Ok. Help me out here as I’m an American and these terms confuse me. What’s the difference between un piso and un apartamento? I figure it’s the same difference between an apartment and a flat, although I don’t know what the diff is there either.
ok. dont think they were intentionally pulling my leg. it was a spaniard and he was referring to the difference between piso and apartamento. i think that often when they adopt english ideas and words they don’t really understand what they mean and use them to signify different things.
Mark is correct, however when I look in city estate agents windows they seem to refer to city apartments above commercials as piso´s yet if they are resort or coastal apartments in towns they say apartamento! ERA and Remax do this all the time.
The difference is quite nebulous but I agree with you Paddy – a flat or ‘piso’ is generally located in a city/town & an apartment on a coastal resort. The actual physical differences, then very little…
According to the Spanish dictionary, the difference would be in the size; an apartment is a small flat. I know this is not always the case in real life. You can always check http://www.rae.es if you are fluent in Spanish.
ok. i guess that explains it cause i know that at least some people here think there is a difference between the two. i heard that the difference occurs when it goes to 3 or 4 bedrooms.
in anycase from my everyday experience that people almost always call them pisos and i rarely hear apartment used.
Don´t worry, you´re not crazy wynnwill – there is definitely a difference between the two.
Apartamento is generally one or two beds. Three or more and it becomes a piso.
If I ever incorrectly refer to my piso as an apartamento I always get strange looks and then the “ah, she’s foreign…she doesn´t know what she’s saying” look.
in england there is no diff between the two, right?
I have never heard of a Piso in England. We would call them apartments or flats I suppose.
I think the translation for Piso is Floor in the UK so perhaps it could be an apartment that covers a whole floor whereas you can have numerous apartments on a single floor? Complete guess.
However, direct translations often lose something in err, um … translation? 😕
I always thought ‘apartment’ was an American-ism and ‘flat’ was English.
America: An apartment building
England: A block of flats
Even in the newspapers in England, it was Flats to rent/sale, or ‘flat-mate’.
But like many things from America, ‘apartment’ eventually crept over here.
Definitely in my younger days, one always referred to “a flat in Berkeley Square”, didn’t one?????!!!!! 😆
An “apartment in Berkeley Square” just doesn’t have the same ring to it!.
What would Lady Caversham have to say about that….. ❗ 🙄
As its Friday and for a bit of fun I will muddy the waters some more. In my area (south Alicante) the builders and even my own esctirura refer to ground floor apartments as bungalows!!! I have to remind the Spanish staff that when they going to show someone a “nice bungalow”, they mean an apartment, whereas the English client thinks they are now going to see a villa. And it gets more confusing beacuse the Spanish refer to a villa as a chalet !!
In our coloquial language ( also stated in the Dictionary of the Royal Academy) a piso has always been bigger ( standard: 2,3,4 bedrooms and at least 2 bathrooms) than an apartment ( standard: 2 bed as much and 1 bath).
oops! here in Valencia we consider apartments as vacational flats, probably Valencia is not a good example of a part of Spain, we tend to change vocabulary, i.e. lunch = almuerzo (http://www.rae.es, most honorable Spanish dictionary) but we call almuerzo what English consider a morning tea break – instead we eat a big sandwhich stuffed with tortilla española, calamari and so on; so lunch for us is as simple as “comida”.
In Southamerica they call “piso” the floor where you step…
flat or apartment, I hope Wynnwill find a nice place!
Author
Posts
Viewing 24 reply threads
The forum ‘Spanish Real Estate Chatter’ is closed to new topics and replies.