Text Talk

IM and text talk has become increasingly more popular in this generation. For the most part, people are very lazy, and decide not to type out full words or sentences. Personally, I type out full words and sentences when I talk to people online, but abbreviate everything when I text people. My research questions were, "Is there a difference between IM talk and text talk? What are the popular abbreviations?" I talked to a 20 girl, Fatima, from Spain to get her outlook. 

Isabella T: Is there a difference between instant messaging and text messaging?

Fatima L: not really. it is all kind of the same.

Isabella T: What are the most popular abbreviations?

Fatima L: a10 and a2 are usually used to say "adios" and aki is used to say "aquí"

Fatima L: numbers are usually used in abbreviations. it is also popular to say b7s which is "kisses". which is said instead of adiós/goodbye.

Isabella T: Haha, that's interesting. In english, people usually shorten words, but it seems like in spanish words are abbreviated by the way the words actually sound. Such as "aki" or "bn"

Fatima L: yeah, that is true. other ones are like "exo" (hecho) or "fsta" (fiesta).

Isabella T: Are there any weird abbreviations?

Fatima L: yeah i guess so. por favor is usually "xfa" and hasta luego is "hl".

Most people don't know that texting and instant messaging started or became popular in Europe before anywhere else. I did find it interesting that they use numbers as apposed to just using letters.