(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	lyppy 2007-04-18 01:17 am UTC (link)
	The biggest difference I can think of between the two is the absence of vosotros in Mexican-Spanish. I was taught not to use vosotros by my grammar school teacher, which was annoying when I was actually in Spain with my Spanish speaking family. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	memoriamvictus 2007-04-18 01:31 am UTC (link)
	Eh, it was mostly the accent that threw me, but that puts us squarely back into "LOL rednecks/New Yorkers/Quebecois/etc talkz funny!" territory. (Or perhaps I was being a stupid ugly American and mortally offending everyone by tossing 'ustedes' around. Eeep.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annabelle_lee 2007-04-18 06:56 pm UTC (link)
	Err, hell...sorry about that. I had it ass-backwards and had to think about it for a moment. From what I've been told by various teachers and relatives, ustedes is just a little more casual, kind of like 'ya'll' vs. 'all of you'. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

memoriamvictus
2007-04-18 07:18 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, it seems to be in flux right now. (Your first comment sent me to Wikipedia with a "wait, what?" :>) I learned from Mexicans who only ever really used 'tu,' and had the impression that 'usted' was only for extremely formal occassions. I didn't even find out about 'vosotros' until I took a college literature class, wherein I was assured (again, by a Mexican) that it was equivalent to 'thee' and 'thou' in English.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	vigilanterodent 2007-04-18 07:19 pm UTC (link)
	Oddly, I've been told precisely the opposite - that vosotros is casual, and ustedes is formal. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annabelle_lee 2007-04-18 07:24 pm UTC (link)
	And now I don't know what to believe. I could write off my teacher, lord knows the whole class thought he was a hippie pothead, but my family is usually good about these things. Maybe there's a difference in perception? My folks are all from Honduras... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

vigilanterodent
2007-04-18 09:41 pm UTC (link)

Possibly it's like what happened to "thou" in English? Since it's no longer in common usage, lots of English-speakers are under the impression that "thou" is the formal form of "you", when in fact the opposite is the case. I could see the perception of "vosotros" in areas which no longer use it being similar - it's old-fashioned and a little exotic, ergo the assumption is that it must be fancier.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	annabelle_lee 2007-04-18 09:51 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe. You bring up a good point for it at least. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chibikaijuu 2007-04-18 03:28 am UTC (link)
	I was taught Spanish (in US grades 7-9) without vosotros, but with a note that it was still used in Spain - but not most other Spanish-speaking countries. But now I barely remember any of my Spanish, so it doesn't matter. (Switched to Latin. Twenty times more awesome, with pirates and assfucking.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	amxjm 2007-04-18 06:42 am UTC (link)
	Heh. Are you sure you're not me (except for the Latin part)? (Reply to this)(Parent)

serai
2007-04-18 07:23 am UTC (link)

Not just vosotros. Usted is almost never used among Mexican people, at least those in Los Angeles. They always say tu. It can be really jarring if you've been raised using both those conjugations the way I was - I've always had to struggle against this instinctive reaction that the person talking to me was really rude, when actually he's just speaking another dialect.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	princessdot 2007-04-18 08:07 am UTC (link)
	We obviously don't travel amongst the same circles. Solo se tutea a sus iguales, ¡nunca a sus semejantes! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	yuuko 2007-04-18 09:23 am UTC (link)
	Maybe it's an LA thing? I've seen Mexican people calling others "usted" a lot of times. (Reply to this)(Parent)

yuuko
2007-04-18 09:32 am UTC (link)

I'm not Mexican but Latin nonetheless, and I'm pretty sure only Spaniards use "vosotros". The thing is that in most schools in Latin America -disclaimer: that I know of-, even if it's obsolete, they teach us the vosotros conjugations anyway -to our annoyance as students. This is why if a Latin American person travels to Spain, can still understand the weirdness that is verbs in Spaniard Spanish. Sort of.

And hell, I'm living right now in Spain and, in my experience, the average Spanish people can still more or less get what you said even if you don't use vosotros conjugations. Which is a relief, because I still use the ustedes form for plural you sometimes, when I forget.

But yeah, I imagine that your experience must've sucked a lot.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lyppy 2007-04-18 01:36 pm UTC (link)
	Nah, it wasn't too bad. I just had to think about what my family was saying a little more. But I got a bit of a Castillian accent from being over there, which was cool. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -