Question For Non Navite Spanish Speakers

eiyfg   Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:07 am GMT
Coming from what i've read here and my own experiences:

I have many hispanic friends. They are all a little difficult to understand at times. I am not being racist or anything, but the lower-class people (which most happen to be indigenous and not spaniards/mulattos) are harder to understand, no matter what country they're from. Judging from my experiences, from easiest to hardest:

1.) Ecuador
2.) Colombia
2.) Spain
3.) Mexico
5.) Argentina
4.) Peru
5.) Dominican
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:27 am GMT
Creo que del castellano sus hablantes más difíciles de entender son los caribeños. Me resulta muy fácil entender de los madrileños su dialecto.
gringo   Sat Dec 29, 2007 6:36 am GMT
<<Me resulta muy fácil entender de los madrileños su dialecto. >>

I'd say that pennisular Spanish is perhaps near the middle of the intelligibility scale. Perhaps educated Mexican speech is the easiest.

I suppose it's all a matter of which variety you hear the most.
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:37 am GMT
Creo que del castellano sus hablantes más difíciles de entender son los caribeños. Me resulta muy fácil entender de los madrileños su dialecto.

No creo que la persona que escribio el mensaje arriba sea de lengua madre castellana, estoy equivocado?
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:57 am GMT
<<No creo que la persona que escribio el mensaje arriba sea de lengua madre castellana, estoy equivocado?>>

¿Por qué? ¿Te parece raro su mensaje? Creo que de ese mensaje su autor es de Perú. De algunas regiones peruanas su dialecto conserva varias construcciones muy interesantes y únicas. Sería bastante interesante crear un nuevo hilo para discutir de estas construcciones sus características.
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:45 pm GMT
<<Sería bastante interesante crear un nuevo hilo para discutir de estas construcciones sus características.>>

Yeah, that would only be the 10th time such a thread is created. We obviously need more of the same thing.
K. T.   Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:27 pm GMT
Is there already a thread on the characteristics of Peruvian Spanish? It's actually an interesting variety (from the little I know of it) because of some constructions. I understand that they flip the syllables of some words, then shorten the word.
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:18 pm GMT
Why learn Spanish? Seems like a waste of time to me....
K. T.   Sat Dec 29, 2007 9:44 pm GMT
Are you trying to stir up more trouble, guest? Not interested in Spanish, don't waste your time here.

I will be fair and answer you even though I find you to be biased.

It's a huge language if we look at the number of speakers (we could say the same for Mandarin, but it's not going to be easy for Americans, at least, to tackle Chinese because of the writing system.) and that makes it important and its varieties interesting.
Guest   Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:25 pm GMT
What do you mean by more trouble? This is my first post. Hindi, Bengali, and Indonesian have a ton of speakers, yet very few people consider those language. Latin America is a third world region. What citizen of an industrialized nation would possibly want to live there? What I see is millions of American wasting thousands of hours in middle school, high school and college taking Spanish and very very few actually learning how to speak it. But even the ones who end up speaking Spanish well enough don't really get the opportunity to use it. It just doesn't make sense...
henryt   Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:29 pm GMT
I forgot to add, I'm from Denmark but I've been living in America for a year now.
K. T.   Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:40 pm GMT
Many people DO have an opportunity to learn Spanish in the US. The same is not true of Hindi, Bengali, and Indonesian. I could learn these languages (at least tourist level) on my own, but none of these languages are taught at any of the universities in my city afaik-Spanish is.

I hear Spanish anytime I venture into the more ethnic neighbourhoods in my city. It doesn't even have to be a Spanish-speaking area. Spanish speakers come into one of the Russian markets in town. Spanish speakers visit emergency departments, lawyers, etc. We need people who speak Spanish-so yes, there is plenty of opportunity to use Spanish in conjunction with another profession.

I've used Spanish repeatedly over the years. It's possible to avoid using it, of course, just like it's easy to pull a blanket over your head and think that everyone speaks YOUR language (why no "s" on a couple of your nouns, btw?) Do you SPEAK two languages, guest? Why are you here?
K. T.   Sat Dec 29, 2007 10:42 pm GMT
Very well, please write your messages discussing Spanish in good Danish, then.
Guest   Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:22 am GMT
<<Why learn Spanish? Seems like a waste of time to me.... >>

In the U.S, and especially places like California, Texas, Florida, etc. which second language would you recommend, instead?