I’m sure all new Spanish speakers have had this happen to them. You don’t know what the Spanish word is for sure so you just try the English word with the Spanish pronunciation maybe add an -o to the end. Well this happened to our son, who was 5 at the time, while we were in language school.

We were at a park one day and he wanted a bag of popcorn from a nearby vendor. We thought this would be a good opportunity for him to practice his Spanish. So we gave him the money and sent him to ask for a bag. He is fearless about to talking to people. He marched over and said, “Popcorno, por favor.” We had not thought to ask him if he knew the word for popcorn. The vendor was confused and we had to jump in and help. But if you ask our son today how to say popcorn in Spanish he knows it is palomitas.

Palomitas literally means little doves. And popcorn does look like little doves hence the name palomitas.

(Besides, wouldn’t it be pop-maíz?)