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"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 
Victor Hugo, possibly referencing Charles V

Describe aquí; español gratuito.

...¿Qué?

Since a good amount of TV is produced in California, specifically southern California, which shares a border with Mexico, and since Spanish is the second language of the United States with a 13% share of speakers as of 2021, it is only natural that American TV writers would insert Spanish words and phrases into their series to make things seem more foreign. This trend has become popular in Japan recently, though it has a ways to go before it becomes as popular as German or English. But since more and more people in the US speak Spanish (and Spanish-speakers are increasingly present in all professions and classes, including entertainment), Spanish is becoming more and more common in both fiction and real life.

While more realistic "Spanglish" usage and code-switching has slowly become more common in media as a result of the above, this trope traditionally (and most often) comes in the form of a given work's resident Spanish speaker only using Spanish terms that most English users know (such as "sí" meaning "yes", or "amigo" meaning "friend") but otherwise speaking in perfect English. It's a way for the writers to remind us that the character is from a Spanish-speaking country and therefore exotic, but exactly why the character needs to slip back into Spanish for such simple terms is never quite explained. 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 nouns or verbs in conversation, but never common English particles, even among people who primarily speak Spanish. For example, no one in history who has spoken any level of English has ever code-switched between ultra-basic words like "yes" and "si", "sir/Mr." and "señor", or "hola" and "hello". See also Poirot Speak.

This is very, very 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, too.

If a series featuring Gratuitous Spanish is dubbed into Spanish, the Spanish terms often become Gratuitous English.

See Everything Sounds Sexier in French for some of the connotations of the use of Spanish, such as the average Internet male talking about Salma Hayek or Penélope Cruz. Compare also with El Spanish "-o". For the actual Spanish language, see Spanish Language.

This is a subtrope of Gratuitous Foreign Language and really should be used with extreme care.


Ejemplos:

    open/close all folders 

    Animación asiática (Asian Animation) 
  • Happy Heroes: In Season 7 episode 47, the ambassador of Suspicious Planet is recovering in the hospital and gets comments on a tablet. One of the comments clearly displays "hola" in Latin script.
  • In the Simple Samosa episode "Jalebi's Birthday", Jalebi helps Dhokla to get untangled from some LED lights and expects him to wish her a happy birthday when he thanks her. When Jalebi asks him if he has anything to say besides "thank you", Dhokla doesn't get the hint and just says "thank you" again... in English and Gujurati, which are changed in the English dub to French and Spanish respectively.
    Dhokla: Merci, merci, gracias, gracias!

    Animación de la Red (Web Animation) 
  • Played for Laughs in Red vs. Blue. Due to a problem when installing his speech unit, the robot Lopez only speaks Spanish, a language none of his teammates understand - and neither do the creators (which are from another state close to Mexico, Texas), meaning the lines written through online translators are usually incorrect and don't match the English subtitles. This is especiallly the case in the earlier seasons, as before Google Translate came into being, Rooster Teeth had to use the Babelfish, which was universally seen as a poor translator even at the time. Even further in Season 9, where in a recreation of the earlier seasons, Sarge reveals that he ordered the Spanish model of robot so that the team could grow closer by learning Spanish together.
  • In Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers, Dr. Mario attempts to cure a pregnant Tinky Winky, by using fire, hammer, and Nintendo. After that, this happens:
    Dr. Mario: This is your last chance. You take the blue pill, you take the red pill.
    Toad: Por que no las dos?
  • Cortez from the internet Machinima The Leet World uses Gratuitous Spanish frequently. His brother Mendoza and the Ocho Muertos terrorist group also use it.
  • Anon: Hunter and Antonio always tend to talk in Spanish whenever they need to talk in public without anyone understanding them.
  • Blood Sun Vendetta: With the story set in Mexico, there tends to be much gratuitous Spanish often, the titles of each episode is also written in Spanish.

