Culture Clash: Clash of Languages in IE University

Over the years, English has slowly established itself as a lingua franca, if it exists at all. That is nowhere more prominent than on IE University, an english speaking university in a Spanish speaking nation. What we have here is special, that in terms of languages, almost everyone is from different countries making them bi-lingual, and it is not a rare thing to have a friend who is trilingual. So one of the biggest hurdles in being a student here is our battle with the language barrier. We could write a book if were to dwell in to every single language, but we will have to limit ourselves to two big ones; Spanish and English, two languages most, if not all, are familiar with. What do people find confusing about the transition, what are some expressions and tongue twisters that completely baffle us?

To assist us with this, we have Jessica Linville, Director of the Language Department in IE “Being an American living in Spain, teaching Spanish, I am aware of the ‘general mistakes’ new students make. With english students learning Spanish, they tend to add things that are unnecessary. Mainly due to the fact that english has a lot more conjugations and tenses which are normalized in Spanish. This is the same phenomenon from Spanish to english”.

There are a lot of tongue twisters and expressions that do not crossover well from the two languages, and as expressions go, are absolutely strange when explained literally. For example, instead of saying you did something wrong, in spanish they say “le caga” which means he "shits it". In english, a common saying is “break a leg” to wish someone luck, which simply doesn't make sense in Spanish.

Lastly, it is the influence a persons native language has upon their clarity when speaking in Spanish. “Its much harder for Germans to pronounce Spanish words than it is for French or Italians. This is mainly because this is different root and germans generally have a much thicker accent. Some times, I simply cant pronounce some words in Spanish” says 3rd year BBA student Ben Ranft.

All in all, the clash of languages in IE is an intriguing as you will at least hear more than one being spoken in a hallway on a busy day.