A joke about the English language from a Malaga translator goes viral on social media

“Literatura en español: estableció, comunicó, anunció, agregó, comentó, informó, aclaró, indicó, reveló, criticó, expresó, expuso, señaló, apuntó,” Pérez Cerón said in his tweet, followed by “Literatura en inglés: said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said, said”.

Inferring, in other words, that Spanish is much more descriptive language and English is pretty boring.

The response was such that, a few hours later, he took to Twitter again to tell people “please understand that it was only a joke” and in other tweets he confirmed that there is of course a great deal of variety in the English language, and that yes, the word ‘said’ (dijo), does appear in Spanish books as well.

When other Twitter users sent him lists of synonyms for the word ‘say’ in English, he insisted that his post had just been a “silly joke” after spending “hours translating”.

As well as his profession as a translator, Nacho Pérez Cerón is one of his generation’s best-known poetic voices, a writer who was the runner-up for the Adonáis Prize with his book called Márgenes de Error.

He decided to make use of his sudden fame on Twitter to promote the book, with another tweet explaining that he has “a great little book”, he translates English and French into Spanish and “I am a very cool guy”. He then gave his email address, and added “Whoever wants to understand, let them understand”.