3 ms·

There literally is a standard Spanish, no? I understand it to be based on Castilian. However I understand your point that even within the country of Spain there

There literally is a standard Spanish, no? I understand it to be based on Castilian. However I understand your point that even within the country of Spain there are many dialects which diverge from "standard".

School-Cotton 2y ago
> There literally is a standard Spanish, no? Not really. Just like English, the standard variety in each country is considered equally "standard". > I understand it to be based on Castilian. I'm not sure what you mean by this. As far as I know Castilian is just a synonym for the Spanish language (as opposed to other languages of Spain e.g. Catalan). So the variety spoken in Guatemala and the one in Tenerife are equally "Castilian".
- digging 2y ago
  No, it's not like English. There is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish. It is maintained by the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy. In practice, I'm not sure what the impact is. I'm not a native Spanish speaker. But Spanish is not like English in regard to prescriptive norms.
  - servilio 2y ago
    Spanish native here, confirming that RSA is the institution that sets the language standard. But, people always deviate from it, though in my experience in word meanings and pronunciation, never in grammar to a degree that it become intelligible to another Spanish speaker. The toughest film to listen to for me was "The rose seller"[1] (1998), took me like 10m to get my ear accustomed to their pronunciation. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrxQCuVT-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrxQCuVT-U
    - Gualdrapo 2y ago
      The paisa accent is very hard, even for us non-paisa colombians - not only for its colloquialisms but for its cadence.
      - anthk 2y ago
        So is the Andalusian accent from a Northern Spaniard like me, it's close to the prosody and speech of the US Southern accent. The first 20 minutes understanding Risitas were pure hell. But you get used to it in a few days. It's like some American trying to understand the Scott/Welsh (can't remember now) sheperd not exposed to it. I'm pretty sure they could be used to it in less time than a week.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      To my non-roman ear it sounds a little like Italian.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
joseda-hg 2y ago
There's "neutral" spanish, but it's less of a formal standard and more of a rough subset that people recongnize it's generally understandable to most people It being so artificial means that it doesn't fit anywhere, even it if's becoming more common (Kids are growing up listening to Media dubbed to it, so it's not weird seing a Child "speak like a cartoon" for a while until their local dialect kicks in)
- prmoustache 2y ago
  It is what I usually call the "TV" or "media" standard. Same in french, the french language you listen on TV is very uncommon if you actually talk to french people from different areas of France and it is not even common in Paris.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
pvaldes 2y ago
The royal Academy of Spanish has the mission of promoting language unity, the American vocabulary is huge so a lot of words are really puzzling for people in other countries, but there is a common root that can be used.
neither_color 2y ago
The differences between Spanish "dialects" are overstated IMO and closer to accents. No two Spanish accents are as different as the dialects of Arabic or dialects of Chinese are from each other. People will share anecdotes about not being able to understand different words(like straw, car, computer) but the underlying grammar is the same in all varieties. Im natively fluent in both English(US) and Spanish and I find English accents way harder to understand than Spanish ones. The only time Ive felt completely clueless listening to English was talking to a Scottish man.

School-Cotton 2y ago

> There literally is a standard Spanish, no? Not really. Just like English, the standard variety in each country is considered equally "standard". > I understand it to be based on Castilian. I'm not sure what you mean by this. As far as I know Castilian is just a synonym for the Spanish language (as opposed to other languages of Spain e.g. Catalan). So the variety spoken in Guatemala and the one in Tenerife are equally "Castilian".

digging 2y ago
No, it's not like English. There is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Spanish. It is maintained by the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Spanish_Academy. In practice, I'm not sure what the impact is. I'm not a native Spanish speaker. But Spanish is not like English in regard to prescriptive norms.
- servilio 2y ago
  Spanish native here, confirming that RSA is the institution that sets the language standard. But, people always deviate from it, though in my experience in word meanings and pronunciation, never in grammar to a degree that it become intelligible to another Spanish speaker. The toughest film to listen to for me was "The rose seller"[1] (1998), took me like 10m to get my ear accustomed to their pronunciation. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrxQCuVT-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrxQCuVT-U
  - Gualdrapo 2y ago
    The paisa accent is very hard, even for us non-paisa colombians - not only for its colloquialisms but for its cadence.
    - anthk 2y ago
      So is the Andalusian accent from a Northern Spaniard like me, it's close to the prosody and speech of the US Southern accent. The first 20 minutes understanding Risitas were pure hell. But you get used to it in a few days. It's like some American trying to understand the Scott/Welsh (can't remember now) sheperd not exposed to it. I'm pretty sure they could be used to it in less time than a week.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    To my non-roman ear it sounds a little like Italian.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

joseda-hg 2y ago

There's "neutral" spanish, but it's less of a formal standard and more of a rough subset that people recongnize it's generally understandable to most people It being so artificial means that it doesn't fit anywhere, even it if's becoming more common (Kids are growing up listening to Media dubbed to it, so it's not weird seing a Child "speak like a cartoon" for a while until their local dialect kicks in)

prmoustache 2y ago
It is what I usually call the "TV" or "media" standard. Same in french, the french language you listen on TV is very uncommon if you actually talk to french people from different areas of France and it is not even common in Paris.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

pvaldes 2y ago

The royal Academy of Spanish has the mission of promoting language unity, the American vocabulary is huge so a lot of words are really puzzling for people in other countries, but there is a common root that can be used.

neither_color 2y ago

The differences between Spanish "dialects" are overstated IMO and closer to accents. No two Spanish accents are as different as the dialects of Arabic or dialects of Chinese are from each other. People will share anecdotes about not being able to understand different words(like straw, car, computer) but the underlying grammar is the same in all varieties. Im natively fluent in both English(US) and Spanish and I find English accents way harder to understand than Spanish ones. The only time Ive felt completely clueless listening to English was talking to a Scottish man.