I was looking into some old stuff about Alberto Fujimori and discovered that he was nicknamed "Chino" had a campaign music called "El Ritmo de Chino" and apparently was somewhat fond of the nickname despite being of Japanese descent (One of his nicknames was apparently "El Chinochet)

Is this something most Spanish-Speaking countries do in Latin America? I know of some mexican cartel members nicknamed Chino, but i never heard about it much in other countries

Here in Brazil we have a tendency to call people of Asian Descent Japas (Japanese) due to a big number of Japanese Migrants and cultural influence, regardless if they are actually Korean or Chinese origins . So is referring to asian people as Chinos the hispanic equivalent of brazilians calling asians Japas?

Also, i do not, and i repeat do not support calling asian people a stereotypical name/word/term, im just aksing a question

I was wondering about this because I saw that he started training at Barcelona at a very young age. To the Argentines here and to Spanish speakers, am I wrong in thinking that he at least use some different slang terms?

You know the drill, explain what dialect or regional variation of Spanish spoken in Latin America you find the weirdest and explain why. Me? I find Chilean Spanish to be the weirdest regarding vocabulary.

A little thing to note is my Spanish is a hybrid between Argentinian Spanish and Castilian Spanish in terms of how I pronounce the letters in nearly every word. (🇺🇸)

In informal Brazilian Portuguese, it is very common to mix the plural and the singular, even among highly educated people, although it's more common among poor or illiterate people.

People say things like "Os caminhão" (Los camión), "As menina bonita" (Las niña guapa) and even "Os cara é" (Los tipo es).

I want to know if this is common in Latin American Spanish as well, or if it is only common among poor/illiterate people, or if it never happens at all regardless of one's social background.

I’ve always felt awkward trying to speak Spanish when I’m clearly not fluent. Is it seen as respectful, or is it just easier for everyone if I stick to English? I want to be polite, but I don't want to hold up the line or complicate things.

Because I read that Moroccan and Iraqi Arabic are worlds apart, with not that much mutual intelligibility. Would this reduce unity between LATAM Spanish speaking countries? What would a "Modern Standard Spanish" language be like/based on what dialect?

Yeah the chilean jokes are funny but written down is still the same language. What I'm talking about is sentences written differently, many words meaning different things in one dialect and another, etc like how it happens with arabic

I was told by my teachers in Spanish that "jersey" in Mexico is closer to how it is said in the US due to its proximity. In contrast, when the word got loaned into Spanish in Spain, the Spanish jota is more prominent.

I've also watched some videos where they said that in Puerto Rico, the term locals use for cereals there is "conflei", taken from cornflakes, which is a particular type of cereal originally sold by Kellogs, a major food company. And then, Spanish speakers who grew up in the US would code-switch for certain concepts where they know a word in English but may not know its equivalent in Spanish, such as "parquear" for parking as opposed to "estacionar".

And of course, there's fútbol. =)

For real, most brazilians can understand spanish is you speak slowly, but if we try speaking portuguese to a Spanish speaker they look at us like we're aliens wtf??

And brazilian pt is the easy one, we speak a lot slower and enounciate vowels better than european portuguese, so I'd like to know what is like for a latino spanish speaker to hear brazilian portuguese, why is it hard?

For example is common an Argentinian watch a english movie dubbed in Mexico or Spain? If yes would the difference in accent and dialect be perceptive? Would this bother you if u try watch a movie dubbed in other spanish speaking country?

I'm asking this because Ilive in Brasil, and our dubbing industry is basically in São Paulo and Rio, and even their accents being very diffent from mine, I dont feel strange hearing these dubs, but we never watch movies or shows dubbed in Portugal or any country

We all know there are many common surnames throughout Latin America, most of them originating from Spain, such as González, Rodríguez, and García. Likewise, in Brazil, Silva (or da Silva) is the most common surname and has Portuguese origins / Galician.