    Animación occidental (Western Animation) 
  • Roger from American Dad! listens to a strange song set to the tune of the Mexican Hat Dance in one episode. The lyrics make no sense as they sound like they were compiled by someone who took an introductory Spanish course and tried to use all the words he learned from his first day in class.
  • El Grapadura, A Masked Luchador from The Angry Beavers.
  • Animaniacs (2020):
    • In the segment "Whodonut?", Yakko uses the TV remote to turn down Wakko's screaming just as he says what's wrong. When Yakko hits another button, it ends up being the Spanish language option, making Wakko tell Yakko and Dot what's wrong in Spanish. Dot asks Yakko if they could do the entire episode in Spanish, but Yakko refuses as his accent is "muy terri-blegh" and sets Wakko back to English.
    • Cora occasionally speaks Spanish in "My Super Sour 16".
  • The title characters of The Brothers Flub sometimes lapsed into this. In fact, one of them is named Guapo ("handsome").
  • Supercow in Cow and Chicken speaks entirely in Gratuitous Spanish. In the Latin American Spanish dub, she switches to Gratuitous English instead. In the European Spanish dub, she has a Mexican accent.
  • Go-Go Gomez from The Dick Tracy Show will indulge in this in times of panic or being under the proverbial gun.
  • Dora the Explorer and its Spin-Off, Go, Diego, Go!. Just like with Supercow above, they switch to English in both the Latin American and the European Spanish dubs.
  • Dragon Tales. Quetzal's Spanish use is pointed out in the first episode, and Enrique (a human character introduced in the third season) is originally from Colombia.
  • Juandissimo Magnifico of The Fairly OddParents!
  • So does Eduardo in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Which becomes Gratuitous English in the Latin American dub.
  • Futurama's Bender Bending Rodriguez, has been known to slip into his native tongue from time to time.
    • His ability to do so is heavily subject to Rule of Funny. In one episode, he is auditioning for a part on Calculon's show and has to read a scene loaded with Gratuitous Spanish and utterly fails to pronounce even a single word correctly. In another, his grasp of Spanish is restricted to only being able to say "si".
    • The European Spanish dub gives him the name Bender Doblador Rodríguez. You can tell the voice actors had fun with the name: doblador means both "Bender" (so he's esentially repeating his own name in a different language) and "voice actor".
  • Garfield and Friends
    • Used in the second opening.
      U.S. Acres gang: Dancing!
      Garfield: Fiesta!
      U.S. Acres gang: Romancing!
      Garfield: Siesta!
      U.S. Acres gang: Samba!
      Garfield: La bamba!
      All: Ay caramba!
    • This happens on a Screaming with Binky segment featuring Wade Duck, because he had to do the scream for Binky while he was in Mexico. Surprisingly, that day, he came back!
      Binky the Clown: Not like that, amigo, like this! HEEEEEY DUCK!
    • Speaking of U.S. Acres, Wade and Roy share the catchphrase "Un momento!", or "Wait a moment!". Not only that, in The Garfield Opera, there's the line "Un momento! Who's that person?" in it.
    • Bo asks "¿Qué pasa?" at the beginning of "Snow Wade and The 77 Dwarves, Part 2".
  • Rex in Generator Rex tends to drop Spanish into his speech on occasion. Very bad Spanish. So bad that it is eventually explained in-universe that while his parents are native speakers from Latin America, he was born and raised in Europe, and has always been hilariously bad at the ancestral tongue.
  • Glitch Techs: Every once in a while Five switches over to Spanish, usually when excited or surprised.
  • Parodied in an episode of Kaeloo where the cast parody Dora the Explorer, and Stumpy is assigned the role of teaching the viewers Spanish. When asked to say "the grass is green":
    Stumpy: [singing] Tapas! Paëlla! Real Madrid, Ibiza! Movida! Conchita, corrida!
  • Speedy Gonzales from Looney Tunes and The Looney Tunes Show.
  • Carolina, Helen's Hispanic cousin from Martha Speaks, occasionally sprinkles a few Spanish words into her speech.
  • Maya & Miguel has multiple instances of this, usually when the titular characters are talking with their parents. Outside of those conversations, you've got Maya's catchphrase ("¡Eso es!") whenever she comes up with an idea.
  • ¡Mucha Lucha!, which presumably takes place in Southern California near the Mexican border. Pretty much every character knows some Spanish and will drop some phrases into their dialogue from time-to-time.
  • Oscar's Orchestra: The title of "Viva Espana!".
  • In The Owl House, Luz always weaves Spanish into her dialogue when speaking with her Dominican mother. In all other instances, she slips into speaking it when extremely emotional; be it from excitement, anger, or wistfulness.
    • After she starts dating Amity, she begins teaching her Spanish, and the two of them occasionally use Spanish terms of endearment.
    • King also taught himself to say "¿Más lentamente, por favor?". This is surprisingly good advice for people trying to learn a new language: learn how to say "Could you please speak slower?"lit  as soon as possible.
  • In Phineas and Ferb, Dr. Doofenshmirtz occasionally uses gratuitous Spanish of varying accuracy, despite hailing from a German-speaking country. Phineas is also fond of speaking Spanish at random moments.
  • The Powerpuff Girls (1998):
    • Lil' Arturo of the Gangreen Gang speaks this way.
    • Also, in another episode, Professor Utonium mentions that one of Bubbles' talents is speaking Spanish.
  • Bumblebee Man on The Simpsons. As it's a parody of the Mexican El Chapulín Colorado.
    • Once again, in the Spaniard Spanish dub, Bumblebee Man has a Mexican accent (which is actually logical). Word of God says that several words spoken by him (woodpequero for woodpecker) were made up on purpose for the audience who the writers expected not to know a lick of Spanish.
    • Bart Simpson is also given to use a quote in Spanish: "¡Ay, Caramba!"
    • Plus, Bart's grafitti tag, El Barto.
    • The Simpsons episode "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer".
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Terminal Provocations", Ensign Fletcher recommends to Dr. T'Ana that she try the carnitas because it's delicioso ("delicious").
  • Más y Menos from the TV version of Teen Titans (2003) also speak entirely in Spanish, though in this case it was correct, good grammar and all. Their problem was the heavy American accent, they don't pronunce the R as it should be in Spanish, and put too many words together which makes it really hard to understand. Turns out to be a fine way of sneaking in dirty jokes. At least a couple of their lines wouldn't have flown past the radar in English (and were changed in the Spanish dub).
    "¡Y este viejo nos está jodiendo!" - "And this old man is fucking with us!"
  • Panchito of The Three Caballeros has a few Spanish words, but he's put to shame by fellow Caballero José, who has half of his dialogue in Portuguese. In his first appearance, in Saludos Amigos, he ONLY speaks Portuguese.
  • Alejandro in Total Drama is fluent in Spanish, English, and a few others (he has a diplomat for a father, so it makes sense). He speaks English most of the time, but occasionally slips into Spanish, especially when frustrated.
  • Jaime from Young Justice (2010) will slip into this sometimes. He is Hispanic and hails from Texas, so it makes sense.
  • Many other childrens' educational animation.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In the last part of the goof-off, Pinkie Pie sings the Mexican traditional song used when they are breaking a piñata. "Dale, dale, dale, no pierdas el tino, por que si lo pierdes, pierdes el camino"; on English it means more or less: "Hit it, hit it, hit it, don't miss the target, because if you miss it, you miss your way."
    • Another Pinkie line is "Are you loco in the coco?"
  • In one episode of Chowder there's a mock soap opera where the only Spanish the actors know is "¿Dónde está?", or "Where is?", and they repeat it ad nauseum for a good 3 minutes.
  • Steven Universe:
    • In "Monster Buddies", after Centipeedle spits acid on the sandwich Amethyst was eating she moans "Noooooo! Mi torta!"
    • In "Gem Heist", as part of a Trojan Prisoner ploy Steven announces that he'll be going by "Esteban Universidad" (which is not only unnecessary, as none of the Homeworld Gems on the station know who he is, but it actually translates as "Steven University").
  • Chihuahua from Thunder and the House of Magic has a habit of addressing Thunder the cat as "gato" (cat) and uses phrases like "mucho peligroso" (very dangerous) whenever scared or excited. However, he places a lot of unnatural emphasis on each syllable like a non-native speaker unfamiliar with the language would and likes to combine his Spanish with English words such as "mi bro" to appear friendly. Though given how much he likes to flaunt his self-proclaimed "reputation", it's hard to tell whether this is a case of EverythingSoundsSexierInSpanish or if all chihuahuas talk this way. The fact that he lives in Massachusetts doesn't help matters either.
  • Naturally, since Nita from The New Shmoo is Latina, she occasionally makes Spanish comments.
  • Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
    • At the beginning of "The Battle For Mewni", Marco is listening to a song in Spanish; though, funnily enough, he admits in an earlier episode that he isn't fluent in the language despite his father being Mexican.
    • Marco's father Rafael occassionally dips into this, having lines such as "You are familia!"
    • The episode "Stump Day" has Star saying "¡Es muy importante!", which means "It's very important!" This would make sense considering how long Star has been around Marco’s parents that she’d pick up their language.
  • Jellystone!: The show's version of Hardy Har Har seems to be Eastern European and Hispanic. Sometimes she says things like "Hola, niños" and "Ay, mi madre".
  • Let's Go Luna!: Spanish is obviously used in episodes taking place in Spain and Mexico. Outside those episodes, Spanish is used by Señor Fabuloso, a Spaniard, and Carmen, a Mexican.
  • Ready Jet Go!: In "Scientific Sean", Mindy (who is Hispanic) mentions her abuela.
  • Elinor Wonders Why: Beatriz from "A Wonderful Journey" uses many Spanish words. This, combined with her name and the fact that she's a coati (an animal from South America), shows that she is Hispanic.
  • Rosie's Rules: Rosie, as well as her dad's side of the family, frequently use Spanish words, due to their Mexican heritage.
  • Work It Out Wombats! has Quique use Spanish words. His son, Sammy, is trying to learn Spanish. Also, the wombats' goodnight song has the line "Buenas noches to Mars."
  • Molly of Denali: In "Come Back Birdie," Molly's friend Antonio lives in Mexico. She and Antonio exchange Spanish greetings and titles.

