- the term is especially used in communities where English and Spanish are often interwoven. This type of lingual environment results in the borrowing of many terms and ‘vamos’ is just one of them. The term ‘vamos’ is preferred to the term let’s go, because ‘vamos’ implies a sense of experience and bonding with friends or family.
Vamos
Phrase/Sentence; Borrowing (Loan Word)
we go or let’s go(from Spanish), but it implies a sense of excitement and tends to foreshadow a group-bonding experience; can also mean the desire to go somewhere.
Etymology : this term comes from Spanish and it means “we go”. Vamos is the present form of ‘ir’(go) in the first person plural.
Source : Over thanksgiving break my family was talking (in English) about where they had travelled in the last year and one cousin was saying that she had gone to the Bahamas. At some point halfway through her description of her journey, my sister looked to me and said ‘vamos’. In this case she was describing a desire for us to go and have a great time there, which (to me) is distinct from saying let’s go, which is often understood to be more literal. (November, 2018) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vamos http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/vamos
Last modified: 10 December 2018