# What you need to know if your Spanish lessons were from Spain



## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

This is an offshoot from the “What is the best way to learn Spanish?” thread. On page 6 it was mentioned that if your Spanish course was from Spain, the most important thing you need to know is that “_cojer_” (in Spain a useful, allpurpose word for “get”, “grab”, “pick up”) should be avoided in Mexico, because it means “screw” (in the vulgar sense).

It gets stronger in meaning the farther south you go in the Americas. In Argentina, it frankly means “f*ck”.

In Mexico, it must have undergone a change of meaning over the years. I observe that people currently in their 70’s and older will use it in the innocent meaning, so I infer that it changed around the 1950s–1960s.

In Mexico, you instead say “_agarrar_”, “_conseguir_”, or to pick somone up, “_ir por_”, “_pasar por_” or “_recoger_”. Note that the taint doesn’t apply to related verbs such as “_recoger_” or “_acoger_” – you can use those with impunity.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

I expect everyone knows the basic pronunciation differences – in Spain “c” and “z” are pronounced like our English unvoiced “th”. These are pronounced “s” in Mexico. It’s easy to diagnose this when you see all the misspellings on signs that confuse “s”, ”c” and “z”.

“LL” and consonant “y” are pronounced exactly alike in Mexico, sort of a cross between English “j” and English consonant “y”. You can tell how to pronounce them when you hear a Mexican Spanish speaker fail to distinguish between “jello” and “yellow” in English.

The other differences are more subtle, and not so vital for learners. Spaniards pronounce the “jota” (and “g” of “ge” and “gi”) much stronger and harsher than Mexicans. 

The Spaniard’s “s” is almost half-way to sounding like our “sh”, but not in Mexico. That makes it easy for English speakers to say the Mexican “s”; we just pronounce it like we’re used to pronouncing it in English.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

In Spain, they hardly every use the simple past. In Mexico, it’s used commonly.

Spain: _Se ha caído._
Mexico: _Se cayó._

Spain: _Hemos llegado._
Mexico: _Ya llegamos._

and so on.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Vosotros the formal of nosotros .... is seldom used in Mexico. My first Spanish classes were in the '50's and our teacher gave us no breaks when it came to conjugation. Gave me a metal block for some reason


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Thanks for a good catch, I forgot all about that important difference! 

I think you had a slip of the finger. _Vosotros_ is not the formal form of _nosotros_; it is the familiar second person plural; “youse guys” (but not slangy or improper). In Spain they use the familiar address more than us, so they say _"tú"_ more than “_usted_” and if there is more than one person, they say “_vosotros_” more than “_ustedes_”.

In Mexico, it is always _ustedes_ for second person plural, even if the entire group consists of your nearest and dearest, all of which you would individually call _tú_.

_Vosotros_ ‘seldom’? I’ve seen that claim, but I have never heard of any place in the Americas where it’s used. I’m quite sure it’s *not* used *at all *in the New World.

(Tangent: I sometimes see people confused between usages of _vosotros_ and _vos_, and I suspect that’s why they sometimes qualify the non-use of _vosotros_ in the Americas. But _vosotros_ and _vos_, although related in origin, are now two entirely different things. _Vos_ (an alternate to _tú_) passed out of use in Spain a few centuries ago. It’s not used in Mexico at all except in some border regions with Central America. So the Spanish learner in Mexico can forget about _vos_ except for being aware that it exists – until the day they meet an Argentinean!).


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

sparks said:


> Vosotros the formal of nosotros .... is seldom used in Mexico. My first Spanish classes were in the '50's and our teacher gave us no breaks when it came to conjugation. Gave me a metal block for some reason


actually -_ vosotros_ is the informal of _ustedes_..


oops - note to self - read whole thread before replying!! I see it has been answered 

when I was first learning Spanish - in Spain, since that's where I live - we had a girl in our class who had originally learned in a South American country - she had never heard of _vosotros _


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

sparks said:


> Vosotros the formal of nosotros .... is seldom used in Mexico. My first Spanish classes were in the '50's and our teacher gave us no breaks when it came to conjugation. Gave me a metal block for some reason


Vosotros equals ustedes

never used in Mexico


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

In Spain, it‘s quite proper to call someone’s attention (e.g. a waiter or store clerk) with a sharp _"¡Oiga!"_ That would be approaching rudeness in Mexico.

