Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

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AML
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Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby AML » Fri Jun 16, 2017 2:30 pm

Here in the US, in high school and often college, we typically learn the Latin American accent of castellano. This makes sense because we are close to Latin America, and the vast majority of Spanish speakers' accents in the US originate from Latin America.

I assume that UK students of Spanish learn the European Spanish accent ([θ]). I do have a little bit of doubt, however, that this is true, since the vast majority of the world's Spanish speakers use the Latin American pronunciation. Maybe they want to learn the non-[θ] majority - I don't know.

Thus I ask, Brits, which is it? In high school and college in the UK do you learn the European Spanish accent or the Latin American Spanish accent?

I am also happy to hear which Spanish accent people learn in other countries, as well.

/ˈɡɾa.sjas/ ;)

EDIT: [θ]
Last edited by AML on Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby Cainntear » Fri Jun 16, 2017 3:42 pm

AML wrote:I assume that UK students of Spanish learn the European Spanish accent (ceceo). I do have a little bit of doubt, however, that this is true, since the vast majority of the world's Spanish speakers use the seseo pronunciation. Maybe they want to learn the seseo majority - I don't know.

Typically, yes, we use the European accent - but technically that's distinción because there's a distinction between S and Z. Ceceo ez cuando el ezpañol ze habla azí. I've only ever met one guy with a ceceo accent -- it's pretty rare.

But mostly what we learn is a bad accent. Neu hablau moi B.N. etc
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Fri Jun 16, 2017 4:19 pm

I'm not British, but it's apparently , and quite naturally, Spanish Spanish. Spain is a useful country too, it's closer, and the difference isn't that huge. ( And it doesn't really matter anyway, because their accent is generally bad and quite difficult to understand :D ).

In Norway they also learn the European Spanish.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Jun 16, 2017 4:57 pm

Also in Sweden (at least when I learned it in the beginning of the 1990s). I think the decision is based on what kind of Spanish you're more likely to hear (or for that matter, which Spanish speaking region you're more likely to travel to). I also doubt that there is any teaching material in Swedish (or Norwegian) which focuses on another variety of Spanish.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby William Camden » Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:17 pm

I took Spanish at school in Scotland. We were taught European Spanish though Latin American Spanish and its differences were mentioned. My recollection of the occasional audio was that it was European Spanish that was used. I find European Spanish easier to understand to this day.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Jun 16, 2017 11:31 pm

In France and in Germany it tends to be Spain Spanish but since our house Spanish is Mexican, my girls have a bit of a mix - they know it grates on me a bit so the oldest two will over exaggerate the dialectics they've picked up when traveling in Spain. Apparently my jaw muscles jump every time they start a sentence with 'Hombre,...' :|
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby Saim » Sat Jun 17, 2017 12:07 am

Cainntear wrote:Ceceo ez cuando el ezpañol ze habla azí.


AFAIK since all ceceo speakers also have s-aspiration it would actually be: ceceo ej cuando el ejpañol ze habla azí.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby blaurebell » Sat Jun 17, 2017 11:17 am

zenmonkey wrote:In France and in Germany it tends to be Spain Spanish but since our house Spanish is Mexican, my girls have a bit of a mix - they know it grates on me a bit so the oldest two will over exaggerate the dialectics they've picked up when traveling in Spain. Apparently my jaw muscles jump every time they start a sentence with 'Hombre,...' :|


My husband is Argentinian and he laughs about me when I say things like "enhorabuena" by accident. These expressions just sneak into your language by exposure, awful! And my own jaw muscles twitch whenever I hear "Hombre, venga, hasta luego" in this typical sing song from here. Our neighbour used to drive me nuts by shouting it down the corridor whenever his friends left. We often ended up imitating that stupid formula while rolling our eyes :roll: :roll: :roll: Luckily he moved ...! I still hear it way too often on the street though.

By the way, just like we learn Iberian Spanish pronunciation in Germany, we also learn British pronunciation in English class. Geographical closeness is more important than number of speakers, since in Europe we're still more likely to end up in the UK or in Spain rather than in the US or Latin America.
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby tarvos » Sun Jun 18, 2017 11:46 am

Oh my god, you would HATE it whenever I speak Spanish then, because my Spanish is full of those words, especially because I learned Spanish in Cantabria... The other day I said "'asta logo" which is VERY typical of the north of Spain and Madrid, and my teacher corrected by saying it is "luego", and I said "where I learned Spanish everybody says logo when speaking quickly..."

As for the original question, Brits learn languages at school? :P :?
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Re: Which Spanish/castellano accent do Brits learn in school?

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Sun Jun 18, 2017 12:04 pm

The same in southern Valencia. Eyes would fly out of their soccets. :lol:

It sounds a little exhausting rolling ones eyes all the time (not to mention rude, but I suppose that's another story).
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