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Regional accent variations


rgaz83

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A lot of Spanish resources seem to assume that you'll be visiting Spain and want to learn Castellian Spanish. I, on the other hand, want to learn Mexican Spanish. I know they're not terribly different, but I know that they're also not the same, akin to British and American English. Does anybody know of any definite list(s) of differences between the two? I'm not talking about slang, exactly, but differences in standard vocabulary and pronunciation.

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There are some differences listed in Wikipedia, but it hasn't been translated to English, so I'm going to explain the most relevant to you (I excluded the ones that talk about Argentina, Central America, specific places of Spain and the like). Link to the original here.

  • There are two sounds in Spain, /s/ y /θ/, the first one correspond to the graphy "s" and the second one to "c" and "z", but in Latin America both correspond to one sound, /s/. This is called seseo.
    Here is a video about the different types of pronunciation (I cut it where they guy pronounce the differences): Distinción, seseo and ceceo. And this one is just about the seseo, which is the one we use here in Latin America:



  • The pronominal system for second person plural. In Spain theres is "vosotros" (familiarity, informal) and "ustedes" (respect, formal), but in Latin America there is only "ustedes", even when there is a formal (usted) and informal (tú) way for the second person singular.


  • The diminutives -illo, -ete and -ín are used only in Spain. (There can be exceptions)


  • In Latin America is more common the use of "ir a (go to) + infinitive", and in Spain is the conjugation of the verb.
    Example: Voy a ir a comer (LA) / Comeré (Spain)

These are the more significant differences. The others differences are basically just words or words meaning (sailor talk, Americanism, Anglicism, etc). Here is a list of Amercanims.

I'm no expert in Spanish (nor English) so any correction is welcome.  :smile:

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Thanks! This is incredibly useful.

I don't think I've ever seen ir a/voy a before for sure. I'm pretty sure everything says to use "voy a". Same with "coger". This kind of thing is incredibly frustrating.

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