How do I know when to use poco or poquito?

Question

How do I know when to use poco or poquito? Does it matter where you live'

Answer 1

creo que sí, por ejempo, en españa, la gente le gusta decir un porquito, pero en méxico, se dice un poco. no tengo mucha conocimiento a otros paises, los españolhablantes van a explicarte como está la situación en sus paises.

Answer 2

There is no difference. In Mexico you can use either. the "ito" just a diminutive. If you want to be very literal: un poco > a little bit, un poquito > a little tiny bit. When I want to a very, very tiny little bit I say un poquitititito.

Answer 3

You can attach -to to most nouns and sometimes other words, just to make things sound smaller, cuter, calmer, more pleasant, to lessen its importance, and to express other rather subjective emotions along with the word, mostly in colloquial and informal situations. Avoid in general it if you want to sound objective and scientific.

Answer 4

In Mexican usage at least, the most common uses of diminutives don't tend to be to literally express the size of something, but rather pragmatic functions such as mitigation (making a request sound "less direct"). Indeed, you can use a diminutive with nouns that represent something that doesn't really have a size as such. For example, if you say to a waiter "me traes cremita", the diminutive is really just serving to make the request sound more polite: it's not like you're asking them not to bring you a "big milk"...!

Redimida said:

There is no difference. In Mexico you can use either. the "ito" just a diminutive. If you want to be very literal: un poco > a little bit, un poquito > a little tiny bit. When I want to a very, very tiny little bit I say un poquitititito.

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