lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5961 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 63 07 May 2013 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
What is the most prestigious Spanish dialect in Latin America? The whole question didn't
fit in the header.
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Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German
| Message 2 of 63 07 May 2013 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
One of the things I love most about Spanish is that no dialect is universally considered
most prestigious. You're free to concentrate on whatever dialect(s) you like, don't even
worry about it!
Edited by Random review on 07 May 2013 at 2:54am
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casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese
| Message 3 of 63 07 May 2013 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
lichtrausch wrote:
What is the most prestigious Spanish dialect in Latin America? The whole question didn't
fit in the header. |
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Probably Colombian or Argentine. It is always said that Colombian Spanish is the "best Spanish in the world." I don't agree, as I prefer the Mexican version, but to each his own.
Less prestigious ones according to the average American are the Mexican (Americans unfortunately associate poor immigrants with Mexican Spanish), Central American (similar to Mexican in many ways), and Caribbean types.
In terms of the most neutral Spanish in latin American that is most understandable, I say Peruvian for South America and Mexico for everything north of Panamá. Caribbean Spanish is the least transparent, to me, because they drop a lot of letters and don't pronounce words are they should be pronounced.
Hemos hablado→hemo hablao (lost the "s" and "d")
¿Tú me entiende? (Dominicans say this a LOT)
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casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese
| Message 4 of 63 07 May 2013 at 5:43am | IP Logged |
Random review wrote:
One of the things I love most about Spanish is that no dialect is universally considered
most prestigious. You're free to concentrate on whatever dialect(s) you like, don't even
worry about it! |
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No, universally, some versions are considered more prestigious by the general population. You would be hard-pressed to find a lot of people that find the Dominican accent more prestigious than Spanish from Valladolid, for example.
But every individual, obviously, can make their own choice.
But choose the type of Spanish you want to emulate. Or use a mixture of Spanish to speak a more "international" type that is more widely understood. Or adjust your Spanish based on your audience. No saying, "checar" or "platicar" with Spaniards nor "averiado" and "te apetece?" with Latin Americans.
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 5 of 63 07 May 2013 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
casamata wrote:
Or adjust your Spanish based on your audience. No saying, "checar" or
"platicar" with Spaniards nor "averiado" and "te apetece?" with Latin Americans. |
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I don't believe any of these would cause comprehension problems, whether in Spain or in
Latin America. Some may not be in general use outside of certain places, but they're all
understood by native Spanish speakers. You really only run into comprehension problems
when local idiomatic expressions are used.
R.
==
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casamata Senior Member Joined 4263 days ago 237 posts - 377 votes Studies: Portuguese
| Message 6 of 63 07 May 2013 at 9:39am | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
casamata wrote:
Or adjust your Spanish based on your audience. No saying, "checar" or
"platicar" with Spaniards nor "averiado" and "te apetece?" with Latin Americans. |
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I don't believe any of these would cause comprehension problems, whether in Spain or in
Latin America. Some may not be in general use outside of certain places, but they're all
understood by native Spanish speakers. You really only run into comprehension problems
when local idiomatic expressions are used.
R.
== |
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I know, there are no comprehension problems. But one option is to just use the words that are most common in the certain area. Like "averiado" or "camarero" in Spain and "descompuesto" and "mesero" in Mexico.
And yes, obviously, local expressions should probably not be used in other countries. You're not going to go very far saying, "no manches" or "híjole" in Spain just as it would be weird saying, "tío, pero qué dices?!" or "HOMBRE! Qué fuerte!" in Mexico.
Or "ponqué", "listo", "de pronto" "man" outside of Colombia.
Edited by casamata on 07 May 2013 at 9:41am
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caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4863 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish
| Message 7 of 63 07 May 2013 at 11:15am | IP Logged |
Usually comprehension problems are not a concern, but you might indeed find certain
people filled with prejudices. For example, some people I know tend to ridicule the
speech of Spaniards, while my uncle greatly enjoys listening to them talking. Other
people might be "power biased", in the sense that some speech from Central American
countries, which some view as less developed or poor, might be less pleasant than, say,
Argentinian variant.
This stuff is all subjective and I would recommend to adjust your speech to the local
dialect as casamata suggested, if only for general interaction. It will be nice also if
you don't take sides in this prestige thing, I personally think that it is pretty
childish and uncultured to judge others based on their speech. I'm not saying either
that
everybody is prejudiced, just pointing out that this stuff exists out there.
Edited by caam_imt on 07 May 2013 at 11:35am
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Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German
| Message 8 of 63 07 May 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
casamata wrote:
Random review wrote:
One of the things I love most about Spanish is
that no dialect is universally considered
most prestigious. You're free to concentrate on whatever dialect(s) you like, don't
even
worry about it! |
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No, universally, some versions are considered more prestigious by the general
population. |
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Which general population, though? IMO no regional variety is considered more
prestigious throughout the Spanish speaking world. Ask 100 Spanish speakers from all
the different countries and you'll probably get 20 different answers.
casamata wrote:
You would be hard-pressed to find a lot of people that find the
Dominican accent more prestigious than Spanish from Valladolid, for example. |
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You often hear things like this. Yet try asking a Mexican just how prestigious (s)he
finds dialect features common in Northern Spain, such as leísmo, distinción (the so
called "Castillian lisp") and (less commonly) laísmo or using the conditional in "if
clauses" in comparison to Dominican Spanish.
casamata wrote:
Or use a mixture of Spanish to speak a more "international" type that
is more widely understood. Or adjust your Spanish based on your audience. No saying,
"checar" or "platicar" with Spaniards nor "averiado" and "te apetece?" with Latin
Americans. |
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Good advice. I thought that "averiado" and (possibly) "te apetece" do work in some
Latin American
countries, though.
Edited by Random review on 07 May 2013 at 12:50pm
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