    Anime y manga (Anime and 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)
  • Azumanga Daioh:
    • Tomo occasionally breaks out the Spanish.
    • 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 Spanish speaker (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.
  • Bleach:
    • Most Hollows 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, whose 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.
  • Dragon Ball Z:
    • In the Funimation and Ocean English dubs, Goku bids Majin Buu farewell by saying Adiós.
    • There is also an instance in the Freeza saga in which Vegeta calls Jeice amigo.
  • 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.
  • Excel♡Saga:
    • One episode had 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!". Excel seemed to be in New York where there are plenty of Spanish speakers.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Oración Seis, (allegedly) "The Six Prayers".
    • Juvia's name is taken from "Lluvia," which is Spanish for rain.
  • 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 Fiv from GUN×SWORD. (¡AAAAADIOS! AAAAAAAAAA... MIIIIIIIIIIIIGO)
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers... 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.
  • In Medabots, 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".
  • Pokémon Adventures:
    • For whatever reason Yellow is often referred to as the "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.
  • School Rumble:
  • Sgt. Frog: Angol Mois in the dub, probably because to a western viewer her tan complexion immediately suggests Latin heritage. And then lampshaded when she stopped doing it. Well, okay, she doesn't do it as much anymore at least, but "stopped" is an exaggeration.
  • 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).
  • Crunchyroll's English subtitles for So I'm a Spider, So What? translate Kumoko's Gratuitous English as Spanish.
  • Sol Bianca has several examples of this: 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.
  • Yotsuba&! breaks out with an "¡Olé!" when she, Ena, and Miura are on their way to get cake.

    Cómics de la Red (Webcomics) 
  • 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.
  • Charby the Vampirate: As Spanish is Zeno's first language he slips into it sometimes when surprised, stressed or upset.
  • Girl Genius:
    • Professor Diaz tends to pepper his sentences with Spanish. (His introductory page alone has two examples.)
    • Tarvek believes Spanish is "muy sexy."
  • 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 theater tycoon 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.
  • Neko Sugar Girls is infamous for its use of Gratuitous Japanese but also features Gratuitous Spanish. Koneko in particular uses a lot despite supposedly being Asian.
    • In episode 7:
      Koneko-chan: Hitoshi-san! Vente aqui!
    • In Episode 8:
      Koneko-chan: You can just sit in this mochila for awhile.
    • In episode three when Hitoshi thanks Raku for saving him from Kidnapper-kun, she says de nada.
    • Koneko-chan says "pinche cabron" in the finale, which is a pretty vulgar term while loosely translated to "asshole".

    Deportes (Sports) 
  • Following the name change from Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (since reverted to just Los Angeles Angels), 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, names of Major League Soccer teams are left untranslated in Mexican media (something that normally does happen sometimes with some foreign teams, like the ones from Japan's J1 League, from all the foreign soccer leagues they want to translate the names in Spanish).
  • Speaking of MLS, four rivalries between California teams have had Spanish names:
    • Honda SuperClasico: CD Chivas USA–LA Galaxy. Now defunct, as MLS folded Chivas after the 2014 season.
    • California Clásico: Galaxy–San Jose Earthquakes
    • El Califórnico: Los Angeles FC–Earthquakes
    • El Tráfico: Galaxy–LAFC
  • MLS' distaff counterpart, the National Women's Soccer League, has its own version in La Chanclásico, created in 2022 when the Los Angeles-based Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC joined the league. The rivalry name is a made-up compound word, with the "chan" part coming from chancla, the Spanish word for a flip-flop (as in sandal). The rivalry trophy is a flip-flop covered in gold spray paint and mounted on a trophy base.
  • 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".
  • When the NFL held a one-off regular season game in Mexico City, they called it - naturally - Fútbol Americano. Which isn't totally gratuitous, as that's the Spanish term for the sport the NFL plays.

    Espectáculos de marionetas (Puppet Shows) 
  • The Muppets (2015): After a visit to Argentina, Miss Piggy comes away convinced she can speak Spanish, which she attacks with the same gusto and fluency she uses for French. Much to poor Uncle Deadly's horror.
    Uncle Deadly: She thinks she can speak Spanish now. It's a nightmare! A nightmare.
  • 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!"

    Historietas, tebeos y cómics (Comic Books) 
  • Nancy from Afterlife with Archie is Latina and peppers her speech with spanglish.
  • Blaze of Glory: The Rawhide Kid eulogizes Two-Gun Kid's death with a solemn "Vaya con dios, mi hermano translation . You were one of the good ones."
  • 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?
    Ron: Crystal.
  • 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.
  • Robin (1993): The villain Fuego speaks mostly in English, that is peppered with bits of Spanish in odd places such as translating Blue Devil's name to "Diablo Azul".
  • 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".
  • The Simpsons: Bart's catchphrase of "ay, carumba!" gets him into trouble on a visit to a Banana Republic, when Lisa makes friends with some local guerrillas, who break into Bart's bedroom to recruit him. Bart makes the exclamation in surprise, and is slapped by a burly mother for using language in front of her "nino".
  • Spider-Man:
    • Miles Morales, despite being half-Latino on his mother's side, didn't do this very much during the time Brian Bendis was writing him, especially during the Ultimate universe days. When Saladin Ahmed took up the writer's reins, Miles begins pepping his speech with the occasional burst of Spanish.
    • Miguel O'Hara and his mom generally averted this despite being Mexican, however she did slip into this when she was in the hospital.
  • Superman:
    • In Kryptonite Nevermore Lois Lane flies to South America to get a story. When her plane crashes, the pilot asks: "You are unharmed, señorita Lane?"
    • In Superman vs. Shazam!, Captain Marvel uses one Spanish word completely randomly:
      Captain Marvel: Looks like I've underestimated the Big Red S— But that's one mistake I'm going to correct pronto!
    • In Must There Be a Superman?, the Man of Steel drops by a small village in Central California where people randomly spout Spanish words and expressions as "Sí", "Señor" or "Madre de Dios" as speaking plain English.
    • "The Super-Steed of Steel": Mr. Greede, the Supergirl Dude Ranch's owner, calls Comet "loco" randomly despite not being Hispanic at all.
    • 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: The 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
  • X-Factor (2006): At one point Jamie Madrox tells a departing Rictor "vaya con dios". Rictor, who is Hispanic, tells him not to do that, because it makes him sound like an idiot.
  • According to her official Marvel biography page, Silverfox was known to use the (identical in meaning) alias "Zora del Plata". Let's begin listing the mistakes:
    • Uh, you mean "Zorra de Plata"?
    • Also, the word "zorra", when said to a woman, means "slut" in most of Latin America and Spain. Marvel at The Silverslut!
    • In fact, when the X-Men comics are translated into Spanish, her name is "Zorra plateada". Whether you choose to translate it as Silverfox or Silverslut depends on how much of a perv you are.
  • In The Accords, Corazon's dialogue is frequently peppered with Spanish, just in case anyone forgets that he's Cuban-American.
  • Young Avengers: America Chavez occasionally does this. She advises people who are not Hispanic, but are Loki, not to do this in her presence (though this might also be blurring into a version of Totally Radical given the complicated circumstances with Loki at the time).

