This is probably one of the questions that I’ve been asked the most by clients all over the world. How does the Spanish USA variant differs from other Spanish variants in Central and Latin America? It’s rather a difficult and complex question, and the answer is by no means definitive or final, which makes it necessary to provide some background first.

Spanish has become the second most spoken language in the United States, with 40 to 45 million people speaking Spanish as a first or second language. There are more Spanish-speakers in the United States than speakers of Italian, French, German, Hebrew, varieties of Chinese and Native American languages combined. The growth in the Spanish-speaking population has been exponential, going from 11 million people in 1980 (5% of the total US population) to 41 million people in 2005 (13% of the total US population). Over 50% of the Spanish-speakers in the US reside in just 3 states: California, Florida and Texas.

Taking those figures into account, it is clear that a US Spanish version should exist, after all, there’s more people speaking Spanish in the US than in most Latin American countries in which Spanish is a native tongue (only Mexico with 121 million people and Colombia with 48 million surpass the US figure).

My experience living in the US for a short time seemed to confirm this, since there were definitely certain expressions that I had to think twice before I could fully grasp their meaning. “Que me llame para atrás” (literal translation of “tell him to call me back”), “parquear el carro” (literal translation of “park the car”), or “me puedes romper uno de cien” (“can you break a hundred?”) made such an impression that I still remember them a decade later. These expressions, of which there are definitely many more, can be found in informal talk or everyday language of Spanish-speakers all around the United States, and although they are frequently used, they haven’t found their way into proper written Spanish yet, since the person using those expressions knows implicitly that they are just part of everyday talk, and not appropriate for formal written language.

Different Origins, Different Variants 

The influx of Spanish immigration originated in several different countries from Latin America, with Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans heading the list but with large numbers from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, etc. This wide variety in the composition of the Hispanic community in the USA is the reason why it is almost impossible to differentiate a single uniform variant of US Spanish from the local variants of each specific community. Thus, it is clear that the Cuban community in Florida will speak, understand and prefer Cuban Spanish, and the large Mexican community in Texas or New Mexico will speak, understand and prefer Mexican Spanish.

Usually, a language acquires a specific form after decades of being spoken and written in a single location. That is how most of the variants of Spanish developed in the first place. Now, the Spanish population in the United States has exploded only recently, in the last 30-40 years. This means that most of the “originators” of the language in the USA are still alive today (mothers, fathers and grandparents that arrived to the US in the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s) and their origins have a strong impact on their US-born Spanish-speaking kids. The Spanish variant that these kids speak (kids that were raised and educated in the United States) is the variant that they were taught by their parents and grandparents, and so their language is profoundly influenced by the words and expressions passed to them by their families (I have an American friend that has Puerto Rican parents, and the Spanish variant he speaks when I talk to him is, of course, perfect Puerto Rican Spanish).

Since you cannot possibly unify all Latin communities from very different origins into one single all-encompassing variant, it is not possible for translators to produce a text that feels “local” to every Spanish speaker in the US at the same time, unless you’re targeting a very specific community, such as, for example, a text directed to a Spanish Texan audience (in which case you would use a Mexican flavor due to the fact that the majority of Texan immigration originated in Mexico).

The Future of US Spanish

Even though I do not believe there is a uniform US variant Spanish yet (“yet” being the most important word of this sentence), you can certainly adjust the default Latam version of Spanish and tailor it for a US-based audience. This will not be 100% perfect for each Spanish-speaking community independently but will give the text certain elements that will definitely make it feel closer to home.

Some of these elements are briefly given below:

• Use the Imperial System, instead of the correct Spanish Metric System for measurements.
• All numbers and figures should follow the English punctuation rules (commas for thousand separators and period for decimals).
• Time and dates should also follow the US format. (MM/DD/YYYY and x:xx a.m./p.m.)
• Mimic the English capitalization rules, which have a tendency to have upper case in a greater percentage of words than Spanish.
• Do not translate the name of institutions, cities, states, streets, holidays, etc., and any other proper nouns that a person living in the US will most likely encounter in English (such as “New York”, “IRS”, “Halloween”, etc.)
• Use literal translations (or loans) for certain words that do not have a clearly defined counterpart in Spanish and that are fairly recent in terms of their use on everyday language. For example (eligibility = elegibilidad, empower = empoderar, brainstorming = brainstorming, etc.).

I have no doubt that time will solidify certain changes in the language that now are only part of informal verbal language, and that new expressions, word loans, and new features of the language will make US Spanish a unique variant of Spanish, different from most other variants. However, in a rigid language such as Spanish, with a linguistic authority (la Real Academia Española) that defines what is “correct” Spanish and what is not, changes can take a long time to materialize. For now, we can continue tailoring Spanish Latam in order to bring it closer to the Spanish-speaking community living, working and studying in the US.