinero just to stay at home"
- The album title "Ixnay on the Hombre" ("Ixnay" is pig latin, not Spanish...but you knew that).
- Aaaaand "OC Guns", containing some Precisión J Huelga.
- The Pixies' frontman Black Francis lived for a while and studied Spanish in Puerto Rico. He never really got very far with it, judging from the weird language-switching in "Vamos" from Surfer Rosa (Estaba pensando sobreviviendo con mi sister en New Jersey), the outright clumsiness of "Isla De Encanta" and others. Unsurprisingly, he got help for the Translated Cover Version of "Evil Hearted You".
- The Pop'n Music song "Passion Girl" starts off with some spoken-word Gratuitous Spanish, then the rest of the song is sung in Japanese with some Gratuitous English at the end. Appropriately enough, the song's genre is "Tequila Dance."
- The German industrial metal group Rammstein put out a song entirely in Spanish for their album Rosenrot titled "¡Te quiero, puta!".
- Shakira, whose mother tongue is Spanish (well, of the South American sort), includes some in several of her English songs. The most well known of these is probably 'Hips Don't Lie', where 'sí', 'bonita', 'mi casa.. su casa' feature (all sung by Haitian - French speaking - Wyclef Jean), as well as the later 'baile en la calle de noche, baile en la calle de día', repeatednote .
- Bradley Nowell tended to drop some Spanish slang in Sublime songs, but the most extensive cases would be "Chica Mi Tipo", which is entirely Spanish, and "Caress Me Down", which has several long stretches of Spanish in the verses. In "Caress Me Down", this may have partially been for Getting Crap Past the Radar purposes - the song was able to get considerable uncensored radio play despite lines like "Pero la cosa que me gusta mas es panochita" ("...but the thing I like most is pussy").
- During one Spanish language song, Tommy Smothers interrupted and tried to make some point (in Spanish) about his brother's base fiddle playing, but got stuck on what to call the instrument, finally coming up with "guitarra grande".
- Tori Amos released an instrumental version of her album Night Of Hunters under the title Night Of Hunters - Sin Palabras (Without Words). The Spanish part of the title literally does translate to "without words", but as an idiom it means "speechless".
- The famous U2 single "Vertigo" starts with Bono saying "Unos, dos, tres, catorce." It sounds like he's saying "1, 2, 3, 4"... except that unos means "some" (specifically the version used to refer to things with "masculine" words,) and catorce means "14!" The correct translation, for the record, would be "Uno, dos, tres, cuatro." This is reportedly a Shout-Out to the album's producer, who produced U2's first, second, third, and fourteenth albums. "Vertigo" also features "Hello, hello (¡HOLA!)/We're in a place called Vertigo (¿DÓNDE ESTÁS?)"
- Not forgetting Bono's own use of this trope when the band tours in Spanish - speaking countries. All together now... "Muchos huevos, muchos táfico..." ("Many eggs, many traffic...")
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Taco Grande".
- Hispanic outsider musician Y Bhekhirst throws in some gratuitous Spanish into his song Hot In The Airport. The first half is hard to understand but the second sounds like "Que contento que la siento", which is something like 'I am happy to be alive'.
- On the other hand, Amigos para siempre (as sung by Sarah Brightman and José Carreras) is entirely in English, with the exception of ... you get the idea.
- Dana International's 1998 Eurovision entry for Israel, "Diva", has a chorus saying "Viva la Diva, viva Victoria, Afrodita."
- The song La Muerte is entirely in French, with the exception of the chorus "La muerte, mi amor".
- "The One Semester of Spanish Love Song" is a guy playing guitar while trying to woo a girl with phrases like "¿Dónde está la biblioteca?"
- The song "Wooly Bully" starts with the time count Uno ... dos ... one, two, tres, cuatro.
- At least three songs in Japanese do this - "Daite Senorita" by Yamapi, "Seishun Amigo" by Shuji to Akira, and "Senor Senora Senorita" by Miyavi.
- One of the Lead Guitarists in Guns N' Roses, DJ Ashba, has a thing for Spanish, it would seem. He's composed three different instrumentals, which he plays one of during his solo-segment at GNR-concerts. Two of those have Spanish names: "Mi Amor" (My Love) and "La Bella Vita" (The Beautiful Life). The name of the last could also be a stealth reference to the Sixx:A.M. hit (Ashba plays in both Guns N' Roses and Sixx:A.M.), "Life Is Beautiful".
