¿How dare you call my bebé a guagua?
You’ve decided to learn Spanish but you want to learn in the country that has the Universal Spanish, the Spanish that is sort of like Midwestern English — the one all the tv announcers use. You don’t want to learn Spanish that has a particular accent or dialect. You want …. Universal Spanish. Well, good luck. And let me know if you find it.
What about Spain Spanish? Ha. Oh there are places in Spain that are said to speak “pure” Spanish (like Salamanca). They argue about that in Spain. There are at least eight (8) major languages/dialects spoken in Spain, if that tells you anything. It’s even more pronounced in some other Spanish speaking countries.
And if you’re an adult learner, you’re going to speak Spanish with an English accent anyway, so I wouldn’t worry too much about picking up a regional dialect. You might be careful about slang, which tends to be VERY location oriented. But Spanish speakers can generally understand one another no matter which country they call home.
The best way to go is to decide where you’re going to be speaking your Spanish. If it’s mostly in the U.S., then learn Mexican Spanish. Not all Spanish speakers in the U.S. are from Mexico, not by a long shot, but they’re still the majority. If you’ll be traveling all around South America and are going to spend a lot of time in immersion schools, try to attend schools in various countries (it’s more fun that way anyway). Be aware that Argentina, although a wonderful country, has it’s own unique brand of Spanish (it sounds very Italian – and for good reason). Other than that, Spanish is Spanish. Sort of like English is English. We have a little trouble between American English and English English, but we can still understand them (sort of). If you are traveling about, you’ll pick up some of the dialect of whatever country you’re visiting, if it’s for any length of time.
Here are a couple of interesting discussions about the language differences between countries. Just click on the links.
Tags: Differences · Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · speak Spanish2 Comments
Yes! Totally true. I spent a summer living in Barcelona and now I find it much easier to understand castellano than español sudamericano. It might be the slang, but I think the pronunciation and emphasis are a little bit different too, combining to make it just much clearer to me. Bill, which do you speak?
David Browning, president and founder Frases y Café
Our experience is in the Americas (immersion schools in several Mexican cities and in Argentina). Our home town has a fairly large Latino/Hispanic population, the majority (but not the vast majority) of which are from Mexico, so that’s been our emphasis. Good luck on the new website. It looks good.