30
Catalan is definitely a whole separate language, as in not a dialect of Spanish. It is significantly different. It sounds a bit of mix of Spanish, French and Italian, and in fact it's closer to the latter two than to Spanish.
The Wikipedia article for Catalan has a comparison of these languages.
28
Kitchen boy. The guys who clean up the Chef's mess and scrub the frying pans and carry stuff around. In this context it's still used in Spain.
In Mexico, it's an all-purpose insult enhancer, which would be roughly equivalent to the use of fucking in English. If Jay (Silent Bob's hetero life mate) spoke Spanish, he would say pinche A LOT.
Pinche is strongly ...
25
Según el Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas
billón.
Voz procedente del francés billion, ‘un millón de millones (1012)’. Es inaceptable su empleo en español con el sentido de ‘mil millones’, que es el que tiene la palabra billion en el inglés americano. Para este último sentido, debe emplearse la voz millardo (→ millardo), procedente también del francés, o la ...
23
De acuerdo a Wikipedia, salen 25 países de habla hispana. Con lo que cada uno aporte, podemos actualizar esta lista, porque no sé si va a ser posible que una sola persona aporte una lista completa.
País/territorio
Sí
Argentina
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
México
Nicaragua
Paraguay
Uruguay
Venezuela
No
Colombia
Chile
Cuba
Ecuador
España
...
23
First of all I found all sorts of variations of “pea” in English, so I needed to clarify some things in my own language before I could attempt to answer this. Rather than recreate the wheel, I’m just going to paste what I found in an article over at The Spruce:
When most of us think of peas, we picture the small, round, green balls that are so hard to ...
21
It depends on the context of the question .
The verb "estar" in that phrase is commonly used for that particular moment.
Estoy feliz. (I am happy at the moment.)
However, "ser" can be used for quality or character of a person.
Soy feliz. (I'm a happy person.)
19
In English
The -se forms descend from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive. It is more common in some regions (like Spain), and has a higher frequency in writing than in speech.
The -ra forms descend from the simple (or synthetic) pluperfect indicative such that where as now you might see a sentence like No quería café porque ya había tomado té, in the past, ...
17
Depends on context.
If it's your friend, there's nothing wrong because you are calling as a affectionate way, more or less.
For example, in Spain we have a famous corrupt treasurer called Luis Bárcenas, and in his party, the Popular Party, her colleagues calls him "Luis, el Cabrón".
But in fact it is an insult. Also a very hard one. If you don't have a ...
17
I'm Mexican and we never use pinche as Kitchen boy, though some Mexicans would know it also means chef's helper. We always use it as an insult enhancer and can turn almost any curse word into a really rude one:
pinche pendejo/pendeja = fucking asshole
pinche puto/puta = fucking faggot/whore
pinche culero = fucking asshole
When used alone as an adjective it ...
15
None of these answers answer the question.
The pronunciation of the s in Spain will vary a little by region. But, generally, the ese castellana (not unique to Spain but very common, hence the name) is used whereby the s is pronounced apically, that is, the tip of the tongue is slightly raised obstructing the air (in IPA: [s̺] instead of [s]). This causes ...
15
English with Original Quotes in Spanish
(Answer with quotes translated below)
The overwhelming evidence is that gringo originated in Spain in the 1700s or earlier from griego, ‘Greek’, in the sense of unintelligible language. It applied first to language, but soon after also to those who spoke it. As the word spread throughout the Spanish-speaking ...
15
Are there exceptions to the (quite simple) Spanish phonetic rules?
Basically, no.
Unless you count any of the following as exceptions (I wouldn't, but it's debatable):
Foreign names or words of foreign origin, that retain their original spelling but are pronounced differently: "sandwich" (pronounced as "sángüich" or even "sánguche&...
15
Spain usage:
The word pecho can be considered an exact equivalent of the English breast; you can use it uncountably (the front part of your thorax) or countably (women have two of them). It is a neutral word and can be used safely in any context. To breastfeed also translates as dar el pecho.
Seno can have several meanings. It can be your lap, a woman's ...
15
That's quite a weird phrase to me simply because I'm from Spain.
Manejar is only used in Latin American countries; conducir is the only word for drive in Spain.
Also, this phrase must have been written by a person from South America because in Spain we use carril instead of canal.
Of course you can use conducir or manejar twice, but it sounds quite ...