Get someone‘s attention by gently calling _"¡Disculpe!"_ or _"Joven/Señorita"_ or just approaching them and saying _"Buenos días/Buenas tardes"_.

If you didn’t understand or hear something properly, and you want to say “Pardon me?” (in the sense of “What did you say?"), you can say _"¿Mande?"_ or even more formally, _”¿Mande usted?”_ _Mande_ also serves the purpose if someone calls out to you and you want to ask them “What do you want [from me/me to do for you]? 

In Spain, _mande_ is an old, obsolete, expression of subservience, and they think we sound odd when we use it.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

maesonna said:


> In Spain, it‘s quite proper to call someone’s attention (e.g. a waiter or store clerk) with a sharp _"¡Oiga!"_ That would be approaching rudeness in Mexico.
> 
> Get someone‘s attention by gently calling _"¡Disculpe!"_ or _"Joven/Señorita"_ or just approaching them and saying _"Buenos días/Buenas tardes"_.
> 
> ...


And lately we are trying to change or discard that Mande or mande Usted, since it is a submissive way of addressing
We would rather say diga, digame, diga usted


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Yep ... vosotros and vos has been off my list of important things for too long. Fine by me


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

In Spain, you answer the phone saying, _"Diga"_ or _"Dígame"_.

In Mexico, _"Bueno”_.

I don’t know how they end phone calls in Spain, but in Mexico, there’s no set way. There is usually a series of “_ándale_” and _"ándale pues"_ separated by various “just one more thing I have to tell you”. Sometimes it’s finally ended with a _bai_ (i.e. “bye”, an English borrowing), along with various well-wishes according to the circumstances and the relationship; _nos vemos pronto_, _cuídate mucho_, _qué te cuides_ and so on.


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## Heather J (Oct 21, 2013)

maesonna said:


> This is an offshoot from the “What is the best way to learn Spanish?” thread. On page 6 it was mentioned that if your Spanish course was from Spain, the most important thing you need to know is that “_cojer_” (in Spain a useful, allpurpose word for “get”, “grab”, “pick up”) should be avoided in Mexico, because it means “screw” (in the vulgar sense).
> 
> It gets stronger in meaning the farther south you go in the Americas. In Argentina, it frankly means “f*ck”.
> 
> ...


Thank you for sharing. I will definitely avoid that word. LOL


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Avoid saying _madre_ for “mother” except in the most sacrosanct and proper of contexts (_Día de la Madre_, _madre superior_, _la madre del presidente_). Always say _mamá_. The reason is that _madre_ has become contaminated by the expression "*$%^ your mother" (for which the Spanish equivalent uses _"madre"_: _"ch*(%^$ tu madre"_.

Can you use _"padre"_? Yes, it hasn’t suffered the same degradation. Note also that _padre_ is also a sort of out-of-date expression for “cool” - _"¡Qué padre!"_ = "Groovy!" But it is not improper at all the way _madre_ is.

There’s no separate word for “parents”, it’s _padres_; or _padres de familia_ if you want to make it clear that you don’t mean "fathers". But by extension of _mamá_, it’s also common to say _papás_; e.g.:
How are your parents? _¿Cómo están tus papás?_

When you get used to it, thouroughly Mexicanized, you will feel the strangeness, along with a little frisson of impropriety when your
Spanish friend asks you, _"¿Cómo eshtán tush padresh?"_


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

I would also add that all this advice is for Spanish _learners_. If you already learned Spanish from Spain to an excellent level, to the point that you could be mistaken for a Spaniard, you don’t need to change. The common advice given to learners is not to mix accents, and I agree with this. In my opinion, it would be a mistake to switch in some Mexican features to your Spanish while retaining some Spain features, and end up speaking a mish-mash of mid-Atlantic Spanish.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

maesonna said:


> I expect everyone knows the basic pronunciation differences – in Spain “c” and “z” are pronounced like our English unvoiced “th”. These are pronounced “s” in Mexico. It’s easy to diagnose this when you see all the misspellings on signs that confuse “s”, ”c” and “z”.
> 
> The Spaniard’s “s” is almost half-way to sounding like our “sh”, but not in Mexico. That makes it easy for English speakers to say the Mexican “s”; we just pronounce it like we’re used to pronouncing it in English.