- "Toes" by Zac Brown Band contains some examples that stick out like a sore thumb.
- "Eres Tú" by Mocedades (from 1973) was a Spanish version of an adult contemporary tune called "Touch The Wind."
- Section 4 of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, and Nash has "lyrics" in Spanish for purely aesthetic purposes; you can barely make them out unless you're paying really close attention, being overwhelmed by the famous "doo-doo-doo-da-doo" backing vocals. Stephen Stills wrote the "lyrics" in question this way "just to make sure nobody would understand it," basically because they're not particularly important.
- "Hey, Negrita" from The Rolling Stones' Black And Blue:
Come si chiama, what's your game?
I'm just a poor man, what's your name?
Shake your body, do it up now
Shake body, move it up, now
Hey, Negrita, hey now
Hey conchita, shake it up now
Bate las caderas, do it up now
Pinball (Los Pinballs)
Professional Wrestling (Lucha Libre)
- Usually with the now-defunct luchadore-type cruiserweights in WWE (re: they discarded the Cruiserweight Title). Continued with Rey Mysterio, Chavo Guerrero, and Supercrazy.
- TNA has the Latin American Xchange. BG James would also do this in his 3 Live Kru promos.
- There's also Rosa Mendes, a California-born Latina who spoke perfect English when she first appeared on Raw (where she was a Psycho Supporter of Beth Phoenix) but who upon moving to ECW morphed into an arrogant Foreign Wrestling Heel who would speak only in Spanish and insulted General Manager Tiffany by screaming "¡Eres estupida! (She's since moved to SmackDown! and undergone a Heel-Face Turn.)
- In A Very Potter Senior Year Draco starts speaking Spanish to Dora the Explorer. I basically consists of "I love you a lot".
- "I Am Easily Assimilated" from Leonard Bernstein's Candide is about learning to sing in Gratuitous Spanish.
- In the Heights...but of course, it's justified because all but one of the main cast is Hispanic. And there's a lot of phrases that most non-Spanish speakers won't know.
- Taz from Starship will say at least one random Spanish word or phrase per scene that she's in, including two times that she actually shouts out Spanish holiday names when in the face of danger.
- The 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story translated some of the lyrics of "I Feel Pretty" and "A Boy Like That" into Spanish. Apparently, the change didn't last.
- When the production still had the Spanish lyrics it was more of a subversion of this trope. For one thing, the Sharks spoke almost exclusively in Spanish. The Spanish lyrics were linguistically accurate and extremely heavy on slang (if a very loose translation of Sondheim's original lyrics), which made sense given that the people singing were very young and hot-blooded, but it had the effect of the audience not relating to the Sharks because they had no idea what they were saying, thus undermining the whole thing. The whole thing was a pretty good case for Translation Conventions.
Video Games (Videojuegos)
- Secundo in Beyond Good & Evil sprinkles his speech with several Gratuitous Spanish terms...and at least one incidence of Gratuitous Italian (Gratuitous French, too), leaving one to wonder exactly where he's supposed to be from. There's all the race announcer, who inexplicably counts down in Spanish (despite not sounding Spanish at all), and the song "Fun and Mini-Games," which combines several lines of random Spanish with several lines of what sounds like nonsense.
- In the original French Secundo uses a mixture of Gratuitous Spanish, Italian and English terms.
- The Ammo Bandito machines in the first two BioShock games say "¡Bienvenido al Ammo Bandito! (Welcome to the Ammo Bandito!)" in a horrible Spanish accent when using them. Upon exiting, it says "¡Muchas gracias, señor! (Thank you very much, sir!)"
- Ganette from the Blue Dragon Ral Grad manga peppers his sentences with gratuitous Spanish, such as a very dramatic "¡Adios!" when slaying Shadows.
- Dante in Devil May Cry 4 says "Adiós kid" to Nero after their first battle.
- The Vato Bros. in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, weddo.
- Zevran periodically does this in Dragon Age: Origins when you select him out in the world—provided he likes you, anyway. ("¿Sí, amor?", among one or two others.)
- In Final Fantasy VI, when the party first encounters the "master swordsman" Siegfried, he leaves with an "Adios, amigos!" Yes, even in the Japanese version: "Adiosu amigosu!"
