The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3VED2zk My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com Are you learning Spanish? Are you concerned about which form of the language or which regional accent you should focus on?

I speak Mexican from Spain, but I wish I never learned it! I didn't realize until recently that I have a lisp!

Mexican here. 1. Please ignore people that mention one Spanish or the other is better. Spain and Mexico aren't the only Spanish speaking countries, and all of them deserve respect to their culture. 2. Should you however have to decide for one, it depends on the content you enjoy. There are both amazing dubs for both EU Spanish and Latin Spanish in TV and series. EDIT: Absolutely Steve's advice of just treating all Spanish as a whole is the best. Specially because of my point number 3. 3. If you get good enough at the language, all kinds of Spanish are mutually inteligible. I have absolutely zero issues talking with people from Spain. At that point the only difference is accent and slang. The core language is very much the same.

I'm glad you have taken the time to explain this, since there are too many ways to speak Spanish, even natives have issues trying to explain the language. Saludos desde Costa Rica.

Mex-american here, I work in a call center and my friends born in Mexican families but English is still dominant language had trouble understanding other dialects. When I leveled up on my Spanish it helped my input a lot speaking and learning other dialects, I was not only able to hear the differences but also the similarities. Other dialects use the same phrases and groups of words. However, my friends born and raised in Mexico had no problem speaking with people from other Spanish speaking countries, in fact they had more in common with each other than I realized.

Hi Steve! Your videos are very motivational. I’ve been generally taking pointers from your videos. I’ve been ‘forgetting’ words, and almost magically recalling then when I need to. I’ll be subscribing to LingQ before too long. Thanks again!

You are so right about the fact that the differences don't really matter that much between the different varieties of Spanish in terms of communication. I did my Master's thesis on whether there was any communication breakdown between interpreters and their clients in a health care or courtroom setting when both of them spoke different varieties of Spanish, and I couldn't find anything to suggest there were any issues.

I'm currently learning Dutch. I enjoy learning differences between the way Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands vs. Belgium. And as you said, there are regional differences as well.

Amazing video , very helpful thanks alof

La vidéo était super intéressante ! Merci ^^

You are a legend! Thank you for making this video

Thank you , great lesson as usual.

I love your channel!!

very interesting! thanks

Super insightful! I totally agree, just getting a hold of the Spanish language as a whole is the important things for us non native speakers. We can get lost in the particularities when visiting others, but for right now, I can blame all my mistakes on my gringa accent 🤣

I am from Spain, we do have a lot of different accents inside the country too, I specially like the accent from Andalucía, e.g. they have an informal expression that goes "no ni na" ("no ni nada"), which means "yes" 🤯. I also love other Spanish accents, wherever the person is from. And you can always find yourself in funny situations, like with the verb "coger" 😂

Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Africa. 🌴🌵🌴🌵 Steve has NAILED it again! So well explained, pretty much exactly my take on the whole thing. There are a thousand shades and nuances of differences, but they're so slight and blended that as he so well says here IT DOESN'T MATTER as regards learning. At most it's just sometimes fun to observe the variations and subtleties, but pretty much every Spanish-speaker fully understands and is understood by every Spanish-speaker. They also all soon understand Spanish Whistle language within hours or even minutes of listening to it, something I hope to start showcasing again soon. Come for a visit, Steve, and we'll get it added to your list of linguistic achievements in no time. Keep up the great content, buddy. 🦌

Puerto Rican Spanish speaker here. I agree 100 percent. A lot of people ask me about all of “the dialects” of Spanish and how scary it is, but I assure them that it’s really just different accents like in English and anyone who can speak Spanish has zero problems understanding people from other countries.

Una de las características más hermosas del español es que todos los hablantes nativos del español podemos entendernos sin dificultad alguna si hablamos de forma neutra tal como lo encontramos en los libros (enciclopedias, novelas, cuentos, etc). Otro ejemplo son los noticieros, debido a que en ellos hablan profesionales del periodismo, podemos entender las noticias de cualquier país de habla española.

Hi Steve, I love your channel! I've been learning Spanish for two years and recently started learning Farsi. Any suggestions for how to go about learning the script? I've never tried to learn a language with a different writing system and am a bit lost. I can't read anything! 🤷‍♀️

I just came home from a pleasant lunch with a Mexican and two Spaniards. The waiter was Mexican. We have no trouble understanding each other at all, except when someone uses a bit of slang. I would say that students shouldn’t be concerned at all with the particular variety they learn so long as it is the standard language spoken by reasonably educated people.