15
In many parts of Mexico, water as it flows through the municipal water mains is often referred to by the government as "agua potable", but people do not generally take this to mean that the municipal water is safe to drink as is. (There may be some specific urban areas where water treatment has reached reliable sanitary levels, but I personally have never ...
15
The word "mendigo" without an accent is used commonly in Spain to refer to a person that asks for money in the street. It is a standard word and not inappropriate.
The word "méndigo", with an accent, meaning "infamous, very bad", seems to only be used in Mexico according to DLE. We do not use it in Spain.
14
Aquí, en España, usamos "Fuegos artificiales", sin que suene especialmente técnico. En tono coloquial, si está claro el contexto, tambien se dice a veces "los fuegos":
¡Vamos a ver los fuegos!
¡Vamos a ver los fuegos artificiales!
La palabra "pirotecnia" y derivados no se usa en el habla coloquial.
14
In Spain we favor coche for a car, while a carro is more like a four wheeled cart (similar to the word carreta, which is a smaller, two wheeled cart), the one that would use horses or mules to pull it.
In most Latin American countries the word carro designates a car (automobile). It is just a regional difference. If carro is used in Spain to designate an ...
14
No, your ears are perfectly fine. In fact, it is notable that you have noticed the difference between the two different forms of the imperative tense.
There are indeed some differences between the verbs forms among countries. As an example, you can check the conjugation for imperative tense of the verb tomar in the Diccionario de la Lengua Española (follow ...
14
I can't answer your question in terms of all South America, but it definitely seems to be regional. I'm from Dominican Republic and I've only ever heard of "agua potable" with the meaning that it's drinkable.
14
"Agua potable" is indeed drinkable water. Take into account that the second meaning that you see in the diccionary is a coloquialism.
Potable
adj. coloq. Pasable, aceptable.
In contrast with the other meaning ("Que se puede beber" meaning, "that can be drunk; that it is safe to drink") the second one means "is OK"
...
12
TL;DR
The "problem" is so extended that RAE finally decided to consider that that's actually the way people speak, making it a valid version for the imperative.
Long answer
To update this question, even if at the moment of writing these lines the form iros might be not officially accepted yet, the RAE has informally announced that it will do so.
It ...
12
In México, cabrón has different meanings. The first one from your example:
A: Hola
B: ¡Hola, cabrón!
In this case it's just used as dude or man when it's used to refer to your friends, but it certainly sounds vulgar and you should avoid to use it in front of other people than your friends.
However it can also be used as an insult, example:
...
12
El significado realmente no es "intentar seducir a alguien", sino "convencer a alguien de algo" (aunque se puede argumentar que eso también puede ser considerado seducir a alguien), hablándole con insistencia, con zalamerías, etc.
Aparte de una posible interpretación casi literal (que tendría las connotaciones de lamer o morder la oreja en un sentido "...
11
As others have said, this is not a commonly spoken word, but is found mostly in poetry and writing, perhaps especially used in folk and children tales. I would use "acá y acullá" as the equivalent of "hither and yon".
As an aside, The RAE defines "acullá" as
adv. l. A la parte opuesta de quien habla. U. en contraposición a adverbios demostrativos de ...
11
I won't go into details about the linguisitcs (experts in that domain will do a far better job), but just consider my own experience.
I'm French, and I've been living in Barcelona for 10 years. When I arrived here, I knew nothing about Catalan, but I had close to no problem understanding it when written, thanks to the knowledge of both languages (native in ...
11
In your example that interjection doesn't fit quite well. Let me explain.
Concerning Mexico –the only country I've heard this word in, but the range of the usage is often spread by media– it isn't offensive at all. But the word itself doesn't sound very educated: never use it if you are trying to be formal. You could say it or hear it very often in the ...
11
Es curioso que a veces el origen de una palabra no lo sabemos ni los hablantes del idioma. No soy de Venezuela, pero he encontrado esto:
A veces se llamó بَطِّيخَة سِنْدِيَّة baṭṭīḫa sindiyya, "melon del Sind&...
11
Parientes always means relatives, never parents. I'm not very sure why your friends said that.
11
Given the great extension of territories where Spanish is spoken, there are for a single type of food, many ways to name it, according to the country (or region in a single one).
There's also an opposite case: the same word refers, in two regions, to different varieties of the same food, or even to two different ones.
For your specific question:
Frijol:
...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
