Locale Es Mx

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

Identifiers

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

Speakers (approximate)

• L1 (native): 120,000,000
• L2 (additional): 8,000,000
• L1+L2 (total): 128,000,000

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 419 (grammar, register, and typography) and apply the following Mexican-specific points.

• Address: "tú" in consumer apps and marketing, "usted" in banking, government, and customer service; plural is always "ustedes".
• Vocabulary: "computadora", "celular", "carro" (also "coche"), "boleto" (ticket), "renta" (rent), "contraseña", "jugo", "platicar" (chat in speech). "Ahorita" and "órale" are colloquial and should not appear in standard product copy.
• Politeness: Mexican Spanish is notably courteous and indirect; prefer "por favor", "le pedimos", and conditional forms in customer-facing text.
• Formats: decimal point, comma as thousands separator ("1,234.56"), peso sign "$" before the amount, dates as day/month/year, and 12-hour or 24-hour time depending on the product.
• Borrowings: English loanwords are common in tech ("el link", "el mouse"), but prefer the Spanish term in official or instructional text when a well-understood one exists.

Common pitfalls

• Using "vosotros" or Spain's "ordenador", "coche", and "móvil".
• Overusing colloquial Mexican words ("chamba", "padre", "ahorita") in formal copy.
• 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 Guide, Spanish (Mexico): https://aka.ms/spanish-mexico-styleguide