BoricuaFirst!

 

A few misconceptions about Spanish

 

by Andy

 

Some believe that the Spanish language spoken in Puerto Rico, Mexico and Spain (to name a few countries) varies widely from one country to the next. However, this is far from true. The Spanish spoken around the world is for the most part standardized. In other words, the Spanish language spoken in one Spanish country can easily be understood by another Spanish speaker in another Spanish speaking country. The same generally holds true for the Spanish taught, in classrooms in non-Spanish speaking countries, around the world; it is Standardized Spanish. Furthermore, students learning Spanish as a second language are most often taught Standardized Spanish therefore they should be able to travel to any Spanish speaking country and be able to communicate (with locals) using the Spanish they learned in the classroom.

 

That being said, it should be noted that there are indeed dialectical differences in spoken Spanish from one country to the next; and there may even be differences in Spanish from region to the next within a country. However, these differences are minor. The differences in dialectal Spanish may include: differences in pronunciation, differences in usage of words, and the coining of new words. Let's look at some of these differences in more detail below. 

 

 

Differences in Pronunciation: Some Spanish countries pronounce certain words differently. For example, in Puerto Rico, sometimes the letter 's' is not pronounced in some words. For example, the word 'despues', which means "after" may be pronounced 'deh-pweh' by some Puerto Ricans.

 

Differences in Word Usage: A few Spanish countries vary in their usage of various words. More specifically, the word(s), which differs in these countries, may be recognized to be a Standard Spanish word but in a particular country, its meaning may have been modified to mean something else. For example, in Standard Spanish, the word 'coche' means "automobile, car" but in Guatemala, the word 'coche' means "pig". It should however be noted that Guatemalans know that 'coche' means "automobile or car" in Standard Spanish therefore when they are having a conversation with a foreigner Guatemalans would most likely use the Standard Spanish meaning of the word.

 

Coining New Words: Another difference in the Spanish language from country to country is the coining of new words or the use of slang. It is inevitable that each country will have certain words, which have been coined and are not found in other countries. These words may have been introduced into the language through pop-culture or their origins may be unknown. 

 

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