These rules hold true for most of Spain but not for Andalucía or Galicia. Not sure about Cataluña.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

Isla Verde said:


> These rules hold true for most of Spain but not for Andalucía or Galicia. Not sure about Cataluña.


That happens when we try to agglomerate into "Mexicans", "Spaniards", "Americans", etc
each Country has a huge diversity of words and pronunciation


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Isla Verde said:


> These rules hold true for most of Spain but not for Andalucía or Galicia. Not sure about Cataluña.


As far as I know, in Cataluña, they pronounce the “c/z” like “th”, too.

Nevertheless, with respect to “c/z”, I’d expect that most Spanish lessons from Spain directed at foreigners will use the “th” pronunciation. Anyone have experience to the contrary?

Another place they pronounce ”c/z” as “s” is in the Canary Islands, where there are [thanks, Wikipedia] also some other more New-World-like features, such as using the simple past in speech, using _ustedes_ for both levels of formality, copious use of diminutives, and pronouncing the “s” at the ends of syllables similar to the English ‘h’. 

The final ‘s’-losing, however, while common in much of the rest of the Americas, is _not_ a feature of Mexican Spanish, except in a few regions on the Caribbean and southern coasts.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

A few basic vocabulary items

to become angry
Spain: _enfadarse_
Mexico: _enojarse_

to go away, to leave
Spain: _marcharse_
Mexico: _irse_

small, little
Spain: _pequeño_
Mexico: _chico_
Yes, we say _pequeño_ in Mexico, too, but the point is that in Spain, the main meaning of _chico(a)_ is a guy/girl; it isn’t used to mean “small”. In Mexico, _pequeño_ is a more formal way to say “small”, whereas it’s the normal word in Spain.


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## ElPaso2012 (Dec 16, 2012)

Wow, what an interesting post, maesonna. I'm not far enough along to follow all of it, but nice to know it's here when needed.


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## ElPaso2012 (Dec 16, 2012)

GARYJ65 said:


> That happens when we try to agglomerate into "Mexicans", "Spaniards", "Americans", etc
> each Country has a huge diversity of words and pronunciation


How many different major dialects of Spanish would you say exist in Mexico itself, Gary?


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Papases is used a lot here for parents

Maybe I'm making it up but everyone knows what I mean with "parentes"


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

> to become angry
> Spain: enfadarse
> Mexico: enojarse


Interesting .... here infadoso(a) is troublesome

and enojado ... is unhappy usually

Literal translations can be as confusing as English. Most is in the context and that takes much practice to decipher


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

> to go away, to leave
> Spain: marcharse
> Mexico: irse


Ya me voy - I'm going
Vayate or Te vayas - get outta here


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

ElPaso2012 said:


> How many different major dialects of Spanish would you say exist in Mexico itself, Gary?


I would not even dare to guess


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

sparks said:


> Maybe I'm making it up but everyone knows what I mean with "parentes"


Do they? You know that _parientes_ means “relatives”, not “parents”? Maybe they’ve figured out that the ****** means “parents” when he says “reliatives”.


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

ElPaso2012 said:


> How many different major dialects of Spanish would you say exist in Mexico itself, Gary?


Chilangos and everyone else

Now different non Spanish dialects .... a lot


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

sparks said:


> Chilangos and everyone else
> 
> Now different non Spanish dialects .... a lot


If you're talking about Nahuatl, Zapotec, Maya, etc., etc., those aren't dialects, they are entirely different languages!


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

sparks said:


> Ya me voy - I'm going
> Vayate or Te vayas - get outta here


vayate/ te vayas 
do not exist in Spanish, sorry


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

I wouldn’t say there are different dialects in of Spanish in Mexico, so much as accents, and some regional vocabulary differences. 





 talking about different regional accents. He claims there are four main categories of accents of Spanish in Mexico; northern, central, coastal, and Yucatecan. He also talks about some how some of the different ways of talking by social class differ between regions.





