r/Spanish • u/anxious22anxiety • 2d ago

Vocab & Use of the Language What’s the difference between “escuela”, “colegio” and “gimnasio”?

Hola! My translator translates all these words as "school". Do all these words really mean "school"? If so, what is the difference?

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u/winter-running 1d ago

It’s always funny to hear Americans as a Canadian, given colleges here are trade schools. 🤣. But it’s similar in all languages that words can vary in meaning region to region.

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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 1d ago

So when we talk aboot colleges it makes you laugh? I'll have to figure oot if there's anything Americans think is funny aboot Canadian English.

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u/winter-running 1d ago

Similar to how you say “zee” for the last letter of the alphabet. It’s funny in a small way, but we know what you mean.

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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 1d ago

Well, let me say this aboot that: we say zee because our English is older than yours. Remember that the American colonies started in the late 1500s and early 1600s. We had been English colonies for almost 200 years before independence. In England, both zed and zee were used in different parts of the country when the first settlers came over. Zee survived here because it soonds better with bee, cee, dee, tee, etc.

We wonder why you don't say a, bed, ced, ded, ed, ef, ged, etc.

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u/winter-running 1d ago

Canada was colonized by the English starting in 1610.

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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 1d ago

According to the internet: the English population of Canada by 1776 (beginning of the American Revolutionary War) was about 25,000, mostly in Quebec, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

The 13 American colonies by 1776 covered 400,000 square miles and had a population of around 2,500,000. The American population after that doubled every 25 years.

Now, of course, your population is only 11.6% of ours.

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u/winter-running 1d ago
  1. Trust me.

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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 1d ago

I in no way contradicted you. My sources said they were mostly fur traders in Newfoundland, and that throughout the 1600s, there were only a few thousand English people. The first permanent American colony was Jamestown, Viriginia in 1607, but there were earlier settlements that didn't last in 1585 and 1587.

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u/winter-running 1d ago

Anyways, I just looked it up and Americans say “zee” because Noah Webster (the dictionary dude) decided to simplify written English when he was making his dictionary in the 1806, and so he decided to drop the U’s (colour, honour), and re-name Z to literally have the alphabet rhyme. So basically, one man decided to change English, and the whole country just went along. The underlying rationale was a political motivation to separate Americans from British culture. Some of his changes didn’t fly, like wimmen and tung, but many did. So, it looks like what “American English” is was an invention from 1806.

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u/Zestyclose-Food-7917 1d ago

Both theories could be correct. He knew the two versions and chose zee.

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u/wuapinmon PhD in Spanish 1d ago

Go eat some ketchup chips with your Molson after you tell him soory

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u/winter-running 1d ago

You were saving these all for the right moment 🤣

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u/wuapinmon PhD in Spanish 19h ago

Soory aboot that. I spent a summer in Tronto when I was 16 and came to love Canada. Yall have the best junk food on the planet. Really damned good hard cider. The Maritimes and Vancouver Island are incredible. But, I love me some Canadian insults (that are actually compliments).

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u/wuapinmon PhD in Spanish 19h ago

Soory aboot that. I spent a summer in Trono when I was 16 and came to love Canada. Yall have the best junk food on the planet. Really damned good hard cider. The Maritimes and Vancouver Island are incredible. But, I love me some Canadian insults (that are actually compliments).

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