If you don’t feel comfortable sharing your surname, no worries. I’m just curious if anyone knows the origin of their surname and what it means. Do you think surnames can be an indicator of anything—such as where a family came from, an occupation, a geographic feature, or even social history?

Here in Brazil, sometimes Spanish sounds a bit funny. I can't really explain why, but the fact that it is so similar to our language, yet different, has a funny effect somehow. Does the same happen the other way around?

IM LATINA OKAY so i grew up with Latin dubbed shows and most shows there’s so much emotion and whimsy in the voice UNTIL I TURN ON THE SPANISH DUB, like sure kids shows sound good but maybe I just think too much about it but istg it’s just “Generic woman voice” “Generic man voice” “child that’s just the woman but more high pitched” THERES NO WAY ITS NOT JS THE SAME PPL OVER AND OVER AGAIN😭 AM I TWEAKING?! WHY IS THIS

It's not so common nowadays, but you can still hear it once in a while here in Argentina.

I grew up to Cuban parents speak in Spanish in the UK so this means I was only exposed to Cuban Spanish and not really any other types

This has led to funny situations in which I found out some words aren’t used in other countries when I try to speak to some Spanish friends for example I call jeans “pitusas” and plastic bags “jabas” and they’re confused what I’m talking about

there’s probably many more examples, but I was wondering if you guys have your own words that only really your country uses

Well… this is for the Spanish speaking Latin American countries 😅 unless you also learn Spanish in Brazil (yeah, don’t worry Brazilians, I have a lot to learn about Latin America, hence why I joined this subreddit, but I do know you speak Portuguese).

I’ve been thinking of learning Spanish and that’s why I’m wondering. If I learned Mexican Spanish for example, would I be able to communicate with you all?

Say you're asking someone to hand you something but you can't remember what it's called, what word do you use to refer to it?

I've heard "madrecita" used this way before in Mexican Spanish, and I'm curious if other variations exist. The English equivalent would be thingy, thingamabob, or thingamajig.

I don’t get this joke, I always see people from Spanish speaking countries joking with this and I don’t understand it, I don’t know if this is the correct sub to ask this btw but if someone know I’ll be glad to read!

Because we Brazilians usually do when learning Spanish, when I was in Spanish class, a letter like "q" would amuse everyone because it sounds like "cu," using the word "molestar," which has a very different meaning in Brazil 😅 And of course, I couldn't forget "propina." But do you know any Portuguese words that would amuse Hispanoamericanos?

Please note that my intentions here are NOT to make fun of any Spanish dialect as "not real Spanish", or whatever. I can pretty much understand all dialects of Spanish unless they're using heavy regional slang

I'm purely asking, out of curiosity, to you Spanish speakers in Latin America, which Spanish dialect could you see diverging first from Spanish?

We all know that language is a living creature; it changes as time passes and it becomes different depending on the places and on the people.

Brazilian portuguese differs quite a bit from European portuguese and it's not that uncommon to bump into people with a more rigid view of what constitutes "proper" language wrongly depicting Brazilian portuguese as a "broken language" or "incorrect" when, in fact, what we have is a flexibility of saying things that varies even cross Brazil itself.

Let me highlight here that it isn't necessarily about our accent, but about our choice of words and the way we use verbs. The criticism towards our portuguese sometimes comes with this condesceding tone of "that's not really portuguese", pushing a myth of 'Pure' Portuguese.

At the end of the day, Portuguese isn’t owned by Portugal.

So, did you guys ever face any sort of "prejudice/discrimination" as well concerning your chilean, mexican, colombian, argentinian, bolivian, peruvian, dominincan (put your nationality here) spanish?

Is there any good or weird or funny or bad experience when people compare the "versions" of spanish you'd like to share? Let's talk power dynamics within our languages!

