Anglicisms: from fútbol to hacer clic

Explanation

The first route is adaptation: the word is respelled and repronounced until it behaves like Spanish — fútbol, gol, líder, mitin, túnel, vagón, escáner, estrés, champú, bistec, cheque, cóctel, esmoquin, güisqui. The second is raw borrowing, where the English spelling survives: marketing, software, casting, hobby, email. The third is the calque, translated piece by piece: rascacielos from skyscraper, baloncesto from basketball, correo electrónico, disco duro, ratón, red social, luna de miel, perro caliente.

The academies prefer adapted spellings or a native equivalent, and Fundéu spends much of its time proposing them; usage, however, decides, and it decides differently by country. Latin America generally takes more raw anglicisms, while Spain more often keeps a native or French-derived alternative — hence computadora or computador against ordenador (itself borrowed from French ordinateur), celular against móvil, carro against coche. None of these is wrong; they are regional norms, and you should pick the one that matches the Spanish you are learning.

The dangerous category is the semantic calque, where an existing Spanish word quietly takes on an English meaning. Watch for aplicar used for solicitar ('aplicar a un puesto'), asumir for suponer, eventualmente for finalmente, remover for eliminar, soportar for tolerar, ignorar for no hacer caso, and severo for grave. These slip past because every word in the sentence is genuinely Spanish — which is exactly why they mark a text as translated. Several are so widespread in America that they are now simply part of the local standard, so check the register before you correct anyone.

Examples

Related rules

• Gallicisms and Italianisms: borrowing from the cousins
• Words from the Americas: Taíno, Nahuatl, Quechua, Guaraní
• False friends for English speakers