Spanish Word of the Day: perdonar

I think you have some misconceptions about these words. The equivalent verb for “perdonar” is “to forgive”. But to say “sorry” you have to use “discúlpeme” (like in “Sorry to bother you, but…”). “Perdonar” has a deeper meaning, usually involving a very big mistake, a repenting person…. do you get the idea?
Here in Argentina, you can hear both words interchanged. But we don’t give too much respect to the language ;P . Personally, I use “perdonar” as in “forgive”, and “disculpar” in all the other cases.

And with the politeness in the way of speak… well, that is a matter of taste . You have to be aware of the way of speaking in the place where you are. Here, nobody says “tu”, and “usted” is used rarely (is a very polite word, reserved for special cases). In the vast mayority of time we use “vos”, “te” or the super Argentinean word “che” or nothing.
Examples.
“¿Está usted bien?” = “Are you OK?” very polite
¿Cómo estás?” = “Are you OK?” but less polite, so its meaning derives to “How are you?” In the rest of Latin America, they append “tú” at the end of the phrase.

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Just a minor correction for the words “tú” and “usted”. I have travelled many times to south america, and I have learned that they use “tú” and “usted” in the same way we use in spain (they use “usted” only when they want to be polite).

Nevertheless, the plural for those words has a different meaning. In spain, the plural is used in an equivalent way (we use “ustedes” to be polite, and “vosotros” instead). In south america, they use the words at the opposite way: they use “vosotros” to be polite and “ustedes” instead.

For exmple: a boy, when asking something to a friend, he would use “tú”. “¿Cómo estás tú?”. Nevertheless, the same boy, if asking to a group of friends, he would say “Cómo están ustedes?”

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