Oikophobe: Word of the Day (1 Viewer)

[Pat Hartman]

Again, Mexico wasn't the colonizer, Spain was so the language of Argentina started as Castilian Spanish probably. It has been diverging for hundreds of years as have Australia and Canada and the US and South Africa.

My friend Trinidad was Cuban and she spoke Castilian Spanish. Colombia is the second largest speaking population. How different is their language?

 

[Isaac]

I rather frame it in terms of actual experience, since most people learn spanish for the utilization of it in a practical way (although it's fine if you'd prefer to learn it for some historical, academic or sentimental reason).

The fact is this: In 45 years of lots of interacting with hispanics in daily life (living in Arizona for 20 years and CA for another one) , I've come across about a total of 1-2 situations where I could benefit from having that "spain spanish" accent. Ok, maybe 5-10. Out of 10's of 1000's.

Thus, my recommendation for the average kids learning spanish in school - learn the type that does you the most good, not the one you'll never use. Our next door neighbor is Mexico, not Spain. Hell, even when it comes to vacations, you're more likely to go to Mexico than Spain LOL

 

[Pat Hartman]

Thus, my recommendation for the average kids learning spanish in school - learn the type that does you the most good, not the one you'll never use.

I'm not sure that there is any high school where I could dictate what "accent" my foreign language teacher had. PS I needed three years of some foreign language to satisfy the requirement for a college prep degree. My choices were French, Spanish, German, and Russian. I tried French but I could never actually pronounce the words and since the course was "conversational French" I wasn't very good at it so Spanish seemed to be the most generally useful.

Question for the non-native English speakers here: Do any of you know what accent your teacher had? I was amazed when I was working in Kuwait because most of the natives and Indians I interacted with spoke English with a British accent. For those less fluent, I could detect an original accent so the Kuwaitis had slightly different "English" accents than the Indians did. I was "amazed" but that was only because every foreign speaker I had ever encountered had an "American" accent and I just never realized it. What made it really funny was when our good friend invited us to his home and his sister was visiting, we spoke to her and she spoke with an American jive accent I'm sure she learned English in India too and was converted by her 5 years in the US. What you hear from the "talking heads" on TV and in movies unless they're set in a particular time and place and require an accent is "Chicago standard". That is the non-accented version of American English and it is actually more prominent now than it was when I was a kid because everyone watches TV and that influences how they speak. I grew up with a slight Boston accent and sometimes you can still hear it in certain words but I've been living West of the River (Connecticut River) for so many years, I almost sound like a New Yorker now. The Connecticut River divides Connecticut vertically almost dead center. East of the River we used to get Boston channels for ABC, NBC, and CBS but West of the River we get New York channels and when I was a kid, Chicago standard was far less prevalent.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Isn't just a numbers game, you offer Mexican style Spanish in American schools because we share a common border with Mexico.