Spanish: Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish

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Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish Printed From: FSI Language Courses Category: Learning Languages Forum Name: Spanish Forum Discription: Discussion about studying Spanish using the FSI course. URL: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=386 Printed Date: 16 January 2009 at 3:36am

Topic: Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish

Posted By: genome Subject: Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish Date Posted: 30 April 2007 at 8:24pm
Hello, Does the F.S.I Spanish course teach the Latin Spanish, common around South America, or the Spanish you would expect to use in Spain? Whilst it seems most likely that Latin Spanish would be taught, I have not heard anybody draw a distinction between the two on this forum. Now for the introduction: this is my first post, I am interested in learning French and Spanish, with some basic knowledge of the former. As I live in the U.K. I hope to be able to supplement my lessons by immersing myself in the languages I am learning by visiting the respective countries during holidays. I would like to join the huge list of people, in congratulating those that contribute to this website. It really is a fantastic resource, and makes a refreshing change from the norm by actually demonstrating the true potential of the internet.

Replies: Posted By: gaffer_greg Date Posted: 01 May 2007 at 3:32pm

It's Latin American Spanish. Action takes place in the country of "Surlandia," as I recall.

Posted By: genome Date Posted: 05 May 2007 at 11:19am

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Spanish: Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish

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Thanks :)

Posted By: Dionysio Date Posted: 10 June 2007 at 3:13am

It is a generic Latin American accent that is used in this course. I have been a Spanish interpreter for around 10 years, and the differences between Spain's Spanish and Latin American Spanish are not nearly as great as people would have you believe. Argentine Spanish is probably further removed from generic Latin American Spanish than Spain. My wife is from Argentina, my professors were from Spain and I have interpreted mainly for Mexicans. The differences are commonly voiced by native speakers quite often, but they are not nearly as great as the difference between France's French and Quebecois, for example. Also, the differences in pronunciation are not nearly as shocking as British English (In which both vowels and consonants are different) compared to American English. Since Spanish is such a widely spoken language, there is far more exposure to other accents than any other language that I can think of. For example, studies showed that French Canadians have a heavy bias against watching sitcoms with accents from France. The same is true in English, where we do not watch British sitcoms except on the BBC. That is why British sitcoms are remade into American versions. However, telenovelas transfer extremely well across countries in Spanish, even countries with difficult accents. In Argentina, it is even common to see Brazilian telenovelas without subtitles. This is also true of literature. One cannot discuss modern Spanish literature from Spain without understanding the impact of Borges, Garcia Marquez, Neruda, etc. It is a very global language, and I think that is one very appealing reason to learn it. Structurally, the only crucial difference between the dialects is the form of you with Spain using T, Usted, Vosotros/as and Ustedes. Latin American countries do not use the Vosotros/as forms in normal speech. Argentina, parts of Venezuela, Honduras and a few other countries use Vos instead of T. It has its own form of the verb as well. Instead of T hablas, you say Vos habls. It has always seemed odd to me that such a big deal is made out of using Vosotros in textbooks and Vos is often not mentioned, considering the fact that far more actual speakers use Vos. In terms of pronunciation, most Spaniards pronounce "s" somewhat like an "sh" sound, especially when compared to Latin America. They also pronounce "c" and "z" when it would normally be an "s" sound in Latin America as "th". Sometimes they still do this in Latin America to emphasize that a letter ends with a "z" instead of an "s". My wife says her maiden name as "Corteth (Cortez)" to distinguish her from "Corts". What is a very slight "j" sound for words that contain "y" or "ll", in Argentina it turns into a "sh" sound. That is why Argentines say "Sho" for "Yo". In terms of vocabulary, there are differences as well but all countries have different vocabularies for common things. Foods seem to change more than most things, and some common words, such as "coger" are profanity in some countries. Mexico has imported lots of English words, more so than other countries. Argentina continues to use many Italian words. I think that only Mexico and Argentina have large portions of vocabulary which are not understood by speakers from other countries who are not familiar with it. Even then, that vocabulary is mostly colloquial. Most speakers are familiar with problem areas and adjust their speech to the occasion. My wife has learned, finally, to just avoid the "sh" sound when ordering at the local restaurant, and most Mexicans quickly realize that their Honduran friends have no idea what a "troque" is. I still remember a Cortzar story in a Spanish reader that had the same number of pages dedicated to explaining the language as the

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Spanish: Is FSI Spanish European or Latin Spanish

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number of pages of the story itself. "Rayuela" is still only a graduate book for people familiar with the colloquialisms. Columbians take pride in their dialect as the most proper in Latin America. It certainly is very clear when you speak to them.

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