Can someone advise me of common words/expressions whose translation into Castillian Spanish seems to differ from into Latin American as in the Rocket Spanish course. For instance 'I would like' appears to be 'me gustaria' in Latin American but 'yo quisiera' in Castillian; 'car' is 'coche' in Castillian but 'carro' in Latin American; are there many more and does it make a difference? Thanks

Yes, there are many more. Not only do some words differ between Castillian and latin American spanish, they do differ between countries too. I understand perfectly well how you feel. I feel the same, but for me I have decided to learn the South American Spanish from Mauricio, and later , when I am fluent ( hmm, hmm ) I will worry about the differences when I really need them. It avoids frustration. Just my 2 Baht

Hi Mesamm, Like Antonio says, there are many differences not just between Castillian Spanish and South American Spanish. Every country has their own interpretations of some words. Like the word for car that you mentioned, "Coche" in Chile we also use the word, but it means a "Pram" instead of a car... Don't feel like this will be a problem, it will be easy to adapt to the country that you are visiting as the locals soon let you know what they call things around their turf... :D All the best. Mauricio

We spend a lot of time in Mexico and have frequent visits from family living in Spain. Many many nouns are different but, of course, the grammar is the same. Wherever I am I eat up catalogues (eg., Office Depot), store ads and street signs to learn what things are called. I've given up depending on dictionaries. Even the ones that say "Latin American Spanish" may not apply to my little part of Mexico.

I've had some interesting chats with students and teachers about this I go to evening classes here in Britain some of the teachers are Spanish English or South American The Spanish and English teachers would score out the Latin American words and put in the Spanish equivalents which hacked me off no end as long as the word is correct what is the problem, also the pronounciation of cinco etc .. in spanish from Spain it's phonetically pronounced "thinko" with a lisp As I had learnt my basic spanish from my boyfriend who is Colombian, I never thought anything of it. My last Spanish Teacher was cool about it and said she was happy that I was learning Spanish, and it didn't matter whether it was Spanish from Spain or Latin American Spanish. I wish all Spanish teachers were that openminded I have a english teacher who speaks fluent Spanish and is head of the Language Dept teaching us now, I had to have some quite assertive wordswith her as she didn't acknowledge the Latin American words either, I said to her that both ways were valid, why should I be made to feel like I am doing something wrong? She agreed with me, what I do is I learn both or bounce some of the words off my boyfriend, if I'm not sure

A lot surely depends on what the course is that you are undertaking. We went to Local Authority night school classes before we came out and what they taught was Castillian spanish; you would not therefore expect to be taught Latin American differences. However, the teacher was South American and aware that a few people in the class were learning in order to go to South America and was quite happy to help them out by telling them where differences ocurred. It is not a question of one being right or wrong. Some courses teach one version, and some the other. As we were coming to live in Spain, we wanted to learn Castillian. Even within Spain there are huge differences. Where we live in Andalucia they do not pronounce the "c" after "i" or "e", or "z", as "th". But as we are learning Casdtillian spanish at college, that is the way we are taught it here. Alan

Let's be fair. Let's study Catalan instead! :lol: How about it Mauricio? Rocket Catalan?

Well now that would be interesting... I've had the pleasure of talking to a few people who speak "Catalan" and I think we ended up talking in english... lol