Castilian Spanish vs Hispanic American Spanish

How do Spanish from Madrid (Spain) compared to Hispanic American Spanish?

I would like to know from ONLY native Spanish speakers. I heard some people saying they find Spanish from Hispanic America such as Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Guatemala, Cuba, and Chile quite different from Spanish from Madrid and from each other for example?

The Spanish language in Hispanic America is spoken differently than the language spoken in Castilia, Spain. Mainly due to two factors: 1. Location. & 2. Hispanic Amercian Spanich h uses 'old' Spanish words and phrases which are no longer used in modern Castilia. And sometimes the difference between the spoken variants Spanish languages is horrific. Short story to make my point: One time I had a house guest who was a Argentinian. During his visit, another friend came by. This other guest was a Spaniard from Andalusia. I introduced the two (in Spanish). The Argentinian and Spaniard made an abraza and the Argentinian started speaking Lunfardo Spanish. After a 3 minutes of diatribe, The Spaniard interrupted the Argentinian and said (in French), "S'il vous plaît, si cela vous est egal, parler français". Of course, the Spaniard, by inflection indicated that speaking French would be a courtesy to me! But the Argentinian wasn't buying the story! He was insulted. Claimed that he spoke perfect Spanish and that the Spaniard was probably uneducated, Blah, Blah, Blah. So you see, the differences between Hispanic American Spanish & Classic Spanish can be monumental.

Castilian Spaniards have trouble understanding sitcoms/soap operas from Hispanic America just like Americans have trouble understanding British and Australian sitcoms and soap operas.

Perhaps differences between Hispanic American Spanish and Castilian Spanish are like differences between Dutch and Afrikaans?

the differences between Hispanic American Spanish and Castilian Spanish are much wider than the differences between Dutch and Afrikaans?

<<Perhaps differences between Hispanic American Spanish and Castilian Spanish are like differences between Dutch and Afrikaans? >>

-- No.

. Hispanic Spanish and European Spanish do not differ in any way as far as the writen language is concerned.

. In normal slightly formal speech (e.g. TV news) only the accent makes a difference.

. In more colloquial speech some differences appear but do not impair intelligibility (just like the distance between Madrid and Valencia Spanish ; it just takes some time to adjust).

. On the other hand Buenos Aires urban slang is tremendously creative, with an ever changing inventory of absolutely obscure words that challenge understanding! Here, subtitles are needed.


<< One time I had a house guest who was a Argentinian. During his visit, another friend came by. This other guest was a Spaniard from Andalusia. I introduced the two (in Spanish). The Argentinian and Spaniard made an abraza and the Argentinian started speaking Lunfardo Spanish. After a 3 minutes of diatribe, The Spaniard interrupted the Argentinian and said (in French), "S'il vous plaît, si cela vous est egal, parler français". >>

-- And you want me to buy that utter bullshit????

Wikipedia:

Spanish dialects and varieties are the regional variants of the Spanish language, some of which are quite divergent from each other, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, less so in grammar. While all Spanish dialects use the same written standard, all spoken varieties differ from the written variety, in different degrees. There is a gap between European Spanish (also called Peninsular Spanish) and the Spanish of the Americas (American Spanish), as well as many different dialect areas both within Spain and within Latin America. The term "dialect" does not apply to other regional languages in Spain such as Catalan, Galician, and Basque.

Prominent differences between dialects of Spanish include the distinction or lack thereof between /θ/ or /s/. The maintenance of the distinction, known in Spanish as distinción or by the neologism ceseo, is characteristic of the Spanish spoken in northern and central Spain. Most dialects of Latin America and Southern Spain lack this distinction, and have merged the two sounds into /s/, a feature called seseo in Spanish dialectology. Dialects with seseo will pronounce the words casa ("house") and caza ("hunt") as homophones, whereas dialects with distinción will pronounce them differently (as [kasa] and [kaθa], respectively). In some parts of Andalusia, the two sounds have merged, but into sounds [θ]; these dialects are said to have ceceo.

Another widespread dialectal difference concerns the existence, or lack thereof, of a distinction between the palatal lateral (spelled ll) and the Voiced palatal fricative (spelled y). In most dialects, the two sounds have merged together (a process known as yeísmo), though the realization of the resulting merged sound varies from dialect to dialect. This merger results in the words calló ("silenced") and cayó ("fell") being pronounced the same, whereas they remain distinct in dialects that have not undergone this merger.

Another feature associated with many varieties, like those in the southern half of Spain, the Caribbean and most of South America, is the weakening (to [h]) or loss of the consonant /s/ when syllable-final (/s/ debuccalization). This feature, called aspiración de las eses in Spanish, is associated in certain regions with other phonetic changes, like the opening of the previous vowel or the modification of the following consonant.

One particular feature of Mexican Spanish is the reduction or loss of the unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/. It can be the case that the words: pesos, pesas, and peces are pronounced the same ['pesə̥s].

A prominent grammatical feature that varies between dialects is the use of the 2nd person forms. In most of Spain, the informal second person plural pronoun is vosotros, which is not used in Latin America, where the only second person plural pronoun is ustedes, which takes third person plural verb agreement. For the second person singular familiar pronoun, some dialects use tú, while others use vos (a phenomenon known as voseo), or use both tú and vos.

There are significant differences in vocabulary between regional varieties of Spanish, particularly within the domains food products, everyday objects, and clothes, and many Latin American varieties show considerable influence from Native American languages.

