Spanish in Other Countries
Iam from London and in my 2nd yr of Secondary School.. i want to Know if there is a Dramatic difference in Different Spanish Accents and Dialects in different Countires.
Soy de Londres y estoy en mi Segunda ano en el Instituto... Quiero Saber si hay igual con los acentos y las palabras en los paises diferentes dónde Hablan Espanol.
P.S Is My Spanish Translation Right?
Es mi Traduccion correcto para lo qué dije'
7 Answers
I have heard peple say before that Ecuadorian Spanish is the clearst Spanish dialect to learn, the only differnce I know of though is in Spain they use "Vosotros/Vosotras"
I guess things like that would be a matter of opinion, Eric. I have been to Ecuador, and yes, the people I encountered there (in the major cities) spoke what seemed to me to be a pure form of castellano. Many people also praise Colombia and Costa Rica for their "purity" of the language. For that reason, there are many language schools in Costa Rica for people moving to Spanish-speaking countries to live and work.
With the ethusiasm you display, I imagine you would learn very rapidly if you had the chance to live in a Spanish-speaking country. I hope you get the opportunity to do that someday.
I have heard peple say before that Ecuadorian Spanish is the clearst Spanish dialect to learn, the only differnce I know of though is in Spain they use "Vosotros/Vosotras"
Spanish is a kind of in-between case. With regard to the pronunciation, there is, of course, the well-known "seseo"/"diferente" dichotomy. However within the users of the "seseo" (Andalucia plus all of the New World) there are many more differences. One of them is intonation which is very hard to describe but, for example, Mexicans and Argentinians have rather distinctive intonation patterns (different from one another) and distinct, in my experience, from the rest of the New World. The use of the "voseo" helps to distinguish some South American countries/dialects. However, for the most part, it seems to me that to recognize speakers from different Latin American countries, one has to depend on variations in vocabulary, rather than pronunciation.
I have been able to notice these differences since very early on in my exposure to Spanish. I would estimate that now I can accurately guess more than 50% of the time what country one is from by hearing their speech.
When I lived in Peru (where I began to learn), I could distinguish the "dejo" of people from Lima, Arequipa (where I lived), the jungle area, and (in my mind) somewhere besides these.
Now that I deal predominantly, although not exclusively, with people from Mexico, I have been able to distinguish accents, intonation patterns, pronunciation idiosyncrasies, and vocabulary tendencies from some regions of Mexico, as well.
I guess I was naive when I thought (before learning to speak Spanish) that Spanish was spoken the same everywhere. I was aware of the differences in spoken English, and like samdie, the regional differences within the US. In the state, and even the city, where I currently live, there are marked differences in accent among people that were reared in different cities and the county (the "country"), among people from different regions of the state, and even among people reared in the same city but from different economic "classes." This does not even take into consideration the differences among the races.
Soy de Londres y estoy en mi segundo año en el instituto... Quiero Saber si es igual con los acentos y las palabras en los países diferentes donde hablan español.
Las palabras que en España tienen el sonido de de la Z, en el resto del mundo suenan como S. En varios países es mejor no usar el verbo "coger", o el sustantivo "concha". El resto es prácticamente idéntico, como el inglés de América y el del Reino Unido, pero la escritura (spelling) es idéntica en todos los países.
Soy de Londres y estoy en mi segundo año en el instituto... Quiero Saber si es igual con los acentos y las palabras en los países diferentes donde hablan español.
Las palabras que en España tienen el sonido de de la Z, en el resto del mundo suenan como S. En varios países es mejor no usar el verbo "coger", o el sustantivo "concha". El resto es prácticamente idéntico, como el inglés de América y el del Reino Unido, pero la escritura (spelling) es idéntica en todos los países.
Taking a slightly different slant on the original question (but not, I think, off-topic), I was reflecting recently on the way in which "regional differences" manifest themselves in different languages. In English, for example, the principal differences are in pronunciation (both AmE and BrE). Although there are also some words/phrases that are peculiar to some particular region. I can recognize a southerner/westerner/Bostonian/Australian/Irelander/Scot/Brit after hearing almost any sentence (even though all of the words in the sentences may very well be the most commonly used by all of them), simply by the variations in pronunciation. (And, of course Henry Higgins could provide a much more specific identification with respect to the areas of England.)
On the other hand, my experience with Japanese convinces me that if one were to pick a word (or group of words), the would be pronounced the same way throughout Japan. The differences there tend to depend on using different words (especially words that have a grammatical function but very little semantic value).
Spanish is a kind of in-between case. With regard to the pronunciation, there is, of course, the well-known "seseo"/"diferente" dichotomy. However within the users of the "seseo" (Andalucia plus all of the New World) there are many more differences. One of them is intonation which is very hard to describe but, for example, Mexicans and Argentinians have rather distinctive intonation patterns (different from one another) and distinct, in my experience, from the rest of the New World. The use of the "voseo" helps to distinguish some South American countries/dialects. However, for the most part, it seems to me that to recognize speakers from different Latin American countries, one has to depend on variations in vocabulary, rather than pronunciation.
Germany has its ichlaut/achlaut dichotomy (and, I suppose, differences in vocabulary). France has the uvular/trilled "r" (and I don't know what else). In Italy, the Sicilians seem to be fond of omitting final vowels but I have no idea what distinguishes the speech of someone from Venice, although I've been given to understand that their speech is next-to-unintelligible to "outsiders". In Vietnamese the only difference that I'm aware of is a systematic difference in the pronunciation of what is written as "d" (something like the "seseo"/"diferente" distinction). China and India are, of course, entirely different cases, since the different dialects are really different languages.
Iam from London and in my 2nd yr of Secondary School.. i want to Know if there is a Dramatic difference in Different Spanish Accents and Dialects in different Countires.
Soy de Londres y estoy en mi Segundo año en el Instituto (Secundario)... Quiero saber si hay diferencias dramáticas con los acentos y las palabras en los países diferentes donde hablan español.
P.S Is My Spanish Translation Right?
¿Está bien mi traducción en español'
The differences in Spanish accents and wording is as diverse in various countries as English accents and wording is various countries. They can understand each other though just as English speakers can understand each other.
