Which Spanish does this site teach?
Hi:
I am a beginner with Spanish and wanted to know which type of Spanish this site will teach Latin American Spanish or Spain Spanish. Thank you.
Mark
5 Answers
I think "Spanish Spanish" sounds funny. It is much better to say the Spanish of Spain.
Well, username, I guess we have people here from all over the globe, so you may get different answers for vocabulary, but people will generally say, "I am from XXXXX, and here we say XXXX". The grammar, however, is pretty much standard no matter where you go. Can you tell which dialect I speak? That was, in fact, a trick question. I don't fear the Spanish Inquisition. I try to answer as many as I can.
I don't know which "Spanish" they teach here but when you begin to teach a language, you usually begin with the one thousand most used words. Apart from that you usually teach "neutral" words. In the case of English or Spanish, which are spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, you can't begin to teach with dialect or regional variations. For example to teach you the word for a person who is between 4 and 12 or 13 years they would teach CHILD.
We wouldn't teach kid, kiddie, infant, minor, offspring, youngster, teen, preteen, adolescent, brat or any other you may think of.
So don't worry about what Spanish they will teach you. Like when we study English in a foreign country, it's very neutral in general . If you continue studying and you become an advanced learner, they will probably begin to teach you some differences.
I'm from the South Cone of South America and I can understand, read etc books, TV programs, movies from Spain and all the countries from Mexico southward. Of course there could be some differences but 99% is either the same or you get to understand it very well.
Good luck with your studies.
Proper Spanish, that is recognized as "proper," is pretty much the same all over the Spanish Speaking world. There may be some differences in pronunciation, or idiomatic expressions or slang, but for the most part we have very little difficulty understanding each other.
The Spanish of Spain itself has different "accents" depending upon which part of Spain you are talking about. Andaluces do not sound very much like Madrileños. By the way, the Spanish of Spain is referred to a "peninsular" Spanish, inasmuch as Spain is a peninsula.
As far as Latin Americans are concerned, A Cuban will definitely not sound like an Argentino. Ecuadorian Spanish is probably the easiest for beginners to understand.
The Spanish taught on SD to me sounds like a beautiful blend on Mexican plus Ecuadorian, which is very clear and easy to understand. Let me add that the Mexican is the "University of Mexico" Spanish used by most TV and radio personalities.
These are only my personal observations. Others may feel differently.
As I state in my profile, my southern peninsular Spanish has been transformed very much into proper Mexican with a little California "espanglés thrown in for fun. 
Hello!
These link from 2010 & 2012 might be pertinent to this subject.
- What type of Spanish does SD teach?
- SpanishDict.com teaches which type of Spanish? Catellion, Mexican, Guatamalen?
Hope this helps.
Regards!
There is a very good Spanish learning video series called "Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish" (Link: http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html )
This interesting story is about a man who fled Spain during the Spanish Revolutionary war and moved to Mexico.
He thought his wife was killed in the war, but instead she got married and moved to Argentina. Her son became a sailor and lived in Puerto Rico.
The man in Mexico learns that his wife is still alive, so he hires a Los Angeles attorney to find her. In the story she travels to all these places, interacts with all kinds of people. Nobody ever has any trouble understanding anyone. (Though in some scenes a certain doctor from Argentina remarks to a hotel employee in Mexico that they say some things differently.)
The point is: There really is only one Spanish language, just like there is only one English. There are some regional dialect differences, but everyone is aware of the differences and they really don't cause problems.
