Don´t be afraid of Argentine Spanish!

"...I understand there are some differences in Spanish according to the region of the world you are in.  People have been telling me that Argentine Spanish is quite different than the Spanish in Mexico or Colombia for example.  I hear its a bit more unique here in Argentina in certain ways.  I am curious if you teach a more 'universal' approach or if its the typical Argentine Spanish?  I will likely use Spanish much more in the US with Mexican people but I can not say for sure.  Just curious how that will affect my learning."

This is part of a message our Spanish school have received from one of our students (Thank you, Taylor!) and believe me, many of our prospective customers have the same question in mind... Certanly, as Taylor mentioned, there are some differences in Spanish according to the region of the world you are in. Considering that over 400 million people speak Spanish, there MUST be differences.

Now, how important for efficient comunication are these differences? Not much, communication will not be broken. The same happens with other languages like American English compared to British, Kiwi , Ozzie and others.

So, my answer for Taylor was: "Exactly, each reagion has different caracteristics, so we ask our students what they will prefer to practice. The biggest difference is in the pronunciation between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Americas. During our Spanish lessons and Spanish courses, we teach "universal" version, but we practice according to students preferences. Most of our students prefer "americas" style, so they learn to speak "universal" and get used to hear several different accents, with our audio and video practice."



Many of our former students found easier to learn Argentine Spanish. Why?
1) verbs are much easier to learn since we have more regular forms.
2) they get used to it while in Bariloche.

Finally, what is the difference between Argentine Spanish and others?
The pronunciation of three consonants, the use of two pronouns and the ending of the verbs in present tense and imperative mood (commands) for the second person:

1) Pronouns:
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person	Argentine	Rest of Latin America and US	Spain
2 sing	vos	tú	tú
2 plural informal	ustedes	ustedes	vosotros/as

As you can see, there are only two differences: one in the secon person (informal "you" singular) and the other is only  compared to Spain: second person plural informal ("You" plural informal).

2)  Verbs:
a) Endings for present tense.

	Argentine	Rest of Latin America, US and Spain
ar	ás	as
er	és	es
ir	ís	es

Here, you can notice that the stress is different and the ending for _ir verbs has changed.

b) Endings for imperative mood.

	Argentine	Rest of Latin America, US and Spain
ar	á	a
er	é	e
ir	í	e

3) Pronunciation:

consonant	Argentine	Rest of Latin America and US	Spain
"y" and "ll"	sounds like "sh"	sounds like "ee"	sounds like "ee"
"z" and "c" in front of e and i	s	s	sounds like "th" (in "thunder")

 

Finally the complete chart for Regular verbs in Argentine Spanish is:

Conjugación de los verbos regulares usada en Argentina.

(incluye “vos” de Argentina y NO incluye “vosotros” de España)

 

 

Would you like to practice a little?

 

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