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My son is trying out for soccer team. All but 3 of the 40+ students speak Spanish as their primary language. They keep calling my son something. He said it sounds like me-gay. I am not entirely sure how to spell it in Spanish.

What are they calling him?

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  • "He said it sounds like me-gay" Maybe it is Miguel? – Sor Virtudes de los Angeles Do Mar 3 '18 at 15:49
  • No. Many of the hispanic boys called only the 3 white kids trying out. I dont know if ir was like some sort of instruction or if they were calling them a name. He said it sounded like me-gay. – user18925 Mar 3 '18 at 16:00
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    Perhaps you could edit in which country the other players are from, of you know that, in case this is a regional usage? – mdewey Mar 3 '18 at 17:02
  • My advice would actually be visiting the parenting stack. First look for questions related to this problem. If you can't find anything post your own question. Maybe you should actually go to one of the soccer session and see first hand how those interactions are and/or talk to the coach(es) there. Try to befriend other Spanish-speaking adults in there, so you have help with the language. It doesn't matter what names they are calling, but there's a problem if they are aggressive to a team mate or if there's bulling or picking on somebody. Good luck – Diego Mar 3 '18 at 17:31
  • Why would they call him "Miguel"? It it's his name, it would be obvious enough. If it isn't, there's no reason to call him by a random name. – Diego Mar 3 '18 at 18:18
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"Amigo" (friend) sounds to some extent like "me gay". It is one of the very few things that hand those m and gm sounds similar to waht you describe and would be used in such context. One could try to convey its pronunciation as "aa-m-EE-g-oh", "uh-mee-goh" or "ah-mee-gaw". Judge for yourself here and here. Be aware that pronunciation can vary according to the country of origin of those kids, among other things.

"Amigo" and "me-gay" are completely different to me (a native Spanish speaker), but depending on how they say it, your own listening skills (or those of whoever described the word to you) and other nuances (like the problem of how to describe what you heard in written form on the Internet), it might be the word you are looking for.

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