, by a northern Mexican. He maintains that there is no “single” Mexican accent, but a great many of them. He demonstrates his own, and the accent of Mexico City.





 (some with rather poor sound quality) from different parts of the country, with brief written explanation of the differences.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

maesonna said:


> I wouldn’t say there are different dialects in of Spanish in Mexico, so much as accents, and some regional vocabulary differences.
> That's a dialect, and there are plenty in Mexico


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

A dialect is a version of a language that has a consistent grammar. It may be different from the so-called standard version of the language. Of course a regional dialect may also be associated with different pronunciations and vocabulary than the standard language.

I don’t know enough about variations of Spanish to point to an example, but in English, an example is Appalachian English.

Speakers of the standard version of the language  may think that dialect speakers are using poor grammar; what they don’t realize is that the dialect has grammar rules, too, just different ones. If they try to imitate the dialect without knowing how the rules work,  they may get it wrong (see the last letter on the linked page).


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Oops, I posted the same video twice on the previous page. The second one was meant to be this video on 



.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Gary
I have a question for you, my Spanish teacher , a Mexican, told me not to use mande as I was older and most of the people I was dealing with were younger. Is that correct?


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

maesonna said:


> Do they? You know that _parientes_ means “relatives”, not “parents”? Maybe they’ve figured out that the ****** means “parents” when he says “reliatives”.


Thanks ... asked neighbors last night and straightened that one out


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

A dialect is something elusive, something that differs from the recognized "correct language" and the word implies that it is not good enough to be recognised as a language.
When I was a kid I was taught that for exemple in France we had several languages..gaellic, Basque Corsican and Provencal and Calatan but many many dialects. 
The dialects varried to within an area and it was not unusual for every town to have their own dialect. What we called dialect was impossible to inderstand unless you were from the area, had its own rules but it was considered a country thing...
We have lost most dialects except may be in the east where you can still hear a type of Germanic dialect.
The distingtion between a dialect and a language was very vague to me except that dialects did not have a written form.
When I took Tzotzil I referred to it as a Maya dialect and I was repremanded: I was told that it was a variance of Maya and it was a language on its own. As the Maya had city states there was no unified "king" Maya and that all Maya variances were called languages..it seems that the word is more political and right now it is not pc.
In France it was easy we had the French from the north and the French from the south. The king lived in the Loire Valley so the pure French was the Loire valley French everything else was a dialect..then some recognized that some dialects were actually languages but you can still here people say this person speaks a dialect when in fact it may gaellic or Basques which are languages, with a written form and a literature.
So in Mexico at least variance is in and dialect is out..


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

citlali said:


> Gary
> I have a question for you, my Spanish teacher , a Mexican, told me not to use mande as I was older and most of the people I was dealing with were younger. Is that correct?


First time I hear that version
Mande, mande usted, mándeme, those are very commonly used forms in México
There are several versions of how we began using them, in any case, what they mean is considered as derogatory, submissive, by some, I personally don't like to use those forms.
Some other people think they are a polite way to answer, a respectful way

We could say: diga, perdón?, diga Usted?, dígame
and have the same meaning without saying "order to me" (mande)

Proscritos La Revista - “Mande”: silogismos de servidumbre acompasada


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

A famous quote is, “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” In regions (now countries) where the languages grew organically (instead of being imported by immigrants), such as in Europe, you can see the indefinable continuum between dialects, regional variations, and languages that Citlali refers to.

A simplified version of the history is this: In countries such as France, Germany, Italy, etc. the so-called “standard version” of the national language is not the standard version because it may be “better” or “more correct” than the version spoken in other regions (of course it’s not), but because historically it was the dialect of the capital region, and so it was spoken by the people with the power over the rest of the country.

(In places like the Americas, there are also dialects and regional variations, but part of the process was different, since the dominant languages were imported.)


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## Dray2 (Apr 14, 2012)

GARYJ65 said:


> First time I hear that version
> Mande, mande usted, mándeme, those are very commonly used forms in México
> There are several versions of how we began using them, in any case, what they mean is considered as derogatory, submissive, by some, I personally don't like to use those forms.
> Some other people think they are a polite way to answer, a respectful way
> ...


