Aren’t you a little too old for that?
ack in 2017, Luis Fonsi’s song Despacito was released, and I often saw the same question being asked in Spanish as a foreign language forums: what’s the difference between despacio and despacito? These are the kinds of questions that are hard to answer, even for a native speaker, even for someone with theoretical knowledge of the language. The reason? In many languages, there’s no equivalent to this phenomenon present in Spanish: in Spanish, almost everything can be -ito/ita, -illo/illa, -ico/ica, among other suffixes used to form diminutives. And no, it doesn’t mean something smaller. After all, despacio is an adverb, so it’s impossible for despacito to be smaller than despacio. It could mean “slower,” but not necessarily. Or, more coherently, it could mean “less slowly,” because if it’s a diminutive, it should lessen the intensity of the adverb, right? Obviously, when someone uses something in speech that could have been left out, it carries some meaning or at least a reason for using it. What does despacito mean in Fonsi’s song? I don’t know. Ask Fonsi. He probably chose it for reasons of meter, because despacio would sound really strange in that rhythm. And because in a song like that, it might add closeness or tenderness to the expression. But yeah, I picked a really bad example to start this article because, to be honest, I can’t explain it.
But I liked using the previous example to introduce the first idea: many times even native speakers won’t know how to explain why a diminutive is used, and this happens even more when it’s a diminutive of an adverb, because the difference is so subtle and subjective that it’s really hard to explain. The good thing about this is that the diminutive of an adverb can always be replaced by the adverb itself, without the diminutive. Now let’s look at another thing that might be confusing. In the previous paragraph, I said that despacito could mean “more slowly,” but that’s not always the case. Let’s take the adjective grande (big, and sometimes old) and look at a couple of examples.
– ¿No estás grandecito para pasar todo el día jugando videojuegos? (Aren’t you a little too grown up to spend the whole day playing video games?)
In this case, grandecito means that you’re too old to play for so long.
– Mi hijo tiene 7 años, ya está grandecito. (My son is 7 years old; he’s already getting a bit big.)
In this case, on the contrary, it means that the son is a bit big, meaning that the -ito here subjectively modifies the adjective, but in the opposite sense.
Once again, in both cases, you could say grande instead of grandecito and the meaning would be understandable. I chose these two examples because they are easy to find in spoken language, and, of course, using grandecito instead of grande in cases like these makes the speaker sound much more natural.
This would have been the best paragraph to introduce this article, but I preferred to start with examples. Diminutives in Spanish are formed by adding suffixes to nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. Their meaning is highly subjective, because even with nouns, they might not refer to something smaller, but instead add other nuances to the conversation. They can add a sense of closeness, affection, kindness, sarcasm—the list goes on. The most common suffixes are the ones listed in the first paragraph, namely -ito/ita, -illo/illa, -ico/ica, but there are more. Many more. There are also irregularities in how diminutives are formed, depending on the word and its suffix. The goal of this article is not to delve into the grammatical side of things but rather into the subjective and cultural aspects, so we’ll mainly look at examples. I suppose many people might leave this reading with more questions than answers, but if it encourages them to dig deeper into the topic, this article will have been useful.
"Diminutives in Spanish are formed by adding suffixes to nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. Their meaning is highly subjective, because even with nouns, they might not refer to something smaller, but instead add other nuances to the conversation."
With nouns, it’s generally clearer from the outset that the diminutive refers to something smaller. But again, this isn’t always the case. A priori, casita means “small house,” cafecito means “small coffee,” sopita means “small bowl of soup,” or something like that, I guess, and minutito… well, a shorter minute than a normal minute (right?). But no.
– No puedo esperar más la hora de estar en casita. (I can’t wait to be home.)
The person who says this might live in a mansion with a helipad, pool, and golf course. The subjective meaning here refers to being at home, in the intimacy of their own space.
– Me tomo un cafecito y me voy a trabajar. (I’ll have a little coffee and then go to work.)
This doesn’t refer to a small cup of coffee but rather to the pleasure the speaker feels from drinking a coffee before going to work, and probably hints that they don’t have much time for it.
– Te hago una sopita y te la llevo a la cama. (I’ll make you a little soup and bring it to bed.)
Mothers, at least in Latin America, cure all illnesses with soups we all hated as kids but later come to love as adults. Sopita here doesn’t refer to a small bowl of soup but to a soup that mom makes with all her love.
– ¿Me das un minutito? (Can you give me a minute?)
No minute lasts less than 60 seconds, right? So, minutito isn’t a shorter minute. With that word, we’re trying to say we need a little bit of time—probably much more than a minute and, obviously, more than un minutito.
Even so, generally, when we see a noun in diminutive, it means the same thing but smaller, though there are always nuances.
Don't be fooled!
Let me give you just two more examples. In recent years, for instance, the word perro has been increasingly replaced in several countries with perrito. Perrito formally means “small dog,” but it’s increasingly taking on the meaning of “my dog” or just “dog.” So, someone who says they have a perrito doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have a dog that weighs 60 kilos and has the teeth of a saber-tooth tiger. And, although this expression isn’t used in all countries, I can’t leave out ahorita. Here in the southern part of South America, although we don’t use it, we have an equivalent: ya <insert action here>. Ahorita voy, ahorita lavo los platos, ahorita me levanto can mean “right now,” “in 5 minutes,” “in an hour,” “in 20 years,” or “never.”
The Problem with Poquito
– ¿Me das un poco de agua? (Can you give me some water?)
– ¿Me das un poquito de agua? (Can you give me a little bit of water?)
Can something be less than poco (some)? In Spanish, yes. Poquito. This particular expression, which often confuses Spanish learners, is easy to explain. It’s a form of politeness. After all, if I ask you for poquito of something, I’m asking for less than poco, right?
To finish confusing you… In some cases, it’s possible to emphasize a diminutive even further. Chiquito is smaller than chico. Chiquitito is smaller than chiquito. Chiquititito is smaller than chiquitito.
I apologize.
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