Latin Am vs. Castilian resources

[CarlyD]

I'm in California and the only Spanish I see or hear is Latin American. TV, radio, newspapers, people, Spanish classes--all use the standard "mid-Mexico" Spanish (well, maybe not the people.)

I have a ton of wonderful online resources for German, but as I've tried to gather the same for Spanish I'm finding nearly all are for Castilian Spanish. I've been sporadically doing Babbel lately and I'm getting tired of getting the answers wrong all the times because I'm not pushing to get all my vosotros correct. Which I will never use.

Does anyone have any favorite resources that focus on Latin American Spanish?

[James29]

I would recommend against choosing resources based on the Latino/Castellano distinction. I don't think it matters much and think you will be much better off just choosing the better resource. I'd just choose the best resource and if it happens that it is available in both (e.g. Pimsleur) choose the one you prefer. The differences are just not that significant.

That being said, yes, FSI is a wonderful resource (probably the best available) and it uses Latin American Spanish (but teaches the Castellano distinctions too). The Living Language "Ultimate" and "Beyond the Basics" are both in Latino Spanish (and they are wonderful Assimil-ish type programs). Learning Spanish like crazy is Latino. Pimsleur also has a Latino version. I forget about Linguaphone, but I am pretty sure they have an old Latin American program.

It is not hard to tell with audio books either... just google the narrator's name and see where he/she was born.

[iguanamon]

I couldn't agree more with James29. Just learn Spanish. The rest will sort itself out. Plenty of resources are available for both and it's important to be familiar with both. That's why Destinos, the 52 episode free Spanish learning telenovela, starts off in Los Angeles, then goes to Mexico, then off to Spain, Argentina, Puerto Rico and back to Mexico. It's a great big, beautiful Spanish-speaking world out there- just learn Spanish!

[Polyclod]

What everyone else said lol.

It seems that Spain produces a lot of great films, and plenty of good books as well. The fact that I speak Latin American Spanish doesn't hinder me from enjoying them.

An example: I couldn't find the Latin American dub of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I just went with the Castilian version instead. It's the same language after all and I get the added bonus of tuning my ear to Peninsular accents...I might very well run into a Spaniard, even here in Texas!

I picked Latin American Spanish because it's the logical choice to learn in the US, but that doesn't mean I'm going to cut myself off from the wonderful things that the entire Spanish speaking world has to offer. In fact, my favorite Spanish language film (Cría cuervos) was made in Spain!

Focus on the dialect that is useful to you in your everyday life, but don't overanalyze it. You'll be missing out on some really neat stuff if you only focus on one tiny part of the globe!

[sfuqua]

The grammatical differences are small; The first 50 or so pages of La Caída de los Gigantes only had a few places where the translators used vosotros; the vocabulary sounded pretty neutral too. Maybe it is like throwing a Thee or Thou at a modern English speaker for Latin Americans. The accents become easy to understand very quickly too. Perhaps a native speaker could correct me here, but I find learners worry more about this than native speakers do.

I love whatever kind of Spanish I just listened to the most.

As part of my daily practice, I try read aloud or shadow 20-30 minutes every day. I vary which pronunciation I use each day; Peninsular one day and American the next. With a little practice, it only takes a couple of sentences to shift gears.
Despite living in a sea of seseo, I think I can understand European Spanish a little better; it is perhaps a little closer to the written forms in the way it is pronounced.

Of course I'm only talking about about turning seseo on or off.

I'm sure I have a harsh American English accent every day

[MorkTheFiddle]

Here are a couple of Spanish American web sites with lots of audio. There is the down side that they provide no transcripts. Possibly as well they may be too advanced for an A2 to understand.

1. Radialistas: Apasionadas y Apasionados

http://radialistas.net/

This site in Ecuador has more than 3,000 audios. I have listened to several dozen of them and found most of them interesting: short audios of stories, anecdotes and radio programs.

2. eRadio

http://www.e-radio.edu.mx/

Member tastyonions reported on this site in Mexico just today. Here is his thread:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.org/viewtopic.php?p=4101#p4101

[CarlyD]

Thank you MorkTheFiddle. I've bookmarked both the sites. No, I certainly can't understand them well, but I can find bits and pieces that I understand and occasionally short phrases. Plus anything that I re-play is much better than listening to live local radio--by the time I've figured out a word they've long moved on.

[sfuqua]

I know how you feel about live radio. If people are talking fast, I can perhaps understand every word, but never parse a sentence all the way.
If only I could get everyone who speaks spanish to keep their speed down to 130 words a minute or less...

[Spoonary]

I know how you feel about live radio. If people are talking fast, I can perhaps understand every word, but never parse a sentence all the way.
If only I could get everyone who speaks spanish to keep their speed down to 130 words a minute or less...

I have been learning Spanish for several years now and my aural understanding is actually pretty good. I have just started to listen to the radio in Spanish more often and I can understand it, but if my mind wanders even for a moment, I miss a whole sentence

[CarlyD]

I know how you feel about live radio. If people are talking fast, I can perhaps understand every word, but never parse a sentence all the way.
If only I could get everyone who speaks spanish to keep their speed down to 130 words a minute or less...

I have been learning Spanish for several years now and my aural understanding is actually pretty good. I have just started to listen to the radio in Spanish more often and I can understand it, but if my mind wanders even for a moment, I miss a whole sentence

Although I don't like soap operas, the telenovelas are good for understanding--the more the drama builds, the slower and more precise the person will talk (unless they're going ballistic). Then it cuts to a commercial where something may be repeated several times or they'll have it written across the screen while they're saying it (¡AHORRE!) which always helps.