¿Mande?: how Mexico says "sorry, what?"

Say ¿qué? and you sound curt. Say no entiendo and you've said something else. Mexico has its own word.

¿Mande? is the polite "pardon?" of Mexico, from mandar, to command: roughly "at your orders?". It's universal there, from taxi drivers to grandmothers, and it's what you should reach for when you didn't catch something. It isn't used much outside Mexico; in Central America and the south it's ¿cómo? or ¿perdón?, both of which also work in Mexico.

¿Qué? on its own is understood but sounds abrupt, the way "What?" does in English. And no entiendo is a different message altogether: it says you don't understand the language, which tends to make people switch to English or slow down to a crawl. If you just missed the words, ask for a repeat: ¿mande?, ¿cómo?, ¿me lo repite, por favor?.

If you genuinely need it slower, más despacio, por favor does it kindly. And once you've caught it, ah, ya (oh, got it) is the most Mexican two syllables you'll say all day.

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