Voices en Español

Joel, a Voices en Español reader, asks:

Do you think most of the phrases you share with us are common to Latin American countries or primarily to Spain? Would it be safe to say that all your material is known in Spain and a portion is also used in Latin America?

Excellent question and I’m glad you’ve raised the issue. Generally I try to stick to common words or phrases that are used universally, are widely known or will be easily understood by native Spanish speakers everywhere. But because I live in Spain and I have been exposed to more Castilian Spanish than Latin American Spanish, you can assume that the phrases you find on this blog would most definitely be used in Spain. Occasionally I may throw in a phrase or two of slang, but if I do I will clearly state that. However, I generally tend to stay away from blogging about slang phrases. Here’s why:

A). It’s highly regional in nature. Some popular slang expressions in el Distrito Federal in Mexico may draw blank stares if used on the streets of Madrid.

B). It is frequently dependent on age, gender or social class. By that I mean it’s a way of speaking between people who belong to the same group. If the person using a particular vernacular doesn’t belong to the group, he (or she) can actually be setting himself (herself) up for embarrassment.

A middle-aged American businessman going around Spain saying “me mola un huevo” (which loosely translated in English means “It’s freaking awesome!”) may think he’s fitting in with the locals. However such an expression coming out of a 50-year-old’s mouth may unintentionally generate snickers of derision instead of nods of admiration, even though the phrase is being used correctly. The reason? The speaker is not a 15-year-old Spanish teenager.

Consider the reaction you have in English when you hear a middle-aged suburbanite using slang that is specific to young girls or rappers. It sounds odd.

I’ve fallen into this trap myself. I once thought it would be OK for me to go around using the terms “macho” or “tronco” when referring to guys until a Spanish friend told me to stop. I thought it was OK to use these words because I had heard people (usually men) using those words to refer to other men. To my Spanish friend it sounded weird for a woman, especially a non-Spanish woman, to use those terms.

Anyway, getting back to your original question, yes, the bulk of the idiomatic expressions you find on this blog are phrases definitely used in Spain. Many of them are also used or, at the very least, understood in Latin America.

However, reader beware.

If you see a particular phrase that you’d like to use in Mexico or Argentina or Puerto Rico, etc., but you’re not sure it will fly, visit the Spanish-English forum at Word Reference.com to get an accurate reality check from native speakers living in those countries. Also, if you have a language intercambio (a conversation exchange with a native Spanish speaker), talking about idiomatic expressions is a fun way to learn more about their culture and clear up these kinds of doubts.

In the future, whenever possible, I will try to make distinctions and provide some alternative phrases used in different countries, especially if I know that the phrase used in Spain might be misunderstood or draw a blank in Latin America. For example, I did this recently on my Twitter page where I gave two different phrases (one used in Mexico, the other in Spain) to refer to wearing out the dance floor.

However, I can’t make any firm promises about how often I will be able to do this since there may be variations of an expression within a region (Cuban vs. Dominican Spanish, for example) not to mention within a country (Mexico City vs. Mexico). I’d rather provide you guys with streamlined content that has been curated in some way, (i.e. edited and boiled down to the essentials), instead of flooding the zone and swamping you with an encyclopedic entry.

Got a question? Drop me a line via the Contact page or leave your question in the comments section. ¡Gracias!