Etymology

donde esta la biblioteca

Today it means: Stock phrase used to denote someone's poor knowledge of Spanish. Full definition →

Spanish dónde
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The story

  1. Spanish · borrowed fromdónde“interrogative form of where”
  2. English todaydonde esta la biblioteca

From Spanish dónde (“interrogative form of where”) + está (“be, is, are”) + la (“the”) + biblioteca (“library”) (where is the library); a phrase apparently often taught to beginning Spanish-language learners. The accents are usually omitted in English.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.