    Literatura (Literature) 
  • In The Bad Guys stories, Mr. Piranha often tosses out words like "hermano", "chico", and "amigo" when talking to his mates. (Like most Real Life piranhas, he's from South America.)
  • Justified in These Savage Bones, as all the characters are technically speaking Spanish to begin with.
  • The Dinosaur Lords uses a lot of Spanish phrases and words, mostly in official situations such as speeches, but characters also spice their phrases with Spanish in regular conversations from time to time.
  • The children in Good Omens use this (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.
  • In The Little Sister, Hollywood starlet Dolores Gonzales peppers her speech with Spanish words and phrases as part of her exotic ethnic persona. By the end of the novel, it's starting to grate on Marlowe, particularly since she has a limited repertoire so he's been hearing the same couple of words over and over.
  • Jorge from The Maze Runner Trilogy peppers his speech with Spanish phrases. Justified as its reasoned the Scorch is in lower Mexico or Central America.
  • The Little Red Pen stars a Spanish-speaking thumbtack.
  • N.E.R.D.S. team member Julio "Flinch" Escala slips into this from time to time. Ironically, Book 4 reveals that he isn't fluent enough to fully understand the Spanish soap operas his grandmother watches.
  • Dark Flame from Relativity speaks South-American Spanish and, as a superhero who often patrols Hispanic neighborhoods, frequently needs to speak it. However, when she does her speech is rendered as English with Spanish phrases peppered through it.
  • Skippyjon Jones often uses Spanish words, since the children's book series is mainly intended to teach Spanish as a foreign language.

    Música (Music) 
  • "The Leaving Song, part 2" by AFI has some whispered Spanish before each chorus. "He estado aquí... muchas veces antes... y regreso..."
  • Animal Alpha's "Fire Fire Fire" begins with the line "You don't wanna know what I've got to do if I know that everything is controlled by una loca".
  • Beck:
    • "Loser" has the chorus start with "soy un perdedor"note . "Hotwax" continues the theme by having the chorus entirely in Spanish ("yo soy un disco quebrado/yo tengo chicle en el cerebro"), and similarly self-mocking (that second line means "I've got chewing gum in my brain".
    • "¿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.
  • The Black Angels: "Jardin" (Spanish for "garden") features a few refrains in Spanish and has a Green Aesop.
  • 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?"note ... 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:
    Mi cariño
    El que
    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.
  • Mexican-American singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo's "Ballad of the Sun and Moon" has backing vocals which simply repeat most of the English lyrics in Spanish, as a sort of 'buy one - get one free'.
  • Want Gratuitous Spanish? Look no farther than Lady Gaga's "Alejandro". The only Spanish is the line "en su bolsillo".
  • Then there's the Madonna hit with which "Alejandro" is often compared, "La Isla Bonita" (1987) (although the song was originally intended for Michael Jackson). The title of that song itself is Gratuitous Spanish (meaning "beautiful island"), and the lyrics include the phrases "¿Cómo puede ser verdad?" ("How can this be true?") and "Te dijo te amo" ("I'm telling you I love you").
    • There's also Gratuitous Spanish in the title song from Who's That Girl, which was issued as the follow-up to "La Isla Bonita." It's in the chorus: "¿Quién es esa niña?" (the song title in Spanish) and "Señorita, más fina" ("A most fine lady"), and in verse two: "Tu corazón es suyo" ("Your heart is hers").
  • Brazilian satirical band Los Pirata, starting with the name, has many songs like this. (no, Brazil speaks Portuguese!).
  • 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. "Caress Me Down" 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").
  • 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 Golpe de Precisión J.
  • 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!".
  • Australian band Frente!, who said they named themselves after the Spanish for "front" because "[i]t rhymes with 'heaven-sent-eh!'"
  • 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.) Interestingly, Selena grew up in Texas speaking English and learned Spanish as her second language.
  • 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 .
  • Tears for Fears:
    • The song "Listen" prominently features repetitions of the chorus "Cumpleaños chica, no hay que preocuparse", which is Spanish for "Birthday girl, no need to worry."
    • In the "Advice for the Young at Heart" music video, the words "Recien casados" ("Just married") are spray-painted on the car of the newlyweds.
    • "Los reyes católicos" ("The Catholic Kings") and its reprise have Spanish lyrics.
  • 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". (done as a parody of "Rico Suave", which probably enters more Gratuitous English given its singer was Ecuadorian)
  • 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'.
  • 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".
  • 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.
  • "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.
  • Former Guns N' Roses guitarist 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
  • The song "Salsa Tequila" by Anders Nilsen is entirely comprised by random Spanish words put together. It ends with "No hablo español" (I don't speak Spanish). Indeed.
  • Clazziquai Project released a series of albums in 2009 that all had titles starting with the word "Mucho". Oddly, only one album out of the four-part series actually had a 100% Spanish name (Mucho Musica); the rest had regular English words added after the "Mucho". The weirdest part? Clazziquai is a Korean band.
  • The Del Fuegos, an American roots rock/ Garage Rock band from the eighties: As with the Wild Hogs example, it means "Of The Fires" and should really be "De Los Fuegos". And the "The" is officially part of the band name, technically making them The Of The Fires.
  • "Don Quichotte" by French synthpop One-Hit Wonder Magazine 60 has a broken Spanish chorus, and English-Spanish Bilingual Dialogue during the spoken-word verses. "Rendezvous sur la Costa del Sol" mixes Spanish with their native French.
  • At the end of the video for Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom", Stacy catches the protagonist of the video, well, busy. The last image of the video is the bathroom's door handle with a small sign that says Ocupado (busy).
  • Some of Romanian singer Inna's songs, such as "More than Friends", "Mexico", and "Caliente", feature this.
  • El Perro Del Mar is a Swedish musical project whose name is Spanish for "the dog of the sea". Sarah Assbringer, the group's only consistent member, has explained that the name was inspired by something that happened during a vacation in Spain: She was sitting alone on a beach and feeling depressed when a friendly stray dog approached her.
  • "La Cancion De Guerra" by Culture Club is simply "The War Song" with part of its lyrics sung in Spanish.
  • "Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life)" by Pam Tillis has a Spanish title that was inspired by a tattoo that she saw a guest wearing on Geraldo.
  • Apollo 440 created a track for Rapid Racer called "Carrera Rapida", meaning "the fast race". The lyrical version includes Spanish words and phrases such as "amigo", "pescado" and "hasta la vista".
  • "If That's What You're Thinking" by Karen Brooks. The lyric "Don't say that you love me, I don't want to hear it" is repeated in Spanish over the bridge ("No me digas que me amas / Yo no quiero oirlo"). Tejano band Texas Tornados kept this line when they covered the song.
  • "Yo No Hablo Español" by Pabllo Vittar is about Pabllo falling in love with a man who speaks Spanish. There's a bit of Spanish mixed in the lyrics.
  • "Viva Torero" by German Euro Pop group A La Carte has bits of Spanish aside with predominantly-English lyrics, as it is about a bullfighting event in Spain.
  • "Gimme a Chance" (2014) by Azealia Banks is definitely an example. Most of the song is a funk song in English, but for some reason in the middle the sound switches to a merengue song and Azealia begins rapping in Spanish for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Even more prominently, the Spanish breakdown isn't present in the original version that was released in 2010.
  • French disco band Gibson Brothers' biggest international hit had the grammatically incorrect title "Que sera mi vida", which roughly translates to "what will my life be?" and is the song's only Spanish lyric, the rest being in English.
  • Queens of the Stone Age: On the album version of No-One Knows, the outro consists of a radio being turned to another station, where a Spanish DJ announces "Buenas tardes señores y señoritas, aquí está el “DJ Héctor Bonifacio Echevarría Cervantes de la Cruz Arroyo Rojas”. Esta es la radio Quetzalcoatl, estación donde el rock vive y no muere. Vamos a escuchar un par de temas de Queens of the Stone Age. Primero vamos a escuchar “First It Giveth...” (explosion de estatica) ...qué música impresionante temible y verdaderamente ahora van a ver a ver a ver a ver aquí va aquí va aquí va aquí va…" note 

