Carro or Coche
The Mink de Ville song Spanish Stroll contains the line "Hey Rosita! Donde vas con mi carro Rosita?" which translates as "Hey Rosita. Where are you going with my car, Rosita?"
However I thought el coche was the Spanish word for car?
2 Answers
Coche is the word used for a modern car in Spain.
Carro is the word used for a modern car in most part of the Americas.
The old car pulled by horses is carro in all Spanish speaking countries.
The word "coche" comes from Hungarian "kocsi" (like coach in English), a type of horse carriage (or car) built for the first time in the village of Kocs, famous for having a suspension system and other modern and luxurious features. In Spain, carro is still used for ancient (horse driven) cars, whereas coche (a more modern type of "carro") is used for the engine driven one. In Latin America they simply continued calling it "carro".
Mi querido Lazarus. 'Long time no see".
Los mejicanos le dicen al carro coche y al lugar donde guardan los carros le dicen "cochera". Es bien curioso pues nosotros en Colombia, a la cochera le decimos "garaje". Lo simpático del cuento es que un amigo mejicano me dice que le suena muy mal la palabra garaje, que ésta es un anglicismo. Yo más bien creo que es un galicismo. ¿Tú que opinas?
