{"id":53609,"date":"2020-03-17T05:35:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T04:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/?p=53609"},"modified":"2023-12-14T15:50:29","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T14:50:29","slug":"differences-between-spanish-in-spain-and-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/blog\/differences-between-spanish-in-spain-and-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Differences between Spanish in Spain and Latin America"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are various differences between the Spanish in Spain and Latin America <\/strong>but they are minor and it is certainly not difficult for someone from Spain to understand someone from Latin America. Any differences are similar to those, for example, between American and British English or Australian and Canadian English.<\/p>\n

The Spanish spoken in Spain is known as Castellano <\/em>and the Spanish spoken in South America, North America, Central America and the Caribbean is known as Espa\u00f1ol Latino<\/em>. The Spanish language<\/a> is said to have originated in the Spanish province of Castille and that is why it is known as Castellano (Castillian). Columbus took Spanish to the Americas in the 15th<\/sup> Century and, as Catholicism grew in The New World, Spanish became the main form of communication there.<\/p>\n

\"Spanish<\/p>\n

A well known grammatical difference between the Spanish in Spain and Latin America<\/strong> is that Spain uses two forms of the plural \u2018You\u2019: Vosotros<\/em> (informal) and Ustedes<\/em> (formal), but in Latin America people only use Ustedes<\/em> and never Vosotros<\/em>. T\u00fa<\/em> (informal) and Usted<\/em> (formal) are used for the single \u2018You\u2019 in Spain<\/a>. You will hear T\u00fa<\/em> being used in Latin America but it is much less common than Usted<\/em> and in some countries such as Argentina and Uruguay T\u00fa<\/em> is replaced by Vos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Another grammatical difference is in the way that people in Latin America tend to use the Past Simple tense when describing all actions that have been completed, unlike in Spain where people will use the Present Perfect tense to describe completed actions that \u2018have happened\u2019 the same day. In Spain, for example, people would say \u201cEsta ma\u00f1ana hemos ido al parque\u201d (This morning we have gone to the park) whereas in Latin America people would say \u201cEsta ma\u00f1ana fuimos al parque\u201d (This morning we went to the park).<\/p>\n

\"Spanish<\/p>\n

You will notice pronunciation differences between the Spanish in Spain and Latin America<\/strong>. People in Latin America pronounce the \u2018C\u2019 (before \u2018I\u2019 and \u2018E\u2019) and \u2018Z\u2019 as \u2018S\u2019, rather than the Castellano \u2018TH\u2019 sound. Gracias<\/em>, for example, will be pronounced GraTHias <\/em>in Spain and GraSias<\/em> in Latin America. This is because the majority of Spanish emigrants to Latin America came from the South of Spain<\/a> where people also pronounce \u2018C\u2019 and \u2018Z\u2019 as \u2018S\u2019. Another pronunciation difference can be noticed in Argentina and Uruguay where the \u2018LL\u2019 and \u2018Y\u2019 are pronounced as \u2018SH\u2019, rather than the Castellano \u2018Y\u2019 sound.<\/p>\n

Finally, as with American English and British English, there are many instances when vocabulary differs. \u00a0For example, the word Coche<\/em> is used in Spain for \u2018Car\u2019, whereas in Latin America you will hear Carro<\/em> or Auto<\/em>. Conducir <\/em>is the verb for \u2018Drive\u2019 in Spain and in Latin America it is Manejar<\/em>. \u2018Mobile phone\u2019 is M\u00f3vil<\/em> in Spain and Celular<\/em> in Latin America. \u00a0\u2018Banana\u2019 is Pl\u00e1tano<\/em> in Spain and Banana<\/em> in Latin America. \u2018Boat\u2019 is Barco<\/em> in Spain and Bote<\/em> in Latin America. And \u2018Potato\u2019 is Patata<\/em> in Spain and Papa <\/em>in Latin America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are various differences between the Spanish in Spain and Latin America but they are minor and it is certainly not difficult for someone from Spain to understand someone from Latin America. Any differences are similar to those, for example, between American and British English or Australian and Canadian English. The Spanish spoken in Spain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":53623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[1516,1648,1652],"class_list":["post-53609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learn-spanish","tag-learn-spanish","tag-spanish-language","tag-spanish-language-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53628,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53609\/revisions\/53628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogoespana.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}