    Obras de fans (Fan Works) 
  • A Crown of Stars: Sparsely used, but during the South American liberation campaign some random characters used some Spanish words or stock sentences. Chapter 47's title is "Bienvenido A La Reina Del Plata". In chapter 48 words such like "jefe" ("chief", "boss") or "fiesta" ("party") are used.
  • Advice and Trust: In chapter 8, Misato says: "I want a watermelon daiquiri and air conditioning, pronto."
  • Amazing Fantasy
    • Melissa uses some of this while visiting a cafe to meet up with Harry Osborn in the "Tangled Web of Spider-Woman" sidestory.
    • Miles also uses this when speaking to his mom, owing to his Puerto Rican heritage.
  • In Code SAW, Cassidy thinks "Ay, Dios mío," which means "Oh, my God" in Spanish.
  • Calvin & Hobbes: The Series: Calvin responds "Sí?" 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 Miraculous Ladybug fic Eye of the Beholder has Alya becoming the wielder the Peacock Miraculous, and chooses her superhero name seemingly to balance out the Gratuitous English of Ladybug and the somewhat less Gratuitous French of Chat Noir. While writing a Ladyblog post about herself, she has a flashback to a trip to the zoo with her father during which he taught her English and Spanish names of various animals, including the peacock. "My name is Pavo Real."
  • In The Legend of Royal Blue and La Sylphide, Gabriel Agreste was raised by his Spanish mother, so he tends to speak it instead of French when he's at ease or as a Foreign Cuss Word. He rarely goes a sentence without Spanish as Royal Blue (ironically, a Gratuitous English name) to go with the Dashing Hispanic persona.
  • 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.
  • Last Child of Krypton: In chapter 11, when several sailors spot Superman, one of them exclaims:
    "¿Qué fue eso? ¿Fue un avión?" Paolo called.
    "!Es Superman!"
  • 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!").
  • As the name of the Lucky Star fic Máscara Sonreindo implies, there's a Spanish element to the story. The chapter titles are all in Spanish. This is because Misao is taking Spanish lessons and learning how to tango.
  • My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic has Dyno and Myte, who are blatant ripoffs of Más y Menos.
  • The One I Love Is...: The title of the never-finished sequel is "Que Sera Sera" (meaning -after a fashion- "Whatever happens, happens". Incidentally it is incorrect. It should be written: "Lo Que Será, Será".)
  • Mrs. Talavera from the Turning Red fanfic The Panda Chronicles sprinkles a few Spanish words into her dialogue, such as "hola", "mi chiquito", and "hermano".
  • The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: Xvital occasionally slips into Burroñeso (read: Spanish) when exasperated.
  • Qt Quarrel: When Nikki insinuates she may hit on Lincoln, Ronnie Anne violently threatens her not to in Spanish.
    Ronnie Anne:Si tanto como el olor de mi Lincoln. Mi bebé conejito de miel. Te voy a rasgar en pedazos y alimentar a mis gatos. ¿ENTIENDES?!"note 
  • 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.
  • In This Bites!, this comes with the voice that Soundbite gives Scissors the giant crab.
  • 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!"
  • Quite a few Welcome to Night Vale fanfics do this in regards to Carlos, particularly in intimate moments. Keep in mind, as of this writing Carlos has yet to actually speak any Spanish in canon.
  • 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."
  • Universe Falls: In "Scaryoke", the Gems try to deflect the attention of Agent Powers and Agent Trigger by claiming to be from Spain, which Garnet backs up by saying "Es precioso allí en esta época del año." ("It's beautiful there this time of year.")
  • Spanish is very present in Fire Emblem Heroes: Kiran's Story. Every time Kiran is alone he speaks in Spanish, his thoughts are also in this language. He constantly uses it to swear or complain. In the chapters where his past is shown almost all the dialogues are in Spanish, which makes sense since his family appears and all of them are Mexicans. There's a heartwarming and funny scene between Kiran and Nino that also contains Gratuitous Japanese.
  • In Becoming a True Invader, the Employer peppers his dialogue with Spanish, which he claims is his native language. It's very confusing for everyone else.

    Originales de la Red (Web Original) 

    Películas animadas (Films — Animation) 
  • Coco throws in many Spanish words and phrases, to go along with its basis in Mexican culture. Even the English dialogue is spoken with Mexican accents.
  • 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 accent.
  • 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!
    • Spanish Dubbing plays with this in different ways: the Latin American dub gave Buzz a slightly exaggerated Castilian Spanish accent, while the Castilian Spanish dub gave him a thick Sevillian accent.
  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
    • Miles dips into Spanish on occasion as a reminder of his Puerto Rican heritage. His mom Rio uses it even more than him, asking him what's wrong when he comes home distraught and asks it again in Spanish.
    • Scorpion occasionally speaks Spanish, such as when Spider-Ham approached him and he referred to Ham as "puerco" ("pig").
  • In Cinderella, when Cinderella's rushing home from the ball, the Grand Duke runs after her with her glass slipper shouting "Mademoiselle! Señorita!".
  • Officer Reyes from All Dogs Go to Heaven 2. After her pursuit of Charlie, Itchy, and David ends with her crashing her police car, she speaks several words in this language. Also, prior to this, she speaks this foreign language after she happened to find David at the police station by bumping into him accidentally.
  • In Turning Red, in the English version, Mei excels at French. In both French dubs, she instead excels in a Spanish class and says "a mi me gusta las tapas" ("I like the tapas") during it.

