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In Mexico I sometimes heard or saw the colloquial variant pa' or pa used for para.

But is this just a Mexicanism, or is it also used in Central America, all Latin America, or even in Spain?

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    La cucaracha, ya no puede caminar, porque no tiene, porque le falta, marijuana pa' fumar. Nov 22, 2011 at 22:14
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    It's used extensively in Colombia. Nov 22, 2011 at 22:19

4 Answers 4

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You'll hear it quite a lot in the Andalusian region of Spain. This Wikipedia article gives a very brief coverage of it:

Relaxed pronunciation / Spanish

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    It's super common in the north of Spain too. After all, in Asturian the word for para is just pa, and that affects speech in Castilian. Dec 1, 2014 at 23:19
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Es una abreviatura muy extendida por gran parte de latino américa y España. Se usa sobre todo en el lenguaje coloquial y es similar al caso de las terminaciones -ado -ido ... en los verbos que suele eliminarse la letra "d"

¿Has "terminao" los deberes? No, mamá son pa' pasado mañana.

En ningún caso se utiliza en el lenguaje escrito

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Here in Argentina it's used, but it's more of an informal jargon, rather than regional.

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As others have pointed, pa / pa' is a common colloquial variant for para. You will hear in Latin America and Spain. Maybe it's more extended in some places than others, for example Andalusia in Spain, but I'm sure you will find someone that uses it at least from once in a while everywhere. It is not a regionalism.

And as Aracem has said, its not for written language (with its exceptions, of course: dialogs, transcriptions...).

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    Yes when you say it's colloquial that already means it's not for written language (-: Nov 23, 2011 at 12:39
  • Well, interesting point. It seems today you're teacher. :) Nov 23, 2011 at 12:59

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