Shortage of Native Spanish Speakers Here?

Question

I've read several times in the forum in the past few weeks that there are not many native Spanish-speaking users of SpanishDict left. Does anybody know why? Is there anything we can do to retain our native Spanish-speaking friends? Obviously I think we all want this site to consist of a mix of native English speakers and native Spanish speakers, which would benefit all of us. Does anyone have any insights or ideas?

He leído varias veces en el foro en las últimas semanas que ya no quedan muchos usuarios de SpanishDict.com cuyo idioma materno es español. ¿Sabe alguien por qué es así? ¿Hay alguna cosa que podamos hacer para retener aquí a nuestros amigos de origen hispano? Creo obviamente que todos queremos que este sitio web consista en una mezcla de hablantes nativos de inglés y de español, lo cual nos beneficiaría a todos. ¿Alguna perspicacia o ideas?

Answer 1

There does seem to indeed be a shortage of native Spanish speakers here. I believe there are just a lot more English speakers who frequent the website. The site is a lot more focused on Spanish learners, though. There are more Spanish lessons, more questions about Spanish, more games created for Spanish, more Spanish flashcards, etc. However, I only think it's that way because of the fact more Spanish learners come here. Resulting from this, perhaps native Spanish speakers are turned away because there aren't as many resources for them? I would be curious to find out why we are lacking Spanish natives! I would love to have more around here from a variety of countries, it would be rather fascinating to hear about their local culture, regional accents, lingo, etc., and of course get their expertise! I wonder if there could be a place we could recruit Spanish speakers!

I totally agree modrak. In the past couple of days, I´ve had the luck of encountering one person here from Peru and another one from Colombia. I have two friends from Peru I can try to recruit, as well as one from Spain and a couple from Puerto Rico. - sinmeta, Feb 12, 2013

Very interesting! I have a lot of diverse friends, but only one who is a Spanish native speaker. Well, if you feel like they would be interested in joining, it's worth the try, no? :p - modrak, Feb 12, 2013

I don't know if they'll have any interest, but it couldn't hurt to ask. - sinmeta, Feb 12, 2013

Answer 2

Lots of good comments here, and all make sense. It is the same situation in several Spanish Meetup groups, and Spanish-English Meetup groups that I frequent locally. The natives show up, stay for a while, and then leave. Same exact situation.

And let's not forget this site is called SpanishDict, not InglésDicc. Its interesting and something id love to see change, but I don't think we should be surprised.

Answer 3

It may have something to do with the economic downturn in Spain,

and Europe generally , it will change and we will have an

"embarrassment of riches " once more . Just hang in there guys

and wait for the good times to roll again.

Answer 4

The site seems to come firmly from the perspective that the typical user is an English speaker here to learn Spanish. It certainly isn't the other way around, and even though it has some English learning features, it's definitely not giving off the vibe that it's designed as a community in which there's an "intercambio" flows both ways equally.

I know plenty of Spaniards who use online resources to help them learn English, and a website community that's firmly on the other side of the fence is not likely to ping their radar very easily.

I can definitely say I don't seek out or spend much time (or any time) at websites whose general purpose is to teach English, though I might find it a novelty to poke around and offer some help here and there.

My guess is the same principle is at work going the other way. There are certainly far fewer of the sort of native Spanish speaker who would choose to dig into this community in a more than transient fashion than those who would simply default to a website geared towards Spanish speakers learning English.

At least that's my take!

Answer 5

Try this forum,

http://forum.wordreference.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22

Maybe it could be useful, I don't know.

Thanks! - sinmeta, Feb 12, 2013