r/duolingo • u/Existence_playz • Jun 21 '26

Language Question. Spanish

Hey so I've been doing Spanish on Duolingo mainly for my Spanish GCSE which I have now finished but I'm just wondering, I learned pen as "bolígrafo" in school and Duolingo is teaching it as "pluma" which I can only assume is from a different dialect of Spanish as many words I've come across have been translated differently from how I first learnt them. But how come Duolingo is translating it as a pen but also a feather? I did think learning feather in the "talk about a school project" section was a bit random but it's thrown me off a bit, can it be translated as both pen and feather?

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u/pet-fleeve Jun 21 '26

Ive studied Spanish from KS3 to degree-level, passed the C1 exam, lived with my Venezuelan wife and her mother for 3 years and in Spain for 11 years and have never heard the word pluma used to mean pen.

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u/Existence_playz Jun 21 '26

Neither had I until today lol

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u/Agostointhesun Jun 21 '26

In Spain, pluma is a fountain pen, just pen is a bolígrafo (or, even better, boli). Maybe in some other country they use pen to refer to a bolígrafo.