Sbs k digo? My typing skills haven’t deserted me – I’m texting! If you speak Spanish and/or are conversant with the language of texting, all that makes perfect sense.

I must admit that I sometimes get confused by all the abbreviations and double meanings in English – LOL is laughing out loud but also lots of love – and have to explain some abbreviations I use – I thought ROFL was universally understood as rolling on the floor laughing??

I was interested to read a recent post from Spanish.about.com entitled Spanish cell phone abbreviations – Shortcuts make text messages faster.
I wondered how the language of text would vary between English and Spanish. It was interesting to see how Spaniards use similar abbreviations to us:

• letters and numbers just like us – gr8 = great / 100pre = siempre or salu2 = saludos
• phonetic abbreviations as we do – cu = see you / aki = aquí
• initial letters – brb = be right back / npn = no pasa nada

but also have borrowings like pls for por favor, and also sms for texting itself.

I wonder if we could justify texting as a suitable for Primary learning –
it’s definitely Modern, it’s Foreign to many and it’s a Language in its own right. How about it? ;o)