    Películas de acción en vivo (Films — Live-Action) 
  • 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!"
  • Are You Being Served?:
    • Mr. Lucas shouts "Olé" when trying to show Miss Brahms how he'll put the moves on her in Spain.
    • Mr. Harman tells a hotel worker "gracias" after he carries his bags for him, although his accent makes it sound more like "grassy-arse".
    • Mrs. Slocombe says "Muchas gracias" to Carlos after he compliments her body.
  • In the English subtitles for District 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 Dog Days (2018), Dr. Mike tells Tara to stay where she is while he runs some tests on Gertrude. Tara says, "I will be aqui!" After he's gone, she mutters, "'Aqui'? What?"
  • 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".
  • Phreak gets the verbal chancla from his mother when the cops bust in on him in Hackers.
  • In Jumanji, the store where the hunter gets his BFG, has the Himno Nacional Mexicano (Mexican Anthem) playing in the background.
  • In Legend (1985), 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..."
  • The Monty Python farewell special, Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to Go, opens with a presentation on llamas wherein the Pythons speak entirely in Spanish.
  • Set in 19th century Spain, the 1923 film Rosita has Spanish sprinkled about, such as Rosita saying "caramba" and the occasional "senora".
  • In Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Scott calls Todd Ingram "muchacho" a he reveals he tricked him into breaching his vegan diet.
    "Actually, muchacho, I poured the soy in this cup, but I thought real hard about pouring it in that cup. You know, in my 'mind's eye' or whatever."
  • "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!").
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: "Hasta la vista baby". Which becomes 'Sayonara, baby' in some Spanish dubs.
  • 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.

    Series de televisión (Live-Action TV) 
  • On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon proposes a game called "Physics Fiesta", in which you must answer physics-related questions in Spanish. ("¿Dónde está el bosón de Higgs?")
  • Breaking Bad: Gus Fring's fried chicken deli is called Los Pollos Hermanos ("The Chicken Brothers").
  • On Cedric the Entertainer's show, he had a skit called "¿Qué hora es?" ("What time is it?") which parodies this trope describing it as "the Mexican soap opera for people who only had three weeks of Spanish in the fourth grade." Each skit had a scene where all the characters speak only in colloquialisms commonly taught in introductory Spanish classes and Latin-American pop-culture references, both of which usually had nothing to do with the scene that was playing out. At one point, during a wedding scene, the priest gives up and says "Pronouncio manio y wifeio". Then, one last character would burst in to deliver a Love Confession in fluent Spanish, prompting the rest of the cast to break character to figure out what he was saying.
  • Played for laughs in Community; Senor Chang will often gratuitously replace English words in conversation with the Spanish equivalent. Justified in that he's a Spanish teacher; however, he does it at every opportunity and is clearly established as not a very good Spanish teacher, so it comes off as if he's trying hard to cover up his deficiencies. In fact he does not speak much Spanish at all and he is mostly teaching Gratuitous Spanish with a mix of other languages like Klingon.
  • In season 1 of The Cosby Show, there was an episode where Claire, Rudy and several guest characters go into Gratuitous Spanish, ending in the characters laughing at Cliff who says Just listening for my name... to the point where it just gets annoying.
  • Paula in Defying Gravity.
  • Dexter loves to include unsubtitled Spanish to drive home the point that some characters are Cuban-American. Particularly jarring when characters completely switch their accents for a single mid-sentence Spanish word, then continue with their "normal" accents. It happens a lot in season four, once Maria and Angel get together, because they have several private conversations that are half-English, half-Spanish. She also switches her pronunciation of his first name (Anglicized "Angel" vs. "Ahn-hel") all the time.
  • An episode of Father Ted had a visiting Cuban priest named Father Hernandez, who had no trouble communicating with anybody despite speaking only Spanish.
  • Manuel in Fawlty Towers, being from Barcelona, speaks an almost incomprehensible mixture of Spanish and English.
    • Basil Fawlty's "classical Spanish", meanwhile, is utterly dire. His attempt to tell Manuel there's too many pads of butter on a tray is "A mucho burro ali." A literal translation back to English would be "To [sic] a lot of donkey there." It's even more nonsensical in Spanish.
  • Later seasons of The George Lopez Show did this, to the point where he would repeat sabe que or no que no after almost every sentence.
  • Santana on Glee. Twice she has gotten angry enough at Rachel to try to attack her while yelling in Spanish and being held back by several people. The second time, there were subtitles:
    Santana (yelling in Spanish): Listen, I'm from Lima Heights Adjacent and I'm proud. Do you know what goes down in Lima Heights Adjacent? Bad things!
  • In one episode of Grey's Anatomy, Callie Torres starts rapidly ranting in Spanish after her father arrives with a priest to "pray away the gay". Mark Sloan listens for a few minutes with a confused expression, then tells her he doesn't speak Spanish, at which point she switches to English.
  • In one episode of Hell's Kitchen, someone decided to speak random unnecessary gibberish during a dinner service. Needless to say, it didn't leave anyone happy at all.
  • Starting from the second season of iCarly with Freddie, it gets to the point where it's annoying with the random phrases.
  • Tilly de Tots TV habla solo en Español, but understands perfectly the English everyone else speaks. In the original UK version, Tilly parle seulement Français, but still understands English perfectly.
  • Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H talks like this, saying, "¿Comprende?" where he might have said, "Understand?" and such, despite having no Spanish or Latin American background whatsoever and showing very little interest in the culture or language itself. Likely he just grew up on this trope from watching too many Westerns. His most common Gratuitous Spanish is referring to Father Mulcahey as "Padre", but there are a couple of other incidents also.
  • In The Mentalist, when Patrick Jane is living in Latin Land at the middle of the sixth season, he speaks fluent Spanish. Curiously, two local ladies said in their native tongue that aside from his charming personality, his Spanish is "terrible" and "the worst," when actually any Spanish-speaker can notice that Simon Baker's Spanish is really excellent. (The writers probably didn't realize that.)
  • The Royal Hulamouse on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
  • Being from Colombia (both in-character and in real life), Gloria from Modern Family tends to say some words in Spanish when she doesn't know the English word, when angered she tends to completely switch to Spanish. Her son, Manny, doesn't do this since he learned English from an early age.
    • Pepper's assistant turned husband Ronaldo, who is Bolivian, has a tendency to not only sprinkle his dialogue with Spanish words, but words equivalent to English ones that he says right before or after. This causes Mitch no end of pedantic frustration.
  • Averted with Andamo of Mr. Lucky. Except for an occasional compadre, he tends to stick to English when conversing with English speakers.
  • Catalina's rambling, untranslated speeches on My Name Is Earl are actually Easter Eggs for the bilingual audience.
  • In The Office (UK), David Brent's song "Freelove Freeway" has some parts in Spanish (that, predictably, make no sense)
  • Our Miss Brooks: Mexican boy Ricky Velasco in "The Miserable Caballero" and "Buddy", in the last television season Mexican student Benny Romero. Both parts were played by child actor Ricky Vera.
  • The El Hombre segments of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
  • Antonio the Gold Ranger from Power Rangers Samurai. ¡Fantastico!
  • Fred and Lamont's Puerto Rican neighbor Julio would slip into this on Sanford and Son.
  • Saturday Night Live
    • The show did a skit ¿Quién es más macho? entirely in Spanish. ¿Fernando Lamas o Ricardo Montalban?
    • When Jimmy Smits was the guest host, one newsroom skit had everyone using increasingly gratuitous Spanish (Who had the an-chee-lah-dahs?).
    • Pedro Pascal's hosting debut includes some Spanish in his monologue, after he says he has a message for his relatives watching in Chile.
  • Rosita in Sesame Street.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The episode "The Ship" provides a dramatic and tear-jerking example—when Mauve Shirt Muñiz is shot with a weapon that makes him bleed to death, he starts slipping into Spanish as he nears the end.
  • Star Trek: Picard: Captain Rios is stated to be Chilean like his actor, Santiago Cabrera, and it shows quite often.
    • In "Absolute Candor", Rios yells, "¡Chasumadre!" when engaged in a firefight with Kar Kantar. He then banters in Spanish with Emmet, his Emergency Tactical Hologram.
    • In "Nepenthe", Rios calls Elnor "Hermano" (Brother) note , and later bids him "Adios" (Goodbye).
    • In "Broken Pieces", Rios sings the Spanish children's song "Arroz con leche (Rice with milk)" to regain control of his ship after Soji hacks it. He later makes it clear to her that "Sirena's my goddamn ship, hija (daughter)."
    • In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1", Rios curses in Spanish twice during his Space Battle with Narek: "¡Puta madre! (Motherfucker!)" and "¡Malparido! (Bastard!)"
    • Later in the same episode, there are two Spanish words in this exchange between Jurati and Rios:
      Jurati: Am I inolvidable (unforgettable)?
      Rios: Absolutamente (Absolutely).
    • In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", Rios whispers, "Ay caramba (interjection which denotes surprise)" when he marvels at the effectiveness of Saga's omnitool as it repairs his ship's intermix reactor.
    • Later, while waiting for Soji to get out of the way so that he can launch the modified drone, Rios mutters to himself, "Move, mija (colloquial contraction for "my daughter," although in this case the meaning is "young girl"), move."
  • George Ikaruga in Ultraman Mebius. Justified in that he played Football in Spain for a while.
  • Theresa from Wizards of Waverly Place speaks Spanish on special occasions. Subverted with her children though, and one of them is even failing Spanish.
    • In The Movie, we find out that Justin also speaks Spanish - and although Jerry may not speak the language, he understands enough to know what Spanish-speakers are talking about.
  • The bilingual television channels Mun2 (Telemundo on cable, thus the pronunciation Mun+Dos) and MTV Tr3s subsist on these shows with English mixed with Spanish, usually in the clumsiest and most grammatically incorrect mixes of language ever ("¿Videos al Fresco?!" "Tr3s or False"?!), which are known to make a translator fly into fits of rage.
  • This trope has spread like a virus through most of PBS Kids' shows. Arthur gained some pseudo-Hispanic neighbors, Tilly from Tots TV only talks in Spanish, Bonita Flamingo from The Noddy Shop often speaks Spanish and then translates it for the other toys to understand and the already Hispanic main characters on Dragon Tales gained a recent immigrant pal with a heavy accent and lots more Gratuitous Spanish.

