# How different are European and Latin American Spanish? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2005, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848 "2005-01-15T08:58:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![eyewitness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@eyewitness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eyewitness)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/1 "2005-01-15T08:58:37Z")
I’m thinking about trying to learn a little Spanish. I understand that there are some differences in the versions spoken on the two sides of the Atlantic. Are they comparable to American and British English, or are they more substantial? Do people who grew up with or trained in one version have any trouble communicating with folks who learned the other version? ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/2 "2005-01-15T09:47:55Z")
I studied Generic Latino Spanish in America for several years before going to Madrid and continuing my studies there. There were minor adjustments I had to make - mainly pronouncing my Zs and soft Cs as “th” rather than as “s”, and a few vocabulary differences - but I was quite obviously still speaking the same language. British English and American English is a reasonably accurate comparison. Keep in mind, of course, that there are _numerous_ differences within Latin American Spanish, and a smaller number of different dialects within Spain itself. But I’m not aware of any two dialects which aren’t mutually comprehensible with each other, and if there are any, you aren’t likely to be learning them. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/3 "2005-01-15T11:05:40Z")
Exactly right. There are difference between all the Spanish-speaking countries, not just an Old World/New World bifurcation. In addition to differences in accent, there are also huge differences in vocabulary between nations. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/4 "2005-01-15T13:46:29Z")
I studied Latin American Spanish for 4 years in the US, then spent 2 years in Madrid. I agree with the posters above that British and American English is a good comparison. One of the main differences is the use of the “vosotros” 2nd person plural, which is in common use in Spain, but seems only to be used rarely and formally in Latin American Spanish. So that is a slightly more extensive difference. I don’t think English and American have any differences in how we conjugate verbs. One of the “funnies” I remember from my time in Spain is an English-speaking Spaniard referring to a cart (like a flight attendant cart) as a trolley. My midwestern English never used trolley in that sense, trolley was a streetcar or tram. Much hilarity ensued. Also, here in the US, I have much more opportunity to speak Spanish with folks from Latin America, especially Mexico. Sometimes they seem to react a little strangely to my accent, as if I were snooty and stuck up because I speak very formally. I applaud your interest in learning Spanish and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ---
**Author:** ![monica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@monica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monica)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/5 "2005-01-15T13:49:52Z")
You will still be understandable to Spanish speakers, no matter which version you learned. There are pronunciation differences, however, as well as some word differences. Also, Spain uses an extra verb form- they have a second person informal plural (vosotros), whereas Latin America just uses the formal second person plural for every second person plural. For example, if I want to say (to informal people, such as my friends): “Ya’ll have ten books,” it would be “Teneis (sp? I never learned vosotros form in class, just kind of picked it up in Spain) diez libros” in Spain and “Tienen diez libros” in Latin America. Examples of word differences include “coche” for car in Spain and “carro” for car in Latin America. Even areas of American Spanish differ, however. For example, autobus is the word for bus in most areas, but in Puerto Rico they use “guagua.” ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/6 "2005-01-15T13:55:07Z")
‘Guagua’ is also used in Central America (the word being imitative of a bus horn). In Panama we also use ‘Chiva,’ especially for those short little school buses. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/7 "2005-01-15T14:04:51Z")
The only people who think of “European Spanish” and “Latin America Spanish” as “two dialects” are… well… foreigners 🙂 The dialectal differences go along completely different lines. I’m from Pamplona, in Northern Spain; someone from the Colombian Altiplano sounds a lot like me, while someone from Southern Spain doesn’t… but someone from the Colombian Caribe sounds like the one from Southern Spain. Confused already? We all understand each other; it is part of our culture to stop the conversation if needed, to ask for a definition for a word that you do not understand. Official dictionaries and grammar books are published by the Academias de la Lengua… plural. All the Academies. You do run into people who don’t know how to give a definition, or who laugh at somebody else’s accent, but that’s viewed as, let’s see, stupid, impolite, completely dumb… continue the list. Just learn Spanish, don’t worry about which accent you’re getting. We’ll be happy to be able to speak with you, and you’ll be happy that you can read some wonderful books in the original language 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/8 "2005-01-15T14:46:33Z")
The first time I was speaking to someone in Latin America (Costa Rica), she pinpointed me as having learned Castillian Spanish in school, sonce I “th”-ed instead of “s”-ed a few times. She was right. Later on, after I understood the nuances of difference dialects a little better, my company had a guy who was working in Chile moving to Spain to open a new operation, and when I spoke to him I assumed he was FROM Spain due to his speech (like my High School classes). Nope, he was Chilean, through and through. Probably didn’t help me much that my high school Spanish teacher had a lisp. I was also travelling in the east part of Spain with two Spaniards (from Madrid) on business. We stopped to ask directions from a local in either Valencia or Alicante, and I, with my first-person-only-can’t-conjugate-shit-habla-mas-despacio-por-favor Spanish skills understood the guy better than the folks from Madrid. Like **Nava** says, it isn’t as simple as Europe vs. Latin America. Even with my poor skills and funny accents, I have been able to be understood in several counties with several dialects, and have been favorable received for having made a valiant attempt to learn their language. Now if everyone would just hablan mas despacio, maybe I could UNDERSTAND them better. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/9 "2005-01-15T14:57:33Z")
Heck, as a foreign-speaker, there are huge differences inside a single friggin’ country. My Spanish is the Leon, Gunajuato, Mexico variety. I recently had the fun of driving from there to Hermosillo, Sonora. Every place I stopped – Guadalajara, Tepic, Mazatlan, Cd. Obregon, Guaymas, and finally Hermosillo – were different enough to cause me confusion. I couldn’t understand a thing at one of the gas stations. I imagine this was pronounciation moreso than vocabulary (although, who knows? I couldn’t understand the guy, after all). I’ve been working with the Hermosillo people for almost a year now. At first, I couldn’t understand them at all. Now that I can, I realize that they use a lot of different words for things. Now that I’m in Hermosillo, the restaurants were troubling at first, too. What they hell is a “caramelo” or a “laurenza”? To me that’s candy and my wife’s German Shepherd… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-different-are-european-and-latin-american-spanish/284848/10 "2005-01-15T22:35:40Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Heck, as a foreign-speaker, there are huge differences inside a single friggin’ country. Even in a country as small as Panama. I’ve been out some places in the back country where the locals’ speech had even my Panama City-born friends scratching their heads.