Spain vs Latin America: cars, phones and coger

The everyday words for car, phone, juice and potato change between Spain and Latin America, and often between Latin American countries. Nobody is wrong, and everyone understands both:

• Voy en coche. - I'm going by car. (Spain)
• Voy en carro. - I'm going by car. (Mexico, Colombia)

Spain vs Latin America at a glance

The words you will need first. Spain's word is in the solid blue box, the Latin American one in the dashed pink box.

• cochecar, Spain
• carrocar, Mexico and Colombia
• autocar, Argentina and Chile

Latin America is not one block: the right-hand column changes from country to country, as the sections below show.

Getting around

Three traps the table cannot show:

• In Spain, carro is a cart or a trolley: el carro de la compra, the shopping trolley.
• In Spain, camión is a lorry. In Mexico it is also the city bus.
• In the Canary Islands, Cuba and Puerto Rico the bus is a guagua. In the Andes, a guagua is a baby.
• ¿Sabes conducir? - Can you drive? (Spain)
• ¿Sabes manejar? - Can you drive? (Latin America)

Words to handle with care

Most variation is harmless. One common verb is not. In Spain, coger means take or catch, and it is everywhere:

• Cojo el autobús a las ocho. - I catch the bus at eight. (Spain)

In much of Latin America, above all Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, coger is vulgar slang for sex. (In Colombia and Cuba, for example, it is still an everyday verb.) Say tomar or agarrar wherever you are unsure:

• Tomo el autobús a las ocho. - I catch the bus at eight. (anywhere)
• Agarra las llaves. - Grab the keys. (Latin America)