    Parques tematicos (Theme Parks) 
  • It is pretty much a requirement for rides and attractions at the Disney Theme Parks to have safety spiels in both English and Spanish. They have pretty much become part of the cultural zeitgeists. Some of most notable ones are:
    • The standard spiel: "Para su seguridad, permanezca sentado con las manos, brazos, pies, y piernas dentro el barco. Y cuida sus niños. ¡Muchas gracias!" ("For your safety, remain seated with your hands, arms, feet, and legs inside the boat, and watch your children. Thank you very much.")
    • "Remain seated please. Permanecer sentados por favor." (from the Matterhorn Bobsleds)
    • "Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas!" (from the Monorail)

    Pinballs 

    Publicidad (Advertising) 
  • 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.
  • A series of 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.

    Teatro (Theatre) 
  • 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.
  • Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, both Borgias who appear give a few of these, when they're showing off to the Italians about how fabulous their country is. ¡Viva España!
  • In the Heights... 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.

    Videojuegos (Video Games) 
  • Agent Hugo: RoboRumble: Hugo sometimes yells "Arriba!" while boosting.
  • Backyard Sports:
    • Pablo Sanchez only speaks Spanish, unlike the other Backyard Kids, who only speak English in-game.
    • Maria Luna speaks some Spanish in-game, as she is Mexican-American.
  • The title of Balacera Brothers, a Run-and-Gun game where you're one of the two brothers shooting plenty of enemies with a Tommy Gun. And that "balacera" translate as "bullets"...
  • In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bane, who canonically grew up in a Banana Republic prison, refers to Dr. Young as THE BRUJA!note 
  • 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.
  • BioShock:
    • The Ammo Bandito machines in the first two 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!)"
    • The "Waders" splicers occasionally slip into Spanish in their lines, such as calling the player "el stupido", shouting out "Qué mierda!" when trying to open a locked door, and crying out "Los abejas!" when being swarmed by bees.
  • 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. He later says "Take care Nero, Adiós" at the end of Devil May Cry 5.
  • The Vato Bros. in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, weddo.
  • Dragon Age:
  • Final Fantasy:
    • 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!"
    • Final Fantasy XII:
      • The Cockatrices add in Spanish words in their speech. If playing the game in Spanish, they speak in Argentinean accent.
      • The Great Crystal is called "Cristal Grande" in Japanese.
  • Elvis from God Hand loves to swear in thick Mexican accent
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (In the former they are mostly Cubans while in the latter they are mostly Mexicans) have the Hispanic pedestrians let out words, sometimes even full phrases, in Spanish. Save for the few odd exceptions (such as the use of the word "mamífero" as an insult in Vice City, which literally translates to "mammal" and thus makes no sense as an insult), these pedestrians speak very accurate Latin-American Spanish.
    • This line from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which combines this trope with Poirot Speak:
      Smoke: ¡Hola, yo soy El Grando Smokio! And I want that grass, ¿comprende?
      Chicano: Eh, fuck you cabrón.
      Smoke: Now that ain't nice... Coughio up el weedo, before I blow your brains all over the patio!
      Chicano: Chinga tu madre... ¡Pendejo!
  • 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.
    • Olivia Ofrenda and Domino Hurley in Spanish version of the game speak in Argentinean accent with the former speak with voseos.
  • Nearly everyone in Guacamelee! peppers their speech with Spanish words and phrases. Justified, as the game takes place in Mexico.
  • In the climax of Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing, you have to type in Spanish passages, all of which were poorly translated from English.
  • 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.
  • Countershade in Mighty No. 9 says "Adios" when teleporting.
  • Monkey Island:
    • The Curse of Monkey Island: Plunder Island is haunted by a legendary cryptid called "El Pollo Diablo" ("the demon chicken"). If you visit Blondebeard (who normally speaks english with a 'pirate' accent) while Guybrush is tarred and feathered, Blondebeard will mistake Guybrush for the cryptid and yell out "¡Madre de dios! ¡Es El Pollo Diablo!" ("Mother of God! It's The Devil Chicken!"), causing the BGM to stop and a Spanish guitar to start playing out of nowhere. Guybrush can respond with "Huh?" or "Yes! I have released your prisoners and now I have come for you!"...in English or Spanish. ("¿Qué?" or "¡Sí! ¡He dejado en libertad los prisioneros y ahora vengo por ti!"). The game's other dubs exchange the English with appropriate translations, except the Spanish one, which instead offers two different Spanish phrases for each option.
    • 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").
  • Pokémon:
    • Miror B.'s theme song in Pokémon Colosseum contains several random shouted Spanish words, such as "Canta! Rico! Baila!" et cetra.
    • And from Pokémon Red and Blue, we have Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres (Arctic-one, Zap-two, Molten-three)
    • The names of the professors of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also come from Spanish (to go with the games' region being based on the Iberian Peninsula): Professor Sada comes from the word "pasada" (past) and Professor Turo comes from the word "futuro" (future).
  • Portal 2:
    • Wheatley in the second part of the game:
    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.
  • Resident Evil:
    • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has Brazilian (therefore Portuguese-speaking) mercenary Carlos Oliveira who casually sprinkles "Si", "Chica", and "Loco" into his semi-accented 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.
  • In Silent Hill, the worst ending's credits song, "Esperandote", is unexpectedly a tango with Spanish lyrics.
  • Starcraft, as well as other games from Blizzard Entertainment, usually have good translations to Spanish. However, there are occasional errors: When you find Sarah Kerrigan the first time in that game, when she's complaining about missile turrets being able to detect her, she ends with (...) cuando estoy disfrazadanote . (when I'm disguissed in English). The good translation would be (...)cuando estoy camuflada.
  • Subverted by Panther Caroso of Star Fox - his name, his stature, and his character gives him a feel of being "Spanish", but he speaks purely in English.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
  • Selena Recital from Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 tends to slip up Spanish words in her sentences, such as Gracias, soshite Adios.
  • Uncharted: Drake's Fortune: 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 the city pouring golden water all over himself every morning, but you'd think a treasure hunter would know the words "hombre" and "oro".
  • In Unleash the Light, Greg sometimes says "Adios, muchachos!" when leaving the stage via Warp Pad.

