We happen to speak latin american spanish.
I don't think it really exits such thing. There are Spanish speaking countries in Latin America where different variants of Spanish are spoken depending on the area of the country where you are located. The same applies to Spain. Differences among the variants of Spanish spoken in Spanish speaking Latin American countries can be as big (and sometimes even bigger) as the differences between the variants of Spanish spoken in Spain and the variants of Spanish spoken in a Spanish speaking Latin American country.
Which also had its hilarious moments in Spain with certain words or expressions totally different from Castillano.
Please, note spelling: castellano.
Castilian, I wondered whether the Spanish use cacahuate or mani since I saw a reference to Capita'n Mani (dont know how to type accents on my kindle) as a brand of peanut butter in Spain.
As I said above, cacahuete. Cacahuate (the term used in Mexico) isn't used at all in Spain. Manises, a technically -theoretically- incorrect plural of maní, is used in some areas of Spain (it's very popular in the Canary Islands) but I'm not sure if maní is used as the singular in those areas.
BTW, Capitán Maní is sold in Spain but if I'm not wrong, it's a brand from the Americas.
A question to the Spaniards... I learned Spanish many years ago in Venezuela where "vosotros" was virtually never used and "usted" was normal except among friends. I am more comfortable using "usted" and "ustedes" (which makes things easier too with fewer verb forms). I understand that "tu" and "vosotros" are more usual in Spain. Can you give me any guidance? Do I sound overly formal (and American) when I use "ustedes"? Also how about "usted" versus "tu."
Usted is formal for tú and ustedes is formal for vosotros/as. In some areas of Andalucía, ustedes is used instead of vosotros/as in not formal speaking but they use the vosotros/as verb conjugation when using ustedes in not formal speaking.
Regarding the usted vs tú (and ustedes vs. vosotros/as) question, I would suggest to use usted when talking with officials (police, judges, ministers, official inspectors...), older people, people with high positions within (big) enterprises (directors, CEO...)... and people in similar positions. Otherwise, tú should be fine. The use of usted will sound too formal for some people not used to be addressed with usted but shouldn't arise any problem and people feeling unconfortable with it will request you to change to tú (if you are fine with it); most times politely although from time to time you might hear something along the lines of Hey, I'm not so old as to be addressed using usted. Of course, there are tons of nuances in the use of usted or tú that depends on the specific speaker, the specific receiver of the message of the speaker, sometimes the context too... but a general guideline what I told you may work (or so I think because the use of usted vs tú is quite personal and there are situations when talking with strangers when you have to -try to- guess what form -usted or tú- would prefer that stranger...).