Hi Steve! Wonderful content, as always. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on Language Stacking (learning a language with another language you're proficient with) as opposed to learning with your mother tongue?

I completely agree with you, Steve. If the difference between the language variations is not significant, learners should not worry about which one to pick up. I find it advantageous too to be exposed to different language variations. And as you say, most importantly learners should take joy in learning a language.

This reminds me of my English teachers. I was more used to American English, but in the group classes I took, I had teachers from various Anglophone countries. There's really not that much of a difference between the English they used in and out of class, except for their accents and the way they spelled certain words. I guess that means English is one language, despite regional differences. There's no need to stick to only one variant of the language you're learning. After all, you might be communicating with native speakers from different countries.

When it comes down to learning a variation of any language I feel like native english speakers often overthink regional variations and overlook the same in english and how little impact there is. I speak with a broad Yorkshire accent (Yorkshire, northern England for anyone unfamiliar). Although my accent & dialect is drastically different to that of someone speaking one of the London accents of english for example or the many American, Aussie accents etc, understanding the other versions is no issue since the core language is still the same is this is pretty standard across all multi-national languages. Sure the odd slang word and bit of dialect will sometimes not make complete sense to me but the core language is the same and those words & phrases are quite easily learnt once getting the core language to a high degree of fluency. Admittedly my dialect and even just my accent is a bit of a nightmare to learn even for if a native english speaker wanted to learn it and would be much harder for a non-native speaker to pick up but it is a very regional thing and transitioning to a softer accent isn't a challenge. The main advice for any language is just learn the core language regardless of version and just use what is most accessible. Learning a mix of 2 standards of spanish may give a few extra redundant words for your target but it is still spanish you can learn from, comparing the two versions could even help in understanding the target version easier!

I remember wondering about this when I first started learning spanish But I live and work around spanish speakers from so many different places that if I didnt learn to understand different dialects then it would kinda defeat the purpose of me learning spanish to begin with So while I do still model my speech after a certain dialect, I get input recourses from several different dialects

What Portuguese and Spanish podcasts do you folks listen to? Not necessarily for learning the language as a beginner but just to learn interesting things etc.

It's kinda like Tongue twister for me hahaha, i don't learn spanish but i just want to watch any videos from you too cool for school video! You're The very best polyglot like no ploygots ever was.😎

Something cool about learning Spanish from various countries is you will know some Spanish vocabulary that even native speakers don't know 😂

Interesting video salut from Dagestan

Thank you. Guess I’ll learn Spanish Spain then. Even though I frequent America a lot. But since it doesn’t matter.. I’ll just stick with Spanish Spain and eventual get used to it all

Soy de Eeuu y he estado estudiando español para 2 años. Mi problema en español es los sonidos. Leyendo no es tan ambiguo como escuchando. A veces nativos tienen voces muy "sorda." El acento ranchero de Mexico es mas facil para mis oidos gringo de lo que espana, chile o argentina. El desafío para mí es descifrar los sonidos que enuncian. Tampoco se ayuda que la morfología es un locura jaaja. Procesar un pronombre, un verbo y un tiempo en una palabra en un milisegundo es muy difícil a veces, no siempre pero bastante veces que es un problema. Y tambien si un nativo sigue hablando , eventualmente voy a perder su punto. Es como, estoy escuchando muchas palabras que yo se, pero no estoy conectando sus puntos.

I agree with Steve Kaufman. I've always said, it doesn't matter what type of Spanish one learns, Spanish speakers will still understand and understanding each other is what counts. Don't worry about certain words, certain expressions, idioms, or even slang. Every Spanish speaker person still learn from one another and it only adds more to their vocabulary and it will add to yours.

Something that now a days happen is that we: Spanish speakers are having more direct contact with the way other countries speak (due to the internet primarily). So now we have a minimal knowledge of how some words are pronounced and their meaning. We have even encorporated words to our own usage. So even if you speak Spain Spanish in Mexico, everybody is going to understand el tú, vos, usted, ustedes, vosotros,...

Reading. One of problems with reading a language like Danish or English is that the words are rarely pronounced how they're spoken. I'm doing Danish now and I feel I have to listen to tons more of Danish first before I could attempt to read anything because If I read a word without having heard said correctly, I won't be able to identify it.

For me, Colombian Spanish is a mix of Argentinian, Mexican and Spanish from Spain. Of course, there are different accents and dialects in Colombia. I consume a lot of Spanish-language content from Colombia and Spain, and there a lot of similarities as well as differences. Caribbean Spanish, on the other hand, has more phonemes (sounds) than even Portuguese.

