Which variety of Spanish to learn? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Which variety of Spanish to learn?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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tractor
Tetraglot
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Norway
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Message 17 of 100

19 February 2012 at 11:56am | IP Logged

"Castilian Spanish" can be said to be a standard in the sense that it is a variety that is often a) used by newsreaders
on national TV and radio, b) used when dubbing movies and TV programmes, c) favoured by prescriptive
grammarians, d) taught to foreigners.
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Quique
Diglot
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Spain
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Message 18 of 100

19 February 2012 at 12:34pm | IP Logged

As usual, the Wikipedia has plenty of information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish _dialects_and_varieties

I'm biased towards northern Peninsular Spanish and its pronunciation:
* we have /s/ and /θ/ sounds, so we avoid many spelling mistakes common in Latin
American speakers (s vs z/c)
* we have /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ sounds, avoiding another source of misspellings (ll vs y).
* no Vowel reduction
* clear pronunciation of coda /s/

I think these features would make it easier for foreign students.

Anyway, I'd suggest learning the variety of the people you're most likely to interact
with.
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tractor
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Message 19 of 100

19 February 2012 at 12:52pm | IP Logged

Quique wrote:

* we have /ʎ/ and /ʝ/ sounds, avoiding another source of misspellings (ll vs y).

Nowadays, yesísmo is widespread also in Northern Spain.

Edited by tractor on 19 February 2012 at 12:53pm
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Javi
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Spain
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Speaks: Spanish*

Message 20 of 100

19 February 2012 at 2:30pm | IP Logged

tractor wrote:

"Castilian Spanish" can be said to be a standard in the sense that it
is a variety that is often a) used by newsreaders
on national TV and radio, b) used when dubbing movies and TV programmes, c) favoured by
prescriptive
grammarians, d) taught to foreigners.

Well, this isn't the topic of this thread, but just let me say that I can't agree with
any of your points, particularly I think that c) is laughable, as the Castilian dialect
is packed with grammatical features that are by no means standard, many of them
condemned by prescriptivists such as: laísmo, loísmo, leísmo, overuse the present
perfect (lo he visto ayer) and use of the conditional instead of the imperfect
subjunctive (si yo tendría). I don't know about newsreaders, but the real people
I know from the Castilian areas may say things like "¿Has visto mi libro? Creo que
le he dejado ayer encima de la mesa -- ¡Si no estarías simpre cambiando las cosas de
sitio! That strikes to me as odd to say the least, even though I'm a Spaniard, not
to mention to someone from the Americas.
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Belle700
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United States
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, French

Message 21 of 100

19 February 2012 at 3:34pm | IP Logged

Javi wrote:

getreallanguage wrote:

There is no international standard for Spanish. Castilian
Spanish is standard in Spain and only in Spain, in the same way that Received
Pronunciation is standard in England and General American is standard in the United
States. Castilian Spanish does not enjoy any kind of "higher status" outside of Spain,
apart from the possibility of some people thinking it's cool, cute or sexy - a purely
subjective impression which varies from person to person, much like, say, the personal
attitudes of any given American towards a Georgia accent.

Every country and even every region has their own standard for Spanish. I agree with
your idea of choosing a variety as your personal standard for your active production
while keeping up with other varieties so you might understand all of them passively - I
chose American English when learning English. It's a good approach. However, there
being no international standard for Spanish, I would advise you to not be concerned
with that when choosing a variety.

If you are concerned about standardness/substandardness, just choose a variety which is
standard _somewhere_. For example, choose Castilian Spanish (standard in Spain), or
Rioplatense Spanish (standard in Argentina) or Central Mexican Spanish (standard in
Mexico), etcetera. If you are unsure of whether a variety is standard in its own region
or country, this information can be quickly found out and there's always the helpful
folks in this forum to help you out.

If you are concerned with intelligibility, there is nothing to worry about. The mutual
intelligibility of Spanish varieties is very high and at most it will take the other
person no longer than a few minutes to get used to your accent, just like they get used
to accents on other native speakers and to accents on foreign learners. The only
possible communication problems are likely to come from vocabulary, not accent, and
those lexical problems are sorted out quickly, just like Americans and English people
sort them out. ("Cot?" "You know, for babies" "Oh, crib" "Right")

That taken into account, like zenmonkey said, I suggest you pick the one you like the
most. That's what I did when I learned English and it worked out beautifully for me.

Sorry mate, but Castillian Spanish is not standard in Spain. A regional accent beeing
standard means that you can find a significant number of speakers of that accent far
away from its home region, what happens up to a point with RP in England, but not at
all in Spain. There's no speakers of Castilian Spanish in the southern half of the
country, and most people in Madrid don't speak that dialect either.

What is the type of Spanish spoken in the Southern half of the country and in Madrid? I have visited both and am curious about this.
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zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
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Message 22 of 100

19 February 2012 at 3:58pm | IP Logged

Belle700 wrote:

What is the type of Spanish spoken in the Southern half of the country and in Madrid? I have visited both and am curious about this.

I would guess he is talking about the "Madrid dialect" or "Madrid accent" a transitional variant between Castilian and Andalusian.

To my ear, es castellano chistoso! And I'm sure mine is just as curious to the locals.

Edited by zenmonkey on 19 February 2012 at 3:59pm
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Javi
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Spain
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Speaks: Spanish*

Message 23 of 100

19 February 2012 at 4:51pm | IP Logged

Just to mention that in that map CASTILIAN is synonymous of Spanish, and "Northern
Variants of Castilian in Spain" is was I was calling Castilian dialect/accent. English
authors insist on calling the Spanish spoken in Spain Castilian, something Spanish
speakers don't do. "Castellano" is either the dialect called "Northern Variants" in the
map or the language as a whole (the one spoken in Spain, Mexico, etc). We shouldn't
forget that many speakers in South America call their language "Castilian".
1 person has voted this message useful

zenmonkey
Bilingual Tetraglot
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Message 24 of 100

19 February 2012 at 5:47pm | IP Logged

Javi, when I work in Madrid, I hear it called Castellano de Madrid and Madrilen~o.
What would you call it?

Here is the same map but framed with the Spanish definitions.

Edited by zenmonkey on 19 February 2012 at 11:09pm

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