“Selfie” was selected as the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year 2013. The word, that also has the alternate spelling “selfy,” was defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”
How to say selfie in Spanish: AUTOFOTO
This recognition made the word even more famous and immediately stirred the question: how do you say selfie in Spanish? The answer was given by the Fundación de Español Urgente (Fundéu), a non-profit organization dedicated to promote the proper use of the Spanish language in the media.
Fundéu recommended the word autofoto as a Spanish alternative for selfie.
The word autofoto, formed by the prefix auto– and the noun foto as a colloquial abbreviation of fotografía (photograph) can adequately replace the English selfie.
A second alternative in Spanish mentioned by Fundéu is the word autorretrato (self-portrait), a word that is already in the Royal Spanish Academy Dictionary (DRAE).
I am glad that there is some kind of guideline in place and that they came up with a single word to translate selfie. You know that there are some instances where the Spanish translation for a single English word turns out to be a long phrase. I surely prefer to use autofoto/autorretrato instead of una foto de sí mismo para subir a las redes sociales or something along those lines. Despite the fact that I use foto and retrato interchangeably, the word autofoto sounds more informal and spontaneous… just like a selfie!
Do you think that the words autofoto and autorretrato accurately cover the definition of selfie?
UPDATE: “Selfi” was selected Word of Year 2014