Interesting topic. I am currently in Spain but have travelled in Latin America. There are differences within Spain and of course lots of people from America working and living in Europe. So I think it is more important to focus on those elements of vocabulary and pronunciation that would cause confusion or embarrassment. For example, the word Pants. In American English it refers to trousers but in British English it refers to underwear. So if you say to someone in the uk you are going to change your pants before going to dinner you will be met with embarrassed looks. Similarly washing up means very different things.

Minor point in the transcription, but Columbia (my alma mater is the university in New York City) and Colombia is the South American country.

I am a native English speaker and a beginner in Spanish. How do the differences in Spanish from Spain versus Mexico compare to the differences in English from the USA versus England? Is one of the two languages a lot more different across continents, or is it an equivalent comparison?

I am Mexican-American now living in Spain part time. I travel considerably to other countries like Turkey, Morocco, UK, and others. I always practice the simplest of words like hello, yes, no, please, thank you. Then move on to simple statements like good morning, table for two, how much. When I speak to Spaniards in Spain I understand about half of there vocabulary. But that’s part of the learning curve that I embrace. Spaniards, like any of us will open up and befriend you if you show respect and an eagerness and curiosity to learn. Don’t we expect as much when others visit our own country?

Hello, from France (I am an English, French, Italian, ASL, and Spanish speaker!) I once worked with Mexicans and enjoyed being around them for many reasons. What I have noticed when they speak is; they, like most languages that break down based on different countries and cultures is, that they have their own slang or "ebonics" like American or British English. I pick up on some of what they say and not all. But I depend on French, Italian, and a bit of Spanish to communicate with them and it is fun because whenever they say something and I am confused, I will ask them and I get the chance to, once again, learn something new ❤

that's interesting you see Russian as an outlier. I see it as key to how easily I learn other Slavic languages. Serbian, Bulgarian, and Ukraine are much easier to pick up as they seem most similar to Russian. I struggle more and need more work with Polish and Czeck as they are less similar to Russian. I struggle with Brazilian because the r's are missing, which throws me for a loop. Also the vowels seems less pure, like more dipthongs, reminds me of listening to a really thick New York accent in English, like Edith Bunker.

YOU DA MAN STEVE!!!

Is the word 'coger' bad to say outside Spain?

Well, here are a lot of accents, it's a lot to choose and learn

There is a catch in Spanish from Spain. They have figures of speech and slang that even native Spanish speakers (Latin Americans) can't understand. I would recommend you learn the every day slang because apart from that Spanish is pretty much the same everywhere.

First comentario in Spanish Thank you Steve 🎉

The main reason to focus on one Spanish speaking country or culture is when you're at a level where you'll be around a specific peoples and it's good to learn specific accents and colloquial terms.

So, is this to say that if you were Mexican, and you went to Spain, the Spanish peoples would be able to understand you perfectly fine? Is it like how certain parts of the English vocab are more/less utilized in certain areas, like Arid, Astute, Auspicious .etc; or more like how certain words are unrecognizable as common sense English in other countries, like, Boot (referring to the trunk of one's vehicle in brutish English), or Ta (A word utilized in Australian English that means 'Thanks').

I personally try to speak with the Spain pronunciation, as my co-workers are from Mexico, Columbia, and Guatemala, and I figured if I do Castilian, I’m not prioritizing one of their dialects over the other, and I also find the sound shift of c and z to a th sound very interesting and I enjoy using a less common sound in my speech. However, on Lingq, I first read through the Ministories with Spain pronunciation, to establish my own pronunciation, and since then, I’ve been reading and listening to whatever accent. I think it’s important to have a consistent pronunciation, but you also should be able to comprehend as many accents as you can, and be familiar with potential changes of words or meanings across dialects to avoid potential misunderstandings

It's like someone who says they want to learn English but they for some reason bother to say "I want to learn/study American English but not British English" - it's the same language!

I agree 100%

While it's true that the pronunciation differences between Spanish accents aren't great, the differences in vocabulary kind of are. So, if your time is limited and you've already chosen the country you're going to spend some time living or working in, it could be a good idea to focus specifically on that variety. Time is limited, and there are already thousands and thousands of words to learn when you take up a new language, and being able to fully understand different varieties of it will require many more, so it will multiply the amount of words that you'll have to memorize. Furthermore, when you start outputting, you should definitely choose one variety in order to be consistent. But yeah, I guess that if your intention is to become as competent as you can at Spanish, you should at least have some knowledge about its different accents, or at least the main ones. Still, don't sweat it, most Spanish natives are not extremely knowledgeable on the other varieties.

