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Which variety of Spanish to learn? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Belle700 Senior Member United States Joined 5506 days ago 128 posts - 143 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 9 of 100 18 February 2012 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, I do know that in Latin America, varieties other than Castilian are spoken. If in the United States, students are taught a type of Latin American Spanish, I wonder what type of Spanish is taught in schools in Spain? Does it depend on the region? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Heriotza Groupie Dominican Republic Joined 4490 days ago 48 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 10 of 100 19 February 2012 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
In fact,nobody in Latin America speaks Castillian Spanish. Noboby born in Latin never uses "vosotros" instead of "ustedes" nor pronounces the Z's. And yes, I think that the variety of Spanish that is taught depend on the region. In Europe, students are normally taught Peninsular Spanish, whilst in Canada and USA is taught standard Latin American Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6362 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 11 of 100 19 February 2012 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Suggested reading on Standard Spanish
As a Mexican, I can have the most difficult time understanding some of my 'concunados' from Peru. Belle, I suggest that you tackle the one that sounds the best and most exciting and most interesting to you. It won't matter when you travel. The Spanish giggle when I say "mande" and I smile when I hear the Rioplatense "vos" or "voseo" but we work it out. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Belle700 Senior Member United States Joined 5506 days ago 128 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 12 of 100 19 February 2012 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thank you, zenmonkey. I will check out the link, and I think your advice is spot on. Muchas gracias :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5281 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 13 of 100 19 February 2012 at 2:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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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. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Belle700 Senior Member United States Joined 5506 days ago 128 posts - 143 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 14 of 100 19 February 2012 at 2:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think you touched on an interesting point regarding accents. I was a bit concerned about maybe concentrating on a variety/accent that may cause people to laugh at me if it's not the same as theirs and sounds odd to their ear. Now, I think that just as I get accustomed to an accent that I don't normally hear, so will people who speak a different type of Spanish than I do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| espfutbol98 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4822 days ago 7 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Albanian, Russian, German | Message 15 of 100 19 February 2012 at 4:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's definitively important to try and understand all forms of Spanish but I wouldn't
group all Latin-American countries as "Latin-American Spanish" as if it were all the same. Mexican Spanish because of its distinct and ever present slang can be hard for others to understand however the differences don't end there within "Latin American Spanish". Almost half the people at my school are Venezuelan and speak very differently than say my friends from Honduras and Argentina who use "vos". I prefer to speak Castellano just because I identify more with Europe but the vocabulary differences from Spain-Spanish and "standard Spanish" are minimal. The real difference is the slang that every country and region has. Therefore its not really important which style you chose to use but rather being able to understand people from various styles of Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5791 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 16 of 100 19 February 2012 at 10:02am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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