Index / Language / Records / Spanish / Register
Which Spanish you are writing — the taught one or the spoken one. A narrower gap than Brazilian Portuguese has, and the same items on both continents.
The control text · argumentative
Prohibir el celular en clase parece una medida drástica, pero los datos sugieren que funciona. En las escuelas que adoptaron la restricción, los docentes reportan menos interrupciones y una caída en los casos de acoso digital. Es cierto que el aparato también sirve para estudiar, y sería ingenuo negarlo. Aun así, el costo de la distracción recae sobre quienes tienen menos apoyo en casa. Mientras no haya pruebas de que el uso libre mejora el aprendizaje, la carga de la prueba corresponde a quien defiende el permiso.
Where the two part
Latin American · the base
A moderate gap, and the items are largely shared with Spain. This is not a Brazil-sized divide.
Peninsular · the contrast
The same items and a similar gap, plus leísmo, which the Academy partly licenses.
10 options
LatAm Había muchas personas.
Peninsular Habían muchas personas. — spoken
The tellA plural existential haber. GRM-09.
The clearest single case: universal in speech, absent from edited writing, and nobody is confused by either.
The written form has to be produced consciously, because the spoken one arrives first.
Pienso de que · Me alegro que — both ordinary in speech
The tellA de too many or too few. GRM-07.
An examiner is specifically looking for these, so attention here has a high return.
No pattern to generalise from — it is a list of governed verbs.
Le vi ayer — accepted by the Academy for a masculine singular person
The tellLe as a direct object.
On the sheet because it is the one item here the Academy actually licenses, which makes it a genuine standard difference rather than a tolerated error.
It does not travel to Latin America, where it is heard as wrong.
Ya cancelé — standard in Latin America, spoken-only in Spain
The tellA simple past inside the current time frame. GRM-02.
Named because for you this is not a speech-versus-writing question at all: in your base it is simply correct.
It becomes a register question only if you write for a Peninsular reader.
Si habría sabido — wrong. Si hubiera sabido.
The tellA conditional in the si clause.
Worth naming as an error rather than a variant: it is marked everywhere and it appears in speech constantly.
Wrong in both standards, so there is no regional defence.
A Juan vi ayer — missing the obligatory lo
The tellA fronted object with no echoing clitic. GRM-04e.
Named because for a Portuguese-base speaker this is the likely error, and it is an omission rather than a wrong form.
Ungrammatical rather than informal, so it is not covered by any register.
Había, full subjunctives, no dequeísmo — produced aloud
The tellWritten-standard grammar in conversation.
The right register for a presentation, an interview or the DELE oral, and educated speech does this in those settings.
In casual conversation it can read as performing education.
Se los dije a ustedes for se lo dije — a plural on the wrong clitic
The tellA form reached for because it sounds careful, where the grammar does not allow it.
Worth naming: the characteristic error of an advanced learner is no longer the spoken form, it is this.
Wrong in both registers, so it buys nothing. Note that this particular one is so widespread in Latin America that it is arguably becoming standard, which is itself worth grading.
Se solicita el abono. Después avísame. Reservándome toda acción.
The tellThree heights in three sentences.
On the sheet because it is the most common real failure in advanced writing, and reading aloud catches it every time.
A marker reads it as loss of control rather than as range.
Ya he cancelado el celular — Peninsular tense, Latin American noun
The tellA perfecto with celular, or an indefinido with móvil.
The failure this repository exists to prevent, and the one your three-language situation makes most likely.
Neither reader recognises it as their own Spanish, which is worse than committing to either.