You are right about Arabic and Chinese being not single language.

As a Spanish native speaker, yes... it really doesn’t matter lol. At the end of the day it's all Spanish and each place has its own unique pronunciation, slang, and interesting sayings. "Vosotros" isn't really a thing in Latin countries (at least from where I'm from) 🤣🤓

Steve, I have a question. Is it ok to say "Usted" to a child instead of "Tu"? Because sometimes people accidentally said Usted to a child instead of Tu.

Lovely Steve, you are 76 and you look phantastik young.Did you mean it have to do with your language passionate? Or because you have a wife looking very young ? Haw many hours you spend with learning or practising a foreign language? Thank you for the answers.👏👍🙏

What about other Spanishes??

I can’t decide whether to focus on Mexican Spanish, or Spanish Mexican

Well, it depends... I'm a Mexican spanish speaker and I have issues trying to understand Caribbean and South Spain accents, I must ask them to slow down their speech because they speak so fast and cut words a lot.

One can recognize where a Spanish-speaking person hails from and their relative social status by the use of "usted" alone.

I'm under the impression that there's is a general latinoamerican accent used by professional translators, it takes a while to identify the country of the speaker. (Saludos desde Perú)

3:58 _Learning a language is primarily learning words_ I totally disagree. Picking up words is easy. First you have to get used to the grammar. This is the framework, the skeleton. And words are muscles. Muscles are useless without the bones, is just a loose mass of unrelated stuff. If you don't know how to put words together you will forget them. If you don't know a word you can always look it up in a dictionary, understand its meaning from the context, is structure etc. But if you don't know grammar you can't just pick it up on the go. And there's good news: grammar can be learnt with a few hundred words. It doesn't mean you needn't pick up new words. It means you gotta concentrate on the way the language works, vocabulary comes and goes, the grammatical structure, once you internalised it, installed it in your brain, is always there ready to brace new vocabulary.

Someone make the video title consistent 😩

Huh? Did you thay thomething?

Not a native speaker. I speak Spanish at least close to C1 if not C1 and even at b2 I agree that there is not a big enough difference in virtually any “dialect” of Spanish to worry about. A lot of people who speak a rural variant of Spanish COULD talk to each other in a way that’s hard to understand but even this is more due to slurred pronunciation than the actual words used. Maybe rural Chilean Spanish or absurdly slang-laden Mexican Spanish might cause issues but i find all native Spanish speakers can adapt their speech to a communicate with anyone who speaks at least at a B2 level with pretty much no issue Literally just don’t be afraid to listen to various accents and even the more distinct ones take maybe a few hours to get used to

I’m a fransaskoise and this is the same as saskatchewan french vs quebec french vs france french. The minor differences are exactly that, minor.

Please do Brazilian Portuguese vs European Portugese

the bottom's okay that you do not use the neutral Spanish just speak with your normal accent or with the accent that you want

Well, I'm Mexican and sometimes I need subtitles when I watch Spain's movies 😅

I’d rather learn Mexican Spanish or even Chicano Spanish because these are the guys that I work with. I believe they have a more beautiful rhythm as they speak compared to folks from Spain.

there is another distinct type of Spanish: foreigner Spanish, where rr is pronounced without thriller.

For me, the allure to learn one language variant over another is pretentious at best. The idea of knowing a particular style of Spanish is in danger by mixing in the style of an other. The part in the video where he mentions the locals still hearing a foreigner is eye opening for certain. An interesting concept to think about is the scenario of learning English UK pronunciation or any of the US kinds. Again you can see the allure of speaking in one way over the other.

Ive really come to the same conclusions

Anderson cooper

Anyway, the very origin of spanish is settled in the north of Spain, the lisp was integrated into the language, by wich i consider this lisp the bigger difference among all other countries. ¿and why lisp is not practiced in the rest of the countries? we need to travel in time to 15 century when south spaniers conquerors went to America from Andalucia. In that time all people in the south of spain spoke like this (with no lisp due to the Andaluz is a mixture of languages influenced by Muslim occupation for eight centuries), and their accent leaved this mark in the language culture. Nowadays, all hispano american countries have this accent, and therefore, these differences!!! Kind Regards from the north of Spain.

Show , don't tell. What are some examples of the differences? Pronounce them for us.

