Locale Es Es

Reference data for the Spanish (Spain) locale — endonym Español (España), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).

Identifiers

• BCP 47 tag: es-ES
• ISO 639-1: es
• ISO 639-3: spa
• Script: Latn (Latin)
• Region: ES (Spain)
• Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 44,000,000
• L2 (additional): 4,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 48,000,000

Base locale

This is a regional variant of Locale Es 001 (Spanish), the base/macro locale for this language.

Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, many, other (3 forms).

• one — n = 1 (e.g. 1)
• many — e = 0 and i != 0 and i % 1000000 = 0 and v = 0 or e != 0..5 (e.g. 1000000, …)
• other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)

See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.

Translating into this locale

Start from the general Spanish guidance in Locale Es 001 (grammar, register, and typography) and apply the following Spain-specific points.

• Address: informal "tú" for the singular and "vosotros/vosotras" for the plural (with verb forms like "podéis", "tenéis"); "usted" and "ustedes" for formal and legal text. Do not use "ustedes" for informal plural, as it sounds Latin American.
• Vocabulary: "ordenador", "móvil", "coche", "zumo", "fichero" (file), "patatas" (potatoes), "vale" for "OK", "contraseña" for password, and "aplicación" or "app".
• Grammar: the present perfect covers recent past ("Hoy he guardado el archivo"), where Latin America often uses the simple preterite. Leísmo ("le vi" for a masculine person) is widespread and accepted for people.
• Formats: decimal comma, euro symbol after the number with a non-breaking space ("12,50 €"), 24-hour time. For thousands separators, check the CLDR es-ES data, since Spanish practice for four-digit numbers differs from other regions.
• Tone: Spanish business text is a little more direct than Latin American text; avoid overlong courtesy formulas in app copy.

Common pitfalls

• Using Latin American "ustedes" for the informal plural, or "computadora" and "celular", which read as foreign in Spain.
• Using the simple preterite everywhere where Spain would use the present perfect for events of today.
• The general pitfalls in Locale Es 001 (word order, capitalization, false friends, and agreement) also apply here.

Learn more

• Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
• Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
• Real Academia Española and ASALE, Diccionario panhispánico de dudas and Ortografía de la lengua española (2010), https://www.rae.es
• Microsoft Localization Style Guides, Spanish editions (https://aka.ms/spanish-neutral-styleguide, https://aka.ms/spanish-spain-styleguide, https://aka.ms/spanish-mexico-styleguide, https://aka.ms/spanish-us-styleguide)