    Videos de la Red (Web Video) 
  • Economy Watch: Jimmy Garcia and Ronaldo Garcia give a detailed rant about Franco in Spanish.
  • Eddsworld has Eduardo, who not only is Non-Specifically Foreign , but is also very closely tied with the phrase "Numero Uno".
  • In "The Last Days Of Dr. Wily", the construction union representative calls out towards one of his workers, "¡Manuel, vámonos a magnetic blocks gigantes!"
  • lonelygirl15:
    • Parodied in 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 LG15: the resistance, before the series had even started - one of the prologue videos is called "Fun Things to Do in Hiding - Volume Dos!"
  • At the very beginning of "Text the Pope!" by Matthew Santoro, Matthew says to the audience, "¿Hola, cómo estás?", which means "Hello, how are you?".
  • In Movie Rehab, Barnabas breaks into it in after seeing a devilish Maxine in the Being John Malkovich review.
    Barnabas: La hija Del Diablo!
  • The Mysterious Mr. Enter did it three times during his Animated Atrocity on "Shorty McShorts' Shorts", including on a woman who was clearly speaking Japanese.
    "Me no habla español."
  • The Nostalgia Critic does this at least twice:
    • In his review of The Room (2003), Future Critic says "¡Vámonos!" when he and present-day Critic escape from two seahorses who were going to seize them for watching the movie.
    • In his review of Lady in the Water, when Young-Soon Choi is shown from the back, Critic says "¿Buenos díass?"
  • The introduction to Previously Recorded's review of Guacamelee! is done entirely in Spanish and features Mexican snacks and beverages.
  • "Anthony Is Mexican" by Smosh. It dissolves into a train wreck. Muy rápido.
  • Used frecuentemente in The Time... Guys episode with Timmy's Spanish teacher.

    La vida real (Real Life) 
  • 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. This is especially so in Puerto Rico (a territory of the USA), Florida, with its Cuban-American populations, and in the part of the USA formerly part of Mexico, which includes California (originally Alta California), New Mexico, Oklahoma's panhandle, and Texas. 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 and Chicano population and heavy Latino cultural influence, in the media industry. Similarly, Mexican Spanish is somewhat prone to the inversion of this, due to bordering not just one Anglophone country, but two Anglophone countries, Belize and the aforementioned USA. The northern Mexican states (Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas) are especially prone to this.
  • Every American state which was first colonized by the Spanish Empire has plenty of cities which retain names in their language, including the top six cities in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, and Sacramento), and three of Texas' top nine (San Antonio, El Paso and Plano). Three states have names derived from Spanish words: Nevada ("snowy," from the Sierra Nevada, which being high mountains are actually snow-capped), Colorado ("reddish" or "colorful"), Florida ("full of flowers"note ), and Montana (from montaña, meaning "mountain", because there are lots of mountains there). Montana also has a Spanish motto: Oro y plata ("Gold and silver"), but it is also the only Spanish name USA state not settled by the Spanish and the only one without a large Spanish influence.
    • This goes double for California, where many areas that were not settled until after the American takeover still got (grammatically correct) Spanish names - and just as often, pseudo-Spanish or grammatically incorrect actual Spanish names - for exotic flavor or to appear Older Than They Think. Some examples that come across as ridiculous to Spanish ears include Contra Costa County ("Counter-Coast" County, even though it's inland except for a small part) and Chula Vista - which is supposedly "Beautiful View", but a Spanish speaker may actually translate as "Cocky Female Seen". El Segundo got its name in 1911 when Standard Oil of California decided to build its second refinery there.
  • Arbusto Energy, a petroleum and energy company formed in Midland, Texas, in 1979, by 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". 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 when used makes one sound archaic.
    • Filipinos also have the habit of speaking either English or Spanish when it comes to numbers (with the later usually used for numbers 1-100 and time).
  • Chavacano, another language spoken in the Philippines. It's not even a Spanish creole, it basically is Spanish.
  • Ladino, which is Spanish sprinkled with Hebrew, and is spoken by some Sephardic Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean.
  • The American Disney Theme Parks have the ride spiel delivered delivered in English and in Spanish. Justified in that they're located in California and Florida, both of which have large Spanish-speaking populations.
    Remain seated please. ¡Permanecer sentados, por favor.!
    Please stand clear of the doors. ¡Por favor, manténgase alejado de las puertas!
  • Some US transit systems do station announcements in both English and Spanish, like Portland's MAX Light Rail, and Atlanta's MARTA.
  • On signage in the US (particularly in places that see many international visitors such as airports or museums) Spanish is the language besides English that you are most likely to encounter.

¡Gracias por leer este tropo, amigos!

 
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"Como un Burro"

Gru compliments Miss Hattie in Spanish by telling her that her "face... como un burro". Little did she know that he's actually insulting her as it translates to "like a donkey".

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