Chilean Spanish 😎

El español de los estados unidos en especial en el oeste es idéntico al español del norte de México

I learned Spanish with mexican content, It's not so difficult because I'm portuguese speaker. I talked with Argentines, but a I understood almost nothing 🥲

I'm fully convinced that most people who struggle with my language are either first time language learners or worried about mistakes. English has no standard form and yet English speakers communicate between them no problem... Same thing here! There are regional words you guys use in English.. A LOT, some of which confuse me but as soon as I ask for the standard term for that word everything makes sense and people try using standard words. You all claim we speak super fast (which is partially true) but you all speak insanely fast, you guys use tons of reductions. I even dare to say you reduce words more than we do. Explore the Hispanic world, find what drives you crazy, learn about the culture, learn bits of phonetics and be patient. There are more differences in consonants than vowels... If you struggle with the "R" sound we Costa Ricans pronounce it similar to the English one.

Spanish’s speakers in usa not all are from other places you forgot places use to belong to Mexico and many Spanish speakers stay texas and California been the top 2

There are dialects. Just like with English

We Chileans do not pronounce the S, that's true even for broadcasters or people with social prestige BUT we don't omit it enterely instead we strech the previous vowel o make a slightly "sigh sound". Otherwise "la casa" and "las casas" or "no" and "nos" would sound the same and that's not true.

If you are interested or need to write in Spanish then I would recommend Castillian Spanish. This way you avoid making a lot of spelling mistakes. Watching the comments of Latinamericans on YT you tend to think they write "c", "z" and "s" randomly (and, of course they fail most of the times, even educated people).

Also mexico Spanish’s is mix with indigenous language

So that everyone understands, it is Spanish from Spain and any other place in the world is written under the same linguistic rules. But they are not spoken in the same way, for you to take an example, Spanish from Spain is like the British English accent for Americans, in this case that is how Spanish sounds to those from Mexico. Many Spanish-speaking Americans find it difficult to understand the Spanish at times and the same to the contrary. The most correct Spanish is the one that is spoken in Spain, of course. Americans who learn in Mexico have a hard time getting used to being understood in Spain.

So watching Narcos Mexico wont fuck me up?

Que atrevida es la ignorancia, el español es una lengua mas normalizada que el ingles, la diferentes Academias, con la Real Academia de la Lengua a la cabeza se encargan de normalizar el español que se habla en los diferentes paises e incluso regiones. No creo que para un ingles parlantecm sea dificil de entender que en cada region y pais el idioma tiene sus propias variante y acentos y que ello no impide que se entiendan, acaso un hablante ingles de Texas no se puede entender con un hablante de inglescm de NYC Londres, Sideney o Hong Kong ... Los anglo sajones siempre intentan hacernos creer que hay distintos idiomas españoles y al mismo tiempo hacernos creer que hay un solo ingles, cuando en todo caso seria al contrario, pues como dije el español, asi como el frances estan mas normatizados que el ingles

Mexican spanish is the way to go, easier, and is the standard in the whole Latinamerican, Canada and the USA.

For me the Spanish from Bogota and parts of Mexico are the easiest to understand. Cuba, Puerto Rico and Chile are more difficult.

CALIFORNIAN spanish for the win !!! 🎉

I've only studied Spanish a little in school but I can pretty much only understand people from Mexico. I can tell when someone is from Spain though because they sound like they are lisping. There are actually some families in the US that speak Spanish that were here since Spanish colonial times, but they probably represent a really small percentage of total Spanish speakers in the US. But I met someone once where this was the case.

En México tenemos el mejor acento 🤭🤭🤭 saludos, soy un gran admirador de tu trabajo ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Cześć Steve. Twój polski nie jest zły raczej się dogadasz, ale też nie jest najlepszy. Polska jest piękna i mamy dobre jedzenie. Wpadnij kiedyś. Siemka

❤🇧🇷❤👋👋👋

My problem is that vowels and words are different and if I'm using the Spain Spanish I learned in school while speaking to a Mexican, they correct you like you said it wrong and it's annoying ustedes/vosotros blah blah, makes me not want to learn

I agree. I think also that everyone has certain preferences too. There are things I like about Spain Spanish and things I like about Spanish from Mexico or Latin America. I prefer the Castilian pronunciation from Spain for example and some words like ordenador instead of computadora which is used in America. But at the same time I almost cannot understand why the Spaniards use the present perfect instead of the simple preterite. I also prefer the Spaniards’ use of the vosotros form. To me that’s beautiful. I don’t understand why that form is not used in America. And then again I don’t understand the use of the vos form used in some Latin American countries.

Well for me the "true" Spanish is from SPAIN ONLY The other are dialects and secondary

You don't need to be perfect speaking Spanish. Spanish is not like other languages like English, where you can make a mistake only mispronouncing one letter. I think you will have more problems with the number of words used for unethical references.