- Elvis from God Hand loves to swear in thick Mexican accent
- This line from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which combines Gratuitous Spanish with Poirot Speak:
Smoke: ¡Hola, yo soy El Grando Smokio!
Chicano: Chale, who's this cabrón?
Smoke: Coughio up el weedo, before I blow your brains all over the patio!
Chicano: ¡Chinga tu madre, pendejo! This is not your place!
- Manny Calavera from Grim Fandango tends to slip a Spanish word or two into nearly anything he says (or rather his voice actor does - most of it was improvised and simply left in). Which kind of makes sense, because all the human characters in the game are modelled after mexican paper dolls.
- The South of the Border region in Kingdom of Loathing.
- The new Mass Effect 3 squad member James Vega is supposed to be Hispanic and constantly uses words like 'pendejo' and 'loco'...but his accent is absolutely cringeworthy.
- Not only that but there are several instances where he uses the word "loco" without it making any sense.
- Miror B.'s theme song in Pokémon Colosseum contains several random shouted Spanish words, such as "Canta! Rico! Baila!" et cetra.
- And from Pokemon Red And Blue, we have Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres (Arctic-one, Zap-two, Molten-three)
- Wheatley in Portal 2.
Wheatley: "[to self] Hm. Could be Spanish, could be Spanish. [loud again] ¡Hola, amigo! ¡Abre la puerta! Dónde está—no. Um..."
Wheatley: "... Alright? Dead. Dos Muerte."
Wheatley: "Estás usando este software de traducción de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual."note I don't even know what I just said! But I can find out!
- GLaDOS also throws in one line in Spanish.
- In the climax of Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing, you have to type in Spanish passages, all of which were poorly translated from English.
- The ganados in Resident Evil 4 all speak Spanish (and badly mangled Mexican-accented Spanish at that), despite the creators insisting that the game is set in central Europe and not Spain. At any rate, this is mostly an aversion, as the Ganados never speak English (but it is an example of Spexico). Ally Luis Sera and a few of the major villains dip into this trope on occasion (and on top of that with unnatural expressions or even grammar mistakes, even though they are supposed to be native speakers), but it's rather rare.
- Selena Recital from Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 tends to slip up Spanish words in her sentences, such as Gracias, soshite Adios.
- Subverted by Panther Caroso - his name, his stature, and his character gives him a feel of being "Spanish", but he speaks purely in English.
- Croco in Super Mario RPG spouts "¡Adios, amigos!" when he runs away during the first battle. Cortez in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door also speaks in Gratuitous Spanish.
- The MacGuffin of Tales of Monkey Island is a mythical sea sponge called "La Esponja Grande", which was being searched by a man called Coronado De Cava. Coronado himself speaks with Gratuitous Spanish from time to time when Guybrush finally encounters him also.
- It's worth noting that a few times Guybrush plays off the name, he gets the adjective and noun title wrong and uses the masculine form when the noun is feminine ("La Esponja Gordo" (rarely, since this may be a production error where the item's name was changed during development, which is especially evident in Chapter 3 when he talks to De Cava), "La Esponja Pequeño", "Señor Esponja Not-So-Grande"). This said, there is also a hilarious scene in The Curse of Monkey Island where, upon seeing Guybrush tarred and feathered, a character will yell "¡Madre de dios! ¡Es El Pollo Diablo!" ("Mother of God! It's The Devil Chicken!"), and Guybrush can respond with "Huh?" or "Yes! I have released your prisoners and now I have come for you!"...in English or Spanish. ("Que?" or "Si! He dejado en libertad los prisioneros y ahora vengo por ti!")
- In the first Uncharted game, Nate claims "El Dorado" means "the golden man", when it actually means "the gilded one".
- He probably got confused by the original legend, which describes the king of said city pouring golden water all over himself every morning, but you'd think a treasure hunter would know the words "hombre" and "oro".
Web Original (Original de Internet)
- In the Alternate History Decades of Darkness, the USA conquers Mexico and big parts of Latin America. Most of its inhabitants become peons, spread to the northern areas, and as a result, around 1950 American English has a lot of Spanish loan words.
- Cortez from the internet Machinima The Leet World uses Gratuitous Spanish frequently. His brother Mendoza and the Ocho Muertos terrorist group also use it.
