Diminutive suffix

[luis magistrado]

hello.

Could somebody please enlighten me on the use of diminutive suffix? The suffixes "illo" and "ito" for example, whats the proper way of using them? Is pajarito and pajarillo mean the same thing?

Gracias.

[poli]

also ico. ITO is the most common. They have the same meaning and are interchangeable.If you hear ICO, it often means that the person is from Colombia.

UCO has negative meaning.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

The use of each prefix depends on the region and it's full of nuances (too many to list them all). However, if you always go for "-ito", you'll be safe.

As for "pájaro", I think "pajarillo" and "pajarito" are universally understood as the same thing.
In some Latin American countries, as Poli said, people tend to use more the suffix "-ico", but I don't know if they would say "pajarico".


*"-uco" is not a suffix expressing diminutive, but to insert a pejorative meaning for a word. However, "-uelo", although less frequent than "-ito", is also a diminutive ("polluelo", "chicuelo", "riachuelo").

[luis magistrado]

Thank you