Why learn the language of a second world country when you can learn the language of a first world country?
Kidding/not kidding
Texan here. We learned Mexican Spanish (seseo, yeismo, ustedes for everyone, etc) It’s been years since I had to use it for my job but IIRC there’s a difference in the subjunctive verbs as well.
There are also distinct varieties of Spanish spoken in the US that differ from Mexican Spanish. As a general rule, if a common word has a similar-sounding English cognate (often false cognate) the cognate will be used. truck = troca instead of camión, concrete (as in cement) = concreto instead of hormigón, carpet = carpeta instead of alfombra, to park (a car) = parquear instead of estacionar, and so on. This is from my years working as a bilingual call center agent.
In New Mexico we learned Mexican spanish
Do you mean New Mexican Spanish?
If they would only do the same with their “English”.
It is the same language. In fact some regions of Spain suck at speaking their own language. Spanish has a central authority that collects and organizes Spanish as it is used in the real world and it codifies it into its official rules. Furthermore, because of its grammar and syntax rules, you always know exactly how every word is pronounced just by reading it. There might be accents and regional synonyms, but there is a “standard” Spanish that everyone learns speaks.
Spaniard living in the US here to clarify how our language works. Spaniards are the best at speaking their own language by definition. We make the language, and we decide how it evolves. When you say many Spaniards suck at speaking their own language, I think you are getting confused with the many dialects that exist within the Spain. Some dialects, while being perfectly and dramatically correct, are very hard for non-native speakers to understand. Pronunciation of letters may change from dialect to dialect, but the grammar is basically the same.
The authority that sets the Spanish language grammar rules (Real Academia Española - RAE) is in Spain, and it’s rules only apply to the “standard” Spanish dialect spoken in Spain, which is also known as Castillian. However, there are multiple other dialects of Spanish within Spain (and multiple other languages that are not Spanish - Galego, Catalan, Euskera, etc). Other countries that speak other Spanish dialects choose if they want to follow or not the rules set by the RAE, and many Spanish dialects do not follow those rules. Some Spanish speaking countries have their own organizations to define their Spanish dialects. There are dialects of Spanish that are very different from the original Castillian Spanish. For example, listen to Argentinian Spanish, and compare it to Castillian Spanish. The difference is noticeable even for non-Spanish speakers. They also use a slightly different grammar.
Same language but with huge differences world wide, as languages tend to do. Believe a person whom lived in Mexico for over 2 decades, Mexican Spanish is NOT the exact same. It’s mostly similar and you’ll be able to understand but it will be immediately obvious that it’s very different.
I watch Spain Spanish movies and regularly have trouble understanding it all
And then when to actually spend any time in a place where Spanish is the first language, you start to understand that, like any language, there’s the academic form (commonly taught to non-native speakers as a second or third etc. language), and then there’s the local version, complete with an the colloquialisms and slang and unique pronunciations. In Argentina, the double-L (which school taught me makes a “y” sound, “ella” being pronounced basically “ey-ya”) is commonly produced as more of a soft “J” sound (“ella” becomes “ey-jha”). As far as my (admittedly limited) knowledge goes, that’s really not common outside of Argentina. And then in Bolivia, especially among native descendants (Quechua and Aymara predominantly), the double-r (which school taught me is one of two conditions when you roll the R with a tongue trill) is more commonly pronounced almost like a “zh” (“herramienta” becomes “hezhamienta”). Again, not common outside of Bolivia. Spain has that classic “Barthelona” lisp, and uses the “vosotros” pronoun where most South American Spanish speakers would probably use “ustedes” (basically “y’all” vs. “esteemed plural second persons”). And that’s not even getting into which verb tenses are used most widely in different regions. There’s like 14 or 15 specific verb tenses in Spanish to English’s 7, and in school I was taught to use specific ones to communicate effectively; then I went and spent two months in Bolivia pretty much never using past perfect or predicate, instead using past imperfect for 95% of interactions, only using past perfect with other folks que hablan español como segunda lengua, or in a few very specific interactions where more specifically was required than would be so in common, everyday interactions.
Colombians, at least Paisas, also have the double ll = j sound and use vosotros! Spanish dialects can get wild lol
Neat! I probably never would have known that if you hadn’t told me!
Dosen’t Mexico speak Spanish?
In the same way that Americans speak English.
Sure, their language is mutual intelligible with English, but if an Englishman comes over here and asks for some chips, they’re going to get a bag of crisps. They’ll mess up verb conjunction on a bunch of collective nouns.
And bless the souls of my Australian mates who come here and call everyone a cunt.
Because it’s the same language. I grew up in Argentina, and the “Spanish” (the name of the language is actually Castilian because there are multiple languages in Spain) we learn at school is the “Spain” one. In reality it’s the language as defined by the Real Academia Española so the language is the same (yes it includes the vosotros conjugation, no, no one outside Spain actually uses that but we learn it in school).
The differences between Mexican, Argentinian or Spanish Castilian is more in the pronunciation and the use of some words, but the language we learn at school is all the same, and I imagine it’s the same one that you learn too.