- Parodied in lonelygirl15 episode "Spanish Princess", in which Sarah receives a love letter written entirely in Spanish, which was probably supposed to be romantic. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually understand it.
- The show would also play this straight from time to time. This trend was carried over to LG 15 The Resistance, before the series had even started - one of the prologue videos is called "Fun Things to Do in Hiding - Volume Dos!"
- In a Protectors of the Plot Continuum mission, Latino [sic] Mary Sue on Sampetra calls Ublaz "puerco (pig)". This brings out the Deadpan Snarker in one of the Agents.
- "Anthony Is Mexican" by Smosh. It dissolves into a train wreck. Muy rapido.
- Used frecuentemente in The Time... Guys episode with Timmy's Spanish teacher.
- The "Me Gusta" guy from Rage Comics.
- Shows up a few times in World Domination In Retrospect, notably when the Villain Protagonist is being handed over to a group of superheroes by a group of Florida villains. His use of Spanish temporarily convinces the heroes that he's just some immigrant put in the armor to fool them.
Webcomics (Cómics de Internet)
- Parodied in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja issue 3, which has such a character, together with footnotes painstakingly translating each well-known Spanish word into English. Taken to its logical extreme here.
- Irregular Webcomic! here, with a follow-up nearly 4 years later.
- Something Positive featured in sparse instances the infamous Pepito Sanchezberg, a Mexican sex midget which was enslaved by Avagadro Pompeii; having very limited instances to actually have human contact with someone else, Pepito exclusivelly spoke a gratuitous and extremely broken Spanish. Later, author R. K. Milholland justified this in two ways: first, he argued that he always hated the character, so he never bothered with grammatically correct Spanish (even when fans offered to do it for him), and second, in canon, Pepito has spoken English from quite a while, but refrained to do so to mooch on everyone's pity. Later, Milholland killed him in the bloodiest way possible by being dismembered by rampant catgirls at a convention.
Western Animation (Animación occidental)
Real Life (La Vida Real)
- The motto of the Churchill family is the Spanish Fiel pero desdichado: meaning (depending on your interpretation) "Faithful but Unfortunate", "Faithful but Disinherited", or "Faithful but Unhappy". The motto originally comes from the founder of the Churchill line, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, who probably chose the motto because his father had backed the wrong side in the English Civil War and had been forced to pay a vast sum of money to get his estates back, but remained loyal to England; John became one of its great heroes in the War of the Spanish Succession (where he campaigned in Spain; hence the Spanish). Winston Churchill, a member of a junior line of Churchills, kept the motto on his coat of arms.
- American English as a rule is somewhat prone to this, due to the proximity to Mexico and prevalence of Hispanic culture within American pop culture. Stuff like "¿Qué pasa?," "Adiós," "Hasta la vista," and the like are commonly used, especially by younger generations. This is especially prevalent because of the dominance of Southern California, which has a large Hispanic population and heavy Latino cultural influence, in the media industry.
- Arbusto Energy, a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1979, for former US President George W. Bush. Arbusto means "bush" in Spanish.
- NFL player Chad Johnson legally changed his surname to match his nickname "Ochocinco", a goofy form of his player number: 85.
- The correct form would be "Ochenta y cinco"; his name is more like "Eightfive" rather than "Eighty-five". Although he probably didn't know better, his new legal name would probably sound too wordy and not as catchy if correct.
- Considering his... well, just about everything about him, it's entirely possible that he wouldn't see any problem referring to himself as "number eight five." Especially for the pragmatic reasons mentioned above.
- He actually was aware of the correct Spanish form of the number 85, but he chose to stick with "Ocho Cinco" as his nickname because it was catchier. When he legally changed his name in 2008 (two years after adopting the nickname), it was parsed as one word on his legal documents, and per NFL rules, had to be rendered as such once he was cleared to wear it on his jerseys beginning in 2009. Of course, now he's gone and changed his last name back to Johnson, though he's keeping "Ochocinco" as his middle name.
- Tagalog and the many regional languages in the Philippines are also prone to this on a regular basis. Justified in that over 300 years of colonial rule has led to a number of Spanish words and idioms being sprinkled into the native vernacular. In fact, most of these Spanish words have virtually replaced the native words, which used makes one sound archaic.
¡Gracias por leer este tropo, amigos!