Could the use of this word depend on what part of Mexico you live in. I live in Acapulco and hear it almost daily by the old and the young. I asked about it and was told it is more polite than saying "¿qué?"


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

Dray2 said:


> Could the use of this word depend on what part of Mexico you live in. I live in Acapulco and hear it almost daily by the old and the young. I asked about it and was told it is more polite than saying "¿qué?"


For most people it is more polite, that's because most people don't stop to think about the meaning of what they say.
As I said, you could change it to : diga? digame? diga Usted? indeed, to say a plain qué? is rude
Acapulco is not the Meca of Spanish by the way


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Dray2 said:


> Could the use of this word depend on what part of Mexico you live in. I live in Acapulco and hear it almost daily by the old and the young. I asked about it and was told it is more polite than saying "¿qué?"


Como is more polite than 'que'. Que is a real gruff way of asking what .... compared to como or "how did you say that" (mas or menos).

Mande is common here


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## Anonimo (Apr 8, 2012)

Excellent topic, gracias aUd, Maesonna.


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## alfaetrin (Aug 29, 2013)

I have always thought that a good way to view the differences between Castilian Spanish and Mexican/Latin American Spanish is to roughly link them to a comparison between UK standard English with American English.

In English, as soon as the speaker has spoken his first few words, you can tell straight away if he is, for example, English or North American. Likewise with a Spaniard and a Latin American. In both scenarios, the accent is different although, of course, there are many variations within the accents of each. Some of the words used are different too, although you can usually work out what the speaker means even if you yourself would not normally use that word. I suppose that there are a multitude of examples other than those mentioned already in this fascinating thread. In Spain we would "alquilar un coche", while in Mexico we would "rentar un carro". I would imagine also that a Spaniard would be unfamiliar with the many words used in Mexico that are of indigenous origin, such as many foodstuffs.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

To me Mexican Spanish is a sing song and in Spain the Spanish is more like a machine gun.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

maesonna said:


> ...if your Spanish course was from Spain, the most important thing you need to know is that “_cojer_” (in Spain a useful, allpurpose word for “get”, “grab”, “pick up”) should be avoided in Mexico, because it means “screw” (in the vulgar sense).
> 
> It gets stronger in meaning the farther south you go in the Americas. In Argentina, it frankly means “f*ck”.


This reminds me of a funny story about differing uses of this word. In Colombia it continues to be used in everyday language in the innocent sense, e.g. "to pick up". An Argentine friend of mine was in Colombia. He was at a meeting, and the group was going to be reconvening later that evening with spouses. One of the men knew my friend had a car and asked him if he wouldn't mind passing by his house to _"coger"_ this other man's wife. Of course, to my Argentine friend it sounded like he was being asked to be rather explicitly intimate with this man's wife! 
It's especially funny when he recounts this story in a mixed group of Latin Americans - the Central Americans and Mexicans immediately start laughing, and the Colombians are trying to figure out the punchline.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

ojosazules11 said:


> This reminds me of a funny story about differing uses of this word. In Colombia it continues to be used in everyday language in the innocent sense, e.g. "to pick up". An Argentine friend of mine was in Colombia. He was at a meeting, and the group was going to be reconvening later that evening with spouses. One of the men knew my friend had a car and asked him if he wouldn't mind passing by his house to "coger" this other man's wife. Of course, to my Argentine friend it sounded like he was being asked to be rather explicitly intimate with this man's wife! It's especially funny when he recounts this story in a mixed group of Latin Americans - the Central Americans and Mexicans immediately start laughing, and the Colombians are trying to figure out the punchline.


