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Which variety of Spanish to learn? | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5980 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 41 of 100 20 February 2012 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're probably too young but 25 years ago or so there was a real boom of Latin American soap operas in Spain, especially from Venezuela. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5980 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 42 of 100 21 February 2012 at 12:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
As far as I know linguists prefer to leave the term "castellano" to the historical dialect from which modern Spanish comes, hence my comment. But that's only important for academics, so as I said before (and you don't seem to have read), in common use both español and castellano are synonymous and perfectly acceptable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Quique Diglot Senior Member Spain cronopios.net/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4681 days ago 183 posts - 313 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, German | Message 43 of 100 21 February 2012 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sadly I'm not that young. I do remember Cristal, Los ricos también lloran and all that crap. I also remember that in 1985 there were 700 Ecuadorians holding a Residence Permit, while in 2004 there were about 500,000. And that's only one country. Besides, soap operas where only watched by housewives, while the current Latin immigration interacts with all social strata. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Quique Diglot Senior Member Spain cronopios.net/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4681 days ago 183 posts - 313 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, German | Message 44 of 100 21 February 2012 at 9:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Interesting. My area (Aragón) doesn't have any of those deviations (laísmo, leísmo de cosa, condicional vasco...), so it's not mentioned in that article. I never thought our speech would be closer to the prescriptive standard than that from Castile itself. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Belle700 Senior Member United States Joined 5695 days ago 128 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 45 of 100 21 February 2012 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think this thread is starting to get just a bit off track. I really do appreciate everyone's help in answering my original question and all the great input I received. Thank you so much to everyone who chimed in. Would anyone be willing to start a new thread and continue the conversation? Edited by Belle700 on 21 February 2012 at 3:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kman543210 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4663 days ago 26 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, German | Message 46 of 100 21 February 2012 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I may be echoing what others have said, but I think there are 2 main ways that you can choose which variety of Spanish you speak (including accent and vocabulary).
1. What variety may be the most useful for you? For example, if you plan to live or travel in Europe more than Latin America, you may want to learn a variety from Spain. If you'll be working or speaking mostly to Hispanics in the U.S., you may want to learn the Mexican standard variety (especially if you're going to be speaking with a lot of Mexicans). There are a lot of other Hispanic populations in the U.S., so that's another thing to consider or if you're going to be traveling or living in a specific Latin American country. 2. What variety do you like the most? This is completely subjective, but there's nothing wrong with thinking to yourself, "I really like the way Argentine Spanish sounds, so I'm going to speak it that way" or "I really like the pronunciation differences between the c/z sounds in Spain, so I'm going to speak it that way." Keep in mind that you may change your mind in the future, and this could be difficult for some to change once they've established an accent/variety. I personally spoke Spanish for the first 8 years one way and just decided to change it all of a sudden, and I didn't have any problems doing so (although I don't think I could go back to the other way). I started speaking Spanish with a general Mexican accent/vocabulary, but then one day I just started to change my accent and vocabulary to that which is spoken in northern Spain (various reason including using learning material recorded in Spain as well as me having more of an interest in Spain rather than Latin America). *as a side note, don't get too bogged down in semantics with naming certain varieties or how to define Castilian Spanish (nomenclature varies in both languages but general definitions of that specific term can be different in both English and Spanish). Edited by kman543210 on 21 February 2012 at 5:59pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4864 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 47 of 100 21 February 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Just to set the record straight...I was only quoting what I found when I Googled the subject. Personally, as I have often stated before, Argentinian Spanish is my very favorite accent. I find it very pleasant to listen to and easy to understand. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Belle700 Senior Member United States Joined 5695 days ago 128 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 48 of 100 21 February 2012 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks, kman - your answer really does help. Very insightful and interesting. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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