Mutual comprehension

The different dialects and accents do not severely block cross-understanding among the educated. The basilects have diverged more. As an example, early sound films were dubbed into one version for the entire Spanish-speaking market. Currently, non-Spanish (usually Hollywood) productions are dubbed separately into each of the major accents, but productions from another Spanish-language country are never dubbed. The popularity of telenovelas and Latin American music familiarize the speakers with other varieties of Spanish.

Prescription and a common cultural and literary tradition, among other factors, have contributed to the formation of a loosely-defined register which can be termed Standard Spanish (or "Neutral Spanish"), which is the preferred form in formal settings, and is considered indispensable in academic and literary writing, the media, etc. This standard tends to disregard local grammatical, phonetic and lexical peculiarities, and draws certain extra features from the commonly acknowledged canon, preserving (for example) certain verb tenses considered "bookish" or archaic in most other dialects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dialects_and_varieties,,

<< Castilian Spaniards have trouble understanding sitcoms/soap operas from Hispanic America

>>

In reality we have not. Otherwise they would be subtitled.

The "SPANISH" LANGUAGE: Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries


Films for the Humanities and Sciences, based in Princeton, New Jersey, performs an invaluable service in providing us with a vast array of informative films, useful in teaching and fascinating as documentaries. It has issued a six-part series, "Biography of the Spanish Language." It is not aimed at specialists, who might argue with many of the statements, but at the broad public; indeed, it began as a series of programs for Mexican television and possibly schools. To attract a wide public it uses the tricks of the trade: noisy background music, lighting effects, and slapstick humor. The problem is that these effects tend to drown out the speech, the subject of the series.

It treats language as the expression of a culture and its history, with literature, especially poetry, as its elevated form as opposed to the vernacular. It views Spanish from a Mexican perspective, which is understandable, since Mexico has more inhabitants than any other country. However, it mentions only briefly other Latin American forms of Spanish, with not a word about Catalan or Portuguese. The first film deals with the history of Spanish down to its introduction in the Americas. The conquistadores appear as a violent, rather stupid lot, while Indian life is romanticized. There are pictures of beautiful colonial cities, but no credit is given to the Spanish civil authorities who planned them. The Inquisition is condemned, while the missionaries,are praised. The Jesuits are lauded for having promoted the cause of independence in the colonial period. are there any books on that subject?

The section on modern colloquial Spanish, especially that spoken on television, is discouraging. It is often difficult to understand, even for people from other Spanish-speaking countries. The film makes light of this, but it is a pathetic decline from the beautiful Spanish promoted by the Spanish Academy. Even some Latin American students at Stanford use a slang unknown to me and often to other Latin Americans. Some WAISers defend the variants as the expression of a people, but they seem to have a romantic longing for the good old times when the inhabitants of one valley could not understand those of the next. John Wonder complains about this, and about the machine-gun like speech of young people. Indeed, in the Bogota I first knew, the "Athens of America," the intellectual elite spoke a very beautiful Spanish. Now SCOLA rebroadcasts news programs from Cali. The young women announcers on the program rattle off Spanish is high-pitched voices without the intonation indicating comprehension. The decline of Spanish in Colombia is a tragedy, admittedly insignificant in comparison with the major tragedy of life there.

The influence of politics on language may be baneful in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In 1932 I went to Barcelona to study Catalan with Pompeu Fabra, revered as the father of contemporary Catalan studies; a university is named after him. The atmosphere was very pleasant. Then came the Civil War and Franco, who suppressed Catalan autonomy and the Catalan language. The backlash has been distressing. I am probably the only surviving pupil of Pompeu Fabra, and I thought that would earn general respect. Nevertheless, a young Catalan has accused me of insulting his language, while others have charged that I am a victim of Spanish propaganda. This mentality is counterproductive, endangering Barcelona's leading place as a publisher of books in Spanish. One WAISer tells me she has an American friend who speaks very good Spanish and is married to a Barcelona businessman. They live in New York, but he does not want his children to learn Spanish. Does he realize that he is closing the door to opportunities which would open to them in the vast Spanish-speaking world?

Ronald Hilton - 4/15/01

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_dialects_and_varieties

So we can safely say the difference between Hispanic American Spanish and Castilian Spanish is BIGGER than the difference between Quebec French and Metropolitan French.


It's not just the vocabulary that is different but the vocabulary too.

There is just too many example of differences in vocab + grammar to explain it here.

So are the differences between Castilian Spanish and Hispanic American Spanish similar to the differences btw Dutch and Brazilian Afrikaans?

<< So are the differences between Castilian Spanish and Hispanic American Spanish similar to the differences btw Dutch and Brazilian Afrikaans?
No ,is worst. >>

I am a spaniard and is very difficult for me understand hispanic american spanish and even those from canry islands and andalusia.

Hispanic American Spanish is unintelligible for me.
Everything that comes from hispanic america needs to be subtitled to enter in spain,or else nobody understand.

<<So are the differences between Castilian Spanish and Hispanic American Spanish similar to the differences btw Dutch and Brazilian Afrikaans? >>


No ,is worst.
I am spanish and is very difficult for me understand hispanicker spanish.
Hispanic spanish is intelligible for me.
Everything that comes from latin america needs to be subtitled to enter in spain,or else nobody understand.

25% intelligible,more or less.

The Hispanic American Spanish vs Castilian Spanish is futher apart than Metropolitan French vs Canadian French.

Wikipedia says it's wider than between spoken Afrikaans vs spoken Dutch.