Yep, all these phrases are pretty much the same. They are used to check if the other person is serious or not.

Funnily enough, the equivalent in English for the first is “are you pulling my leg?”, the second would have a totally different meaning for people in Spain (or not mean anything) and the third would no make sense to other Spanish speaking ears.

Sometimes, we can give them the intonation of affirmative statements.

-Hola Mati, te quería avisar que perdimos el vuelo así que nos vamos a tener que quedar una semana más en Río.
-¿Me estás cargando? / Me estás cargando. ¿Cómo que perdieron el vuelo?

Good luck using these phrases,

Until next time,

Hppy Spanish learning,

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