Puerto Rican Spanish! (aka *BORICUA* Spanish)

Hi, everyone! I hope you enjoy the video! Don't forget to check out Spanish Uncovered, which I highly recommend: ▶ Spanish Uncovered: bit.ly/Spanish-Uncovered ◀ ▶See ALL Uncovered courses: bit.ly/Uncovered-ALL-langs ◀

The most beautiful Spanish accent of all.I am a gringo that lived in PR. 27 years and my wife,the most beautiful soul I've ever known,taught me Puerto Rican Spanish.She died almost 2 yrs ago and I've since returned to the US.I was so lucky I learned Spanish there in PR because I learned to speak in the very fluid,flowing style they speak.Now here in Atlanta,Ga. I speak Spanish mostly with Mexicans and people from Central America.They insist that I am a Latino.I love all Latinos but Puerto Rico is so very dear to me and I will always have a special place in my heart for her.

The Puerto Rican 🇵🇷 accent comes from the region of Andalucia on Spain 🇪🇸 and the Canary Islands 🇮🇨. Me as a Puerto Rican, I’m really happy that you did a video about the puerto rican spanish.

As an Argentine Spanish speaker, Puerto Rican Spanish had always sounded somehow playful, dead worried, angry and overly energetic all at the same time XD It's one of the most "sung" accents I know, together with Chilean. It's very fun to imitate, I really love it XD

As a L2 Spanish speaker,I have a couple of things to say. First and foremost, I didn't know that PR Spanish was so particular, maybe because there aren't a lot of puerto rican here in Italy. Second, the guy speaking for the examples is the best ever, you can hear he was having a lot of fun showing his language to the Internet, which is a sentiment I very much appreciate.

Thank you Paul! As a 50 year old Puertorican myself I can attest that 95% of the colloquial terms you have presented here are fairly recent used terms exclusively by the younger generation. My generation probably used very few f those terms, and my parents and grandparents generations certainly didn’t use any of them. However, I understand language is a living organic thing and will forever adjust and change to each generation that comes

I'm Argentinian and I fell in love with Boricua Spanish! Such a beautiful dialect! It really needs more recognition.

I'm a second generation Cuban living in rural Texas. I work retail and meet a LOT of different people daily. My accent is often confused as Puerto Rican By Mexicans and Central Americans (Sounds competently different to me) While Dominicans can tell I'm Cuban right away. Go figure...

As a puertorican, this video is pretty accurate. Obviously, there are few slang words that are quite outdated but are acceptable. 😂😂

The Boricua speaker is so enthusiastic, I love that guy! It's fun to listen to him speak. Also, the way the language drops consonants and merges vowels without even blinking, It's like Borocuan is the Danish of the Spanish dialects 😆

Spanish is indeed the language of friendship. We have so many rich varieties yet we understand each other without problems 99% of the time. Saludos a todos mis hermanos/as desde España!

In Andalusia we share many similarities with this dialect. Apart from the L substitution for some R, nothing really sounded very unfamiliar to me 😊

I come from Andalucia, in southern Spain, and I'm surprised how many similarities are there with our local accents!

I’m a Puerto Rican born in NJ who lived and studied in Madrid . I will never forget visiting my family in PR after my years in Spain and being called the tourist . The older I get the more I appreciate the wonderful colorful way my island family speaks . Putting the demonstrative pronoun after the noun actually sounds normal to me , hearing ese tipo as opposed to el tipo ese sounds strange . Also I lived and studied in Brazil 🇧🇷 the use of the glottal Puerto Rican R helped me big time . My ancestors on the island are of Portuguese and Catalan decent , your history of the island is spot on . Great video

I was born and raised in Mexico and until watching this video I never realized that some expressions I commonly use are also used in Puerto Rican Spanish! That was very cool to notice!

A Boricua here! I'm always interested to see how my variety of Spanish is perceived abroad by other Hispanics, but, even more by different language speakers.

Never thought you would cover PR spanish. I’m a rican and yes this is accurate, pretty cool to see. As you said most Spanish variants are not that different from each other despite having their own slang and loan words. Now with the internet it has become even easier to learn about the other accents and slangs. It makes speaking casually to other spanish speakers easier.

The main things I hear when speaking Spanish (I'm Nuyorican) is that people from countries that do not aspirate are often scandalized that we cut them out of places (though this isn't limited to only Puerto Rico), and many people insist that half our sentences are peppered with English words. while English words absolutely are used interspersed, it is in no way half of them, and Puerto Rico is not the only Spanish-speaking country to do this as English has that influence on many languages other than Spanish. The first thing people run to when they want to imitate or mock our accent and dialect is to to change all R's into L's (no matter where they fall), as well as to pronounce all single and double R's the way it is pronounced in Portuguese and French. Opinions about our Spanish can be very split with many people saying that they love the way our accents sound and many looking down upon them or making fun of them. I have always felt that our accents very effectively express the lively spirit and warmheartedness of our people🇵🇷.

The trilled r is most likely influence from Corsican settlers… To me, there is Portuguese influence indeed (and some Galician), but Catalan and West African languages had more of an influence in our Spanish that we Puerto Ricans still have to come to terms with. Whomever was the native speaker is using rather EXTREME inflections of our accent, which some young people may be using, but we tend to moderate the accent a bit on formal situations. Greetings from (where else?) Puerto Rico 🇵🇷

This video is awesome; I never thought you'd cover the topic of Puerto Rican Spanish, let alone this comprehensively! In fact, I was just talking to some of my Puerto Rican family a few weeks ago about some of these peculiarities. I am also thrilled that you pointed out the stigma surrounding the vernacular, and that most other Spanish speakers from elsewhere in Latin America may find it to be a "lazy," or "Americanized," dialect. I think Puerto Rican Spanish is actually very unique in its style and phonology, and I'd even draw some comparisons to sounds from Portuguese and Arabic, hence its connection to Andalucía! I would like to point out a few things, however, that I found to be a bit different from what I experience(d) speaking Puerto Rican Spanish casually with my family. 1. For the shortened/slang pronunciations that you used as examples, I find that there are some definitive differences. For example, to say "mai," or "pai," is not exactly a shortening of "madre," or "padre." To me, it is more akin to saying "mah," or "pops," which some parents don't particularly care for, as it is sometimes deemed too informal/slangy, and lacking respect, which is highly-emphasized in Puerto Rican culture; "faltando respeto," (forgetting/lacking respect) is something I've heard a ton from adults when they were "bochinchando," (gossiping) about other families (think of it as this: in a dialect with so much slang and informality, there must be some honorific boundaries in certain sociocultural contexts). 2. In your vocabulary section, specifically in the example you used for "pelao," I think it's important to note for those who may not be familiar with the terms "nene," or "nena," that they don't always mean "babe," and are usually contextual. Meaning, it can of course be interpreted from your example as being used in a conversation between a guy and his girlfriend; but most often, I would use "nene" or "nena," as a way of simply saying "boy," or "girl," usually when referring to someone of the same age or younger. I apologize for the essay, but I hope you continue making videos like this in the future! A few additional slang words, by the way, can be "tipo/tipa," which is like saying "guy/lady," in an informal/unfamiliar context (ex: "Este tipo/a me esta enfojonando!" - "This guy/lady is pissing me off!"). Another term I heard a lot while growing up was "socio/socia," which is a of closer kin, and is like saying "homie," or "bro." I'm not a native speaker, so forgive me for any errors (I'm trying to make my way out of being a "yo sabo," kid lol). I'd be interested to know if any other Puerto Ricans or Latinos in general share or differ from some of these linguistic characteristics!