Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One: Online Version
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CHAPTER 14
TACKLING DIALECTS: WHICH VERSION OF SPANISH
ARE YOU SPEAKING?
A Tennessee Yankee in the Royal Air Force
I remember seeing a TV news magazine segment about a fighter pilot from the Tennessee Air National Guard who, for some reason or another, had been dispatched to fly for a time with the British Royal Air Force. When the interviewer asked one of the RAF pilots to identify the most challenging aspect of the arrangement, the Englishman smiled wryly and replied, “the language barrier.”
Although the British pilot was speaking in jest, the differences between various regional versions of English can be significant. Perhaps the most extreme illustration is found in the 1998 Scottish film, My Name is Joe. The actors in My Name is Joe all speak English, but the movie is fully subtitled due to the presence of heavy Scottish accents and regionalisms.
English is not the only language that varies by region. Languages such as Spanish, Arabic, French, and Chinese, which are spoken by far-flung populations, differ considerably according to the particular locale. In most cases, there is an agreed upon “standard” which is taught by educational institutions, and used to create instructional materials. For European languages, the acknowledged standard is almost universally the language as it is spoken in its European country of origin. (The one exception is English; American English is now generally preferred by foreign students over British English---though some European readers might disagree with me about this.)
Speaking Spanish Outside of Spain
A first experience with a dialect can be intimidating. Beginners are often nonplussed when a Spanish speaker from Guadalajara or Havana doesn’t sound like the Spanish recordings in her university’s language lab.
Spanish has been spoken in the Americas for about five hundred years---ample time to allow significant divergences from the language of Spain. The variations between the Spanish currently spoken in Spain and the Spanish spoken in Latin America are significant. If you have only been exposed to the European standard, your ears will need some time to adjust. Moreover, the Spanish-speaking area within the Americas is vast---so Mexico City residents do not use the language exactly like the inhabitants of Buenos Aires.
When "Standard" Speakers are a Small Minority
Portugal----another former imperial power----carried its language to the Americas and Africa. If not for Portugal’s colonial past, the language would today be one of the numerically less significant languages of Europe. There are only about 10 million residents in the tiny Iberian nation; but there are more than 186 Portuguese speakers living in Brazil. Add to that about 20 million Mozambicans, and millions of Portuguese speakers in other African nations. Today, only a fraction of the world’s Portuguese speakers actually hold a passport from the country of the language’s origin. Therefore, it is a tiny minority of Portuguese speakers who actually speak “standard” Portuguese. (The same could be said of Spanish; the population of Spanish-speaking America is many times larger than that of Spain.)
From a statistical perspective, Brazilian Portuguese is the most significant dialect of the language. If you first learn European, or Continental, Portuguese, you will have to acclimate yourself to some minor differences in Brazilian pronunciation and vocabulary. (On the bright side, a number of courses in “Brazilian Portuguese” are now available, so you may be able to acquaint yourself with it before you land in Brazil.)
I adjusted to Brazilian Portuguese during an extended stay near São Paulo after studying Continental Portuguese for several years in the United States. In my experience, the relatively uniform Brazilian Portuguese is much easier to adjust to than the multiple American dialects of Spanish. (Although there are courses in “Latin American Spanish”, the variations in speech within Latin America usually force the authors of these courses to favor one of the various dialects within this region.)
Copyright 2005 Beechmont Crest Publishing
