Chris and Spanish

The badge don't lie.

Spanish is an Indo-European language spoken by over 350,000,000 people worldwide, one of whom is Christian Weston Chandler. Chris often uses Spanish in his videos and comics, as it is one of the few things that he actually learned at Manchester High School (however poorly). He often refers to himself by his Spanish name, Ricardo.

However, Chris's sub-par knowledge of Spanish does not seem to deter him from racism against Hispanics, creating a stereotypical babysitter in his comics and a highly stereotypical sombrero-wearing Pokémon called Espanolic, who "confuses its enemies with its language." Of note is that Chris has apparently learned the Castilian dialect of Spanish, unlike the Cuban that is taught in Florida or the Mexican that is taught in the southmost states, as noted by his use of European terms like ascensor for "elevator" (UK: "lift") instead of elevador, his use of pesetas for currency instead of pesos, as well as his pronouncing "W" as doble V instead of doble U.

Why Spanish speakers hate Chris

File:Axe en español.jpg

An improved version of the infamous Axe ad, made by a real Spanish speaker.

As demonstrated in the picture above, Chris's grasp of Spanish is just slightly weaker than his grasp over the English language. The best sources of this are his address to our hero and the description to his hotel. He even claims to be fluent in Spanish on his resume. Chris is so sure of his mastery of the language that he feels himself entitled to mix the language to create Noviophobia, which has its own whole set of problems.

Other reasons are as follows:

• His irritating American accent
  • Pronouncing the word para as if it were the English prefix (e.g. "parachute"), making it sound like pera or "pear"
  • Pronouncing other words as if they were English (impostor)
• His tendency to add tildes where they are unnecessary (bueño), and omit them where they are needed (ano, which means "anus" instead of the intended meaning "year")
• Stressing the wrong syllable (hácer)

Ricardo Weston Chandler

Ricardo Weston Chandler is Chris's Spanish alter-ego. Presumably named in honor of Ricky Ricardo, a main character in I Love Lucy, one of Chris's favorite TV shows. This is a "Spanish name" Chris chose for Spanish class (a general practice in language classes where students will take a name in the language they're learning in order to "get into" the culture and language). Of course, while most people forget about this when they've left the course (or in some cases, even the teachers abandon the practice shortly into the course), Chris has adopted "Ricardo" as his actual Spanish name and uses it for his Spanish-related endeavors.

He is oblivious to the fact that in most European languages, people do not change their name when using a different language, but instead use the language's native form of the name, or transliterate it to fit the language's orthography. While Christian is actually a rather common name in Hispanic countries, if it were translated, his full name would be "Cristóbal Cristian Weston Velero" (alternatively, his middle name could be rendered "Huestón", as Spanish uses W only with loanwords). Of course it must be noted that Ricardo's linguistic skills have brought us gems such as noviophobia (from the Spanish novio, "boyfriend"). It should also be noted that Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese version of the name "Richard", which is sometimes shortened to "Dick".

Works in which CWC uses Spanish

File:Sonichu 4 caratula by amalockh1-d2yi4v6.jpg

What would likely happen if Chris tried to exercise his skills in a Spanish-speaking country.

• CWC Update 29 July 2009
• CWC's Pokésite 2
• Hotel Ricky Ricardo
• IRC (03 January 2009)
• "La Cocina en La Casa de Casanova"
• "Valentines Day Hymn"
• Mumble 2
• OkCupid
• SingStar Challenge
• U8C43P2A37A8 y U8C1N023V0L
• Chris's letters to the Sonichu Girls
• El Café de Pokémon Pizzaria [sic]
• Christian's Favorite Hits: Los [sic] Canciónes [sic] Españolas de Ricardo
• Chris's e-mails with Katie Bay
• Facebook message to Christina
• CWC Speaks, an article on CWCipedia where he brags about his fluency in the language.

See also

• Chris and English
• Heather Iglesias, a lesbian nanny who works for Sonichu and Rosechu