Mistakes on Costa Rican TV
'le incluyemos', 'matrículate', 'nigueria'
In Costa Rica I was shocked to see some glaring spelling errors on television. With the degree of
editing that should go into material on such an important media source, such mistakes should simply
not occur. Here are two examples of spelling errors that I have found:
-
"Martículate" - This form does not exist in Spanish, but was used to
advertise a private high school equivalency course. The passage was "Matrículate con un amigo
y tu matrícula será gratis". In this case, the imperative 'tú' form of 'matricular'
was confused with the noun of the same root, 'matrícula' with the accent on the 'i'. The standard
imperative 'tú' form is 'matricula', with the accent over the 'u', so the commercial should
have shown "Matricúlate con un amigo y tu matrícula será gratis".
-
"Nigueria" - This word, which was supposed to be 'Nigeria', demonstrates a false correction
of a common spelling mistake in Spanish. When a velar 'g' sound precedes an 'e' or an 'i' in Spanish, a 'u' must precede the
vowel because the 'g' would otherwise take on the sound of an aspirated [h]. In this case, the country Nigeria indeed should
have the aspirated [h] sound for the 'g', so the 'u' is simply not needed, and even more, unwanted.
Another grammatical error that I have heard on Costa Rican TV is from an Ofertel infommercial that says "si compra ahora, le
inluyemos..." (if you order now, we'll include for you). 'Incluyemos' is not a proper verb form. What they should have
said, to be speaking standard Spanish, was 'le incluimos'.
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