Exacto/a vs. Fiel

Question

In the following sentence, would "exacta" or "fiel" be the more appropriate word as a translation of "accurate"?

En España, hay algunas personas que prefieren usar la palabra "Castellano" para describir este idioma. Dicen que es porque, técnicamente, hay cuatro idiomas oficiales en España, y entonces hay cuatro idiomas que forman el español. Y por eso, dicen que la palabra "Castellano" es mas [ exacta/fiel ].

English: In Spain, there are some people who prefer to use the word "Castilian" to describe this language. They say that it is because, technically, there are four official languages in Spain, and therefore there are four languages that are "Spanish." As such, they say the word "Castilian" is more accurate.

Also, please feel free to correct my "Castilian"

que prefieren, técnicamente, y entonces hay cuatro idiomas que forman el español. - Zizoun, MAR 8, 2010

gracias, pero con forman/son, es como quiero decir que "Espanol" es un adjetivo que puede describir cuatro idiomas. Entonces, ya usarias forman, o lo dirias diferentemente? - Morethan3words, MAR 8, 2010

Si te refieres que el español engloba cuatro idiomas para mi suena bien asi :) Podrías decir "que entran dentro del español" o "el español engloba estos cuatro idiomas" - Zizoun, MAR 9, 2010

Answer 1

I would use "exacta" because "fiel" for me doesn't fit in there (I'm from Spain, maybe in american spanish is different).

-By the way, about the text I always had that talk with my Spanish teacher when I was little... "Castellano" is the language talked in Spain comes from "Castilla" and "Español" is the language spoken in general by Center/South Americans and Spain.

Answer 2

Not to the accent, but to the way we talk in Spain, which I think you noticed already in the forums, there is a big difference with the Spanish from America.

-

They will always understand you as Español or Castellano, doesn't matter, but to describe the language is spoken in the country of Spain we will refer to Castellano. "Hablar castellano" will only happens if you are native from Spain, and what we do in this website is "Hablar español".

-

There are few expressions to describe what being a "Castizo" means and all comes from the word "Castilla" when Spain was called "Península Ibérica" and the most important community was "Castilla". In those times América wasn't discovered by europeans yet and Spanish was only talked in Spain, thats why the Castellano thing.

-

About Catalán being a Spanish language or not... I'm not gonna enter in that discussion xD They have already way too many trouble because wanting to be appart from Spain or not, so it is a controversial subject. Anyway, I don't think catalán comes inside the castellano, not sure though.

-

To summary up, the question of "¿Español o Castellano?" is about what I told you, "american spanish or castilian spanish" both ways are accepted by the RAE and you won't see any other country saying "Castellano" in their own languages to define our language (Spanish, espanhol, espagnol, Spanisch, Spaans, spagnolo).

edit: I add a little link as I see you have a nice level of Spanish

Answer 3

Thank you, "exacta" sounded better to me too, but I wasn't sure if there is some subtle difference in meaning between the two words that would make one fit better than the other.

-That's interesting, so you are saying that, for you, "castellano" refers more to the accent on the language?

The argument I describe above I heard a couple of times while in Barcelona (and most people said "castellano" when they spoke of the language) in part because many of the people there saw Catalán as a Spanish language as well, so they wanted to allow that word to refer to both languages.

Nonetheless, I think even they realized that this was a minority opinion, since they always understood if I used the word "Español" to refer to the language I was speaking.