There would be something missing in that story, because you would not say it that way; usually one would say recoger a tu esposa, and recoger has no other meaning than pick up.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

That's the point. In Colombia they use "coger" like you might use "recoger" in Mexico, to pick someone up. So when the man asked my friend, "Puedes pasar por mi casa a coger a mi esposa" it sounded quite shocking to him initially. He quickly figured out that it was simply a different use of the word "coger" (like using "recoger" elsewhere). There are actually a few Latin American countries which still use "coger" in this innocuous way. The trick is knowing where you can use it and in that sense and where you can't. But the Colombians in our group listening to the story didn't understand why the rest of us found it so funny, as to them it was just normal to ask the question that way. Once it was explained they thought it was pretty hilarious too.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

We have the same problem in French with the word kiss or baiser as a verb...It is ok as a noun but we use the verb embrace embrasser to say to kiss otherwise you change the heck out of the meaning


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

ojosazules11 said:


> That's the point. In Colombia they use "coger" like you might use "recoger" in Mexico, to pick someone up. So when the man asked my friend, "Puedes pasar por mi casa a coger a mi esposa" it sounded quite shocking to him initially. He quickly figured out that it was simply a different use of the word "coger" (like using "recoger" elsewhere). There are actually a few Latin American countries which still use "coger" in this innocuous way. The trick is knowing where you can use it and in that sense and where you can't. But the Colombians in our group listening to the story didn't understand why the rest of us found it so funny, as to them it was just normal to ask the question that way. Once it was explained they thought it was pretty hilarious too.


I just ran out to ask a Colombian neighbor, he would not use Coger to mean pick up, more like grab, capture, find out, understand, that must have been a very regional situation.

In any case, yes, there are many many funny situations where one word is used in different ways and misunderstood


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## mosquitou (Nov 2, 2013)

It could be quite different in several words, but main difference is based on simple past, mexican use it a lot, an spanish, they do not use it.

Try to avoid certain words in Mexico that are commonly in Spain, such as "Cojer", "Chaqueta" "Me he dado una leche", " Me he venido", all these words have a second meaning in Mexico.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

mosquitou said:


> It could be quite different in several words, but main difference is based on simple past, mexican use it a lot, an spanish, they do not use it.


Do you mean that in Spain people don't use the simple past tense? I have spent quite a bit of time in Spain and that hasn't been my experience. It is true that Spaniards use the present perfect tense more than most Mexicans do.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Isla Verde said:


> Do you mean that in Spain people don't use the simple past tense? I have spent quite a bit of time in Spain and that hasn't been my experience. It is true that Spaniards use the present perfect tense more than most Mexicans do.


My experience, observation, and what I learned from my Spanish textbooks is that the simple past isn’t used in conversation, only in written discourse (similar to the distribution of these tenses in French).


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

maesonna said:


> My experience, observation, and what I learned from my Spanish textbooks is that the simple past isn’t used in conversation, only in written discourse (similar to the distribution of these tenses in French).


I beg to disagree with your Spanish textbooks. However, I will write to a friend who has lived in Spain for many years and see what she has to say.


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## GARYJ65 (Feb 9, 2013)

mosquitou said:


> It could be quite different in several words, but main difference is based on simple past, mexican use it a lot, an spanish, they do not use it.
> 
> Try to avoid certain words in Mexico that are commonly in Spain, such as "Cojer", "Chaqueta" "Me he dado una leche", " Me he venido", all these words have a second meaning in Mexico.


Me he dado una leche means...nothing in Mexico
coger and chaqueta are normal words, and may be used without any problem in Mexico
The problems come when you talk with very low level, vulgar and ignorant people, they will make fun of those words used in different contexts, but then again, we have ALBURES in Mexico, and if you take that into consideration, you may not be able to use any words in Spanish


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

maesonna said:


> My experience, observation, and what I learned from my Spanish textbooks is that the simple past isn’t used in conversation, only in written discourse (similar to the distribution of these tenses in French).


Yesterday I wrote to an American friend married to a Spaniard,who has lived in Spain for many, many years. By now she is bilingual (and bicultural in many ways) and an English teacher to boot. Here's what she wrote to me about the use of the simple past (in Spanish, _el pretérito_ in Peninsular Spanish:

The simple past is used but much less than present perfect. For example, you say, "me he levantado temprano esta mañana." especially when it's recent past. I often have to correct my students when I ask them what they did during the weekend, because they usually answer, "I have gone to the movies . . . " or things like that. So here we always have to explain when to use present perfect and when to use past simple.

However, past simple is not only limited to writing. 


I hope these comments from my friend help to clarify the issue.


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