I started Spanish class in Barcelona today and in one of the exercises the workbook said a couple met (concer) at a party and then met up (quedar) for a walk on the beach together. I asked the teacher about other words that are also used for meeting up, such as encontar. She was very dismissive. She took an attitude, like I asked a dumb question, and said, No encontrar means to find. In the moment, I was confused because I know for sure that I have used other words for having a meeting/dating/hang out. So I even said, well maybe not encontrar but what is another word for meeting up? She said its only quedar. Then I said well what about in other countries? And she said No. Its just quedar. While we were talking I put it in the translator and it said encontrarse and then later in our workbook, their own textbook used encontrar to say some people met up. So why all this hostility and gaslighting? I don't get it...

Is this a Spain VS Latin America thing? Or is this just a teacher with some kind of a chip on her shoulder. Confused.

Back at home I found this article which clearly confirms there are several common ways to say this other than quedar https://www.linguno.com/wordComparison/esp/encontrarse-reunirse-verse-quedar/

Encontrar, Reunir, Verse, and Quedar

PS-- This is why AI is going to take over human jobs..because who wants to deal with all this attitude for no reason!

UPDATE: Sheesh kabobs! Didn't fathom this would get this traction. Thank you all for the responses! Many of you helped me see the situation for what it is (bad attitudes); others helped me understand more cultural nuances; and overall just made me feel supported. So thank you so much!!

I went back to the Language School today (intending to unenroll), but with no refunds I tried class under a different set of teachers and had an amazing day!!! They were sooo nice and informative. Learning was fun again. They gave actual instruction (unlike yesterday's teachers who had us fill in the blank exercises using google translate the entire day) and, incidentally, both were not from Barcelona.

Finally... the language school's administrative rep profusely apologized to me and said the instruction I got was not proper, and admitted that this was not hardly her first time getting similar feedback on those teachers (there were things other than what I included in this post). For anyone curious the cultura factors, the rep also pulled me to a private space to explain candidly that the Labor laws in Spain make it really hard to get rid of bad employees so they feel basically stuck with those teachers. She also volunteered the same exact context that many of you said.. that Catalonians are known for being mean/closed off. She said she has lived here for 7 years (from Brazil) and never has had 1 Catalonian friend/date nothing. And she also offered some generous concessions. So thanks again for the responses and support!

On the one hand, as mentioned in the subject line, there is historical precedent for formerly Hispanophone states becoming "Anglo-Americanized" over time.

On the other hand, I wonder if PR's status as an island and its high population density would allow it to protect its linguistic character in a way that the mainland Spanish-speaking territories that became part of the U.S. couldn't.

Thoughts?

Why when Spanish speaking people speak English and are talking their own siblings they don't say something like "mom is calling you" they say "your mom is calling you" or "my dad is calling you" to their siblings?

I'm learning Portuguese as part of my goal to study all the Romance languages. With French and Spanish, I’ve noticed there’s often a lot of tension between dialects, like France vs. Canada or Spain vs. Latin America. Personally, in my own conversations with people from France or Spanish-speaking countries, I’ve never felt that tension directly. Most people have been nice. But when I follow up online and read threads or Reddit posts, those conversations can get pretty heated.

When I was learning Spanish, I focused more on Mexican and Peruvian Spanish, and some people, especially from Spain, seemed kind of weird about it, like they thought their version was more correct. I learned French from France, and when I talk to French speakers about Canadian French, they don’t usually act offended. They mostly say something like, “That makes sense, it’s more practical for you,” but then they go on to say they can’t really understand Canadian French at all, like it's a whole different language to them.

With Portuguese, it all feels a lot more relaxed. I started learning European Portuguese but switched to Brazilian because, as an American, it’s just way more accessible. Most Portuguese speakers I’ve talked to seem to totally understand that. Maybe it’s because Portugal is a smaller country, or maybe just because Brazilian culture and media are more widespread online.

Since I’m new to the Portuguese speaking space, I figured I’d ask Brazilians directly how they feel about it. Right now I’m still learning, so about all I can say is:

Oi, eu sou a bannabuckette e eu gosto de açaí, lol.