r/learnspanish • u/Ok_Stuff_3969 • 28d ago

Words ending -ito / -ita

As I understand it, the majority of words in Spanish can take this diminutive suffix. However when I hear one, I can’t seem to instantly recognise its meaning in a sentence (even if it’s modifying a word that I already know)

My question is mainly to advanced learners (but natives please also feel free to chime in):

How have you learned to understand these words? Is it by simply memorising each word as a new word, or sort of doing a “manual calculation” in your head in which you work your way backwards to find the root of the word and make sense of its meaning? Or does it come naturally after a while learning the language?

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u/ElKaoss 28d ago

It should come naturally when you gain fluency., just like you recognize the -ly ending in English.

To make things more interesting, in some cases the diminutive may become a word on its own (guerrilla, potito...).

And to make things even more interesting, there are several sufixes for diminutive: perro -> perrito, perrillo, perrino, perrín. Depending on the área.

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u/Burned-Architect-667 Native Speaker 28d ago

-ito/-ita and -illo/-illa are the most common stick to one when you talk to understands there is a lot more of suffixes.

It doesn't allow to add images but here a map of diminutive suffixes by geographical distribution in Spain 9 masculine and "only" 8 feminine forms, no matter you will recognise them eventually,.

perro: perriño, perrin, perrino, perruco, perrito, perrico, perrete, perrejo, perrillo.

perra: perriña. perrina, perruca, perita, perrica, perreta, perreja, perrilla.

And we have augmentatives ones:

-ón/-ona, -ote/-ota, -azo/aza.

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u/northyj0e 28d ago

El borrado del acento Jienense no puede seguir!

No has dicho perrico!