That being said, using vosotros to us sounds similar to how using thy might sound in English. A good teacher would explain that outside of Spain we use ustedes which uses the plural third person conjugation (i.e. the same one as ellos), but the correct plural second person is vosotros.
I’ve never heard of that in the states. What region are you referring to? Sounds like an eastern seaboard thing to me.
What state are you from? In California, we learned Mexican Spanish. My teachers very briefly mentioned vos/vosotros, but we never spent any time on those conjugations and were never tested on them.
Although… now that you mention it… maybe the textbook was for Iberian Spanish… I definitely remember the teacher going over vocabulary, getting to the word “coger”, and then 90% of the class busting up laughing, while the other 10% was confused! 😂
Maybe we did have Iberian Spanish textbooks, but since most people in my town were Mexican, we learned Mexican Spanish from the teacher using an Iberian Spanish textbook?..
I grew up in California and had the opposite experience. I had friends who grew up speaking Mexican-Spanish at home, and would take the Spanish classes to get an easy A.
The teachers never understood what the Mexican-Spanish students were saying, and kept telling the native speakers that they were doing it wrong.
I’ll be honest, I never hear anyone say vos in Spain, except an Argentinian who said it all the time and it sounded really odd
They think that saying vosotros instead of ustedes is somehow a signal for us saying vos instead of usted. Fuck no we say tu-vosotros, the colloquial form of usted ustedes.
Argentinians use vos if I recall correctly the even more formal form of usted.
I learned Cuban Spanish. Upon going to Spain, I was told I spoke with the English vocabulary and accent equivalent to a southern yokel from the 1970s.
TIL there are two versions of spanish.
There’s far more than two, just like there’s plenty of dialects of english jaja
A lot more than two. Even within Latin America, there are some fairly interesting differences in grammar, vocab, and pronunciation.
There’s uh, lots more than 2. It’s similar to how there’s English English and Nigerian English, just dialectical differences - some more major than others.
Or American English and maybe southern American English? Not sure thats different enough to count.
Depending on how diverged they are people can communicate between them with various words or phrases that are different.
Ex. Americans use the word toilet, England uses loo (which might also refer to the whole bathroom? I’m sure someone from England will correct me)
Toilet can mean the whole room if separate (i.e. no shower or bath) or just the appliance, depending on context. Can use loo to mean what Americans would refer to as ‘bsthroom’/‘restroom’.
No answers from me here, but I’m curious - how much of the US learns Spanish in school?
My knowledge may be dated and it may vary by state, but the “I want to go to uni” track had a two-year requirement of a foreign language. When I was in school, French and Spanish were the only choices and most people wanted to study Spanish. My school system had German as well at some point, but it was cut before I got into highschool in the mid '90s. Some schools have Latin, Japanese, and others as well.
Here in the upper mid west a lot of schools teach Spanish. Not at a you can speak level usually. Similar to how a lot of people learn biology and forget it all when they graduate.
In my state there was some reason they wanted us all to take a second language (I think it was some scholarship we would qualify for our something?) and I always thought the reason most schools had Spanish was because finding a teacher certificated to teach Spanish was more common than other languages. And both of mine were just Midwest white dudes.
French taught on Canada (outside Quebec) is France French, not Quebec French. My source on this is that I was taught to say “we” for “oui” and not “wayh”. And the Quebec French sound I’m only getting from comediens on CBC so that could be way off.
I once stayed in a youth hostel rural Quebec and had a really weirdly hostile reception from people there, despite dredging up my very best schoolgirl French to try and make conversation. Turns out they thought I was from Ontario. When I revealed I was a Kiwi they were all suddenly very friendly. Too late!
Ouais is more like ‘yeah’, not ‘yes’.
France French people say wayh too. It’s the same difference between saying “yes” and “yeah”.
Here in Canada we learn Parisian French in school despite Quebecois French being one of our national languages.
It’s probably because, like BBC/Oxford English, those are the places that have an “official” version of the language they try to preserve. Same thing happens with Portugese, despite Brazilian Portugese being more commonly spoken than Portugal Portugese.
And in Switzerland we have to learn quebeccan French. And so the circle closes.
(we train it at the end when we train understanding non-standard pronounciations)
I don’t know what we you’re referring to, but in the part of central Ontario where my nephew attends school, the French immersion schools are most definitely teaching Quebecois French.
I tried speaking real French with my nephew and he reacted as if I was a space alien.
When I was in school in the 1970s it was because they couldn’t get French teachers from Quebec. The youth wanted to stay and build a sovereign Quebec. So they imported French teachers from France and I speak like a French Duke.
because the school system is controlled by old people and they don’t know the difference. in my high school we had Spanish teachers that were actually from Mexico and south America and they taught us useful Spanish.
I think there is a European bias and maybe a (perceived?) prestige bias to Castilian as well.
yeah, especially with the older generation (who should not legally be allowed to be administrators, if you are old enough that your brain doesn’t work anymore you can’t be trusted with authority) on top of their lack of understanding about the difference.
