America, the Canary Islands, and parts of Andalusia. It agrees with verbs in the 3rd person plural. Most of Spain maintains the formal/familiar distinction with and respectively. The use of with the second person plural is sometimes heard in Andalusia, but it's non-standard. Usted is the usual second-person singular pronoun in a formal context, but it is used jointly with the third-person singular voice of the verb. It is used to convey respect toward someone who is a generation older or is of higher authority ("you, sir"/"you, ma'am"). It is also used in a familiar context by many speakers in Colombia and Costa Rica and in parts of Ecuador and Panama, to the exclusion of or . This usage is sometimes called in Spanish. In Central America, especially in Honduras, is often used as a formal pronoun to convey respect between the members of a romantic couple. is also used that way between parents and children in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Third-person object pronouns Most speakers use (and the prefers) the pronouns and for direct objects (masculine and feminine respectively, regardless of animacy, meaning "him", "her", or "it"), and for indirect objects (regardless of gender or animacy, meaning "to him", "to her", or "to it"). The usage is sometimes called "etymological", as these direct and indirect object pronouns are a continuation, respectively, of the accusative and dative pronouns of Latin, the ancestor language of Spanish. Deviations from this norm (more common in Spain than in the Americas) are called "", "", or "", according to which respective pronoun, , , or , has expanded beyond the etymological usage ( as a direct object, or or as an indirect object). Vocabulary Some words can be significantly different in different Hispanophone countries. Most Spanish speakers can recognize other Spanish forms even in places where they are not commonly used, but Spaniards generally do not recognize specifically American usages. For example, Spanish , and (respectively, 'butter', 'avocado', 'apricot') correspond to (word used for lard in Peninsular Spanish), , and , respectively, in Argentina, Chile (except ), Paraguay, Peru (except and ), and Uruguay. Relation to other languages Spanish is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages, including Asturian, Aragonese, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Mirandese and Portuguese. It is generally acknowledged that Portuguese and Spanish speakers can communicate in written form, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility. Mutual intelligibility