How mutually intelligible is the Spanish spoken in Spain with that spoken in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, etc.?
Item
issuer
Quora
Language
English
Date Accepted
11/30/19
Title
How mutually intelligible is the Spanish spoken in Spain with that spoken in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, etc.?
list of contributors
Dan Holliday
content
I’m not a native speaker of Spanish and I get on quite well with Spanish speakers from any nation. I do struggle with the local variations, especially Rioplatense, which is a variation probably slightly less difficult for Spanish speakers to understand than —say— Jamaican or Scottish is for native English speakers. Rioplatense maintains what are widely considered anachronistic words in the rest of the Spanish speaking world (which makes it quite endearing). Mexicans and Puerto Ricans can make my head spin when they talk really fast. Besides that, if they slow it down a skosh, I’m good.
I learned my Spanish in the Canary Islands. While a part of Spain, they don’t speak any of the notable Castillian accents (no ceceo, no vosotros). Canario is heavily influenced by Caribbean & Venezuelan accents, mostly because of the back-and-forth migration between the same. They’ve absorbed so many slang terms (“guagua” instead of “autobus”, etc.), that I tend to appreciate the accents from the Americas better. In fact, I consider the northern Colombian accent to be the easiest to understand. I’ve been told by native Spanish speakers that Colombians tend to have the clearest enunciation. I tend to agree.
I learned my Spanish in the Canary Islands. While a part of Spain, they don’t speak any of the notable Castillian accents (no ceceo, no vosotros). Canario is heavily influenced by Caribbean & Venezuelan accents, mostly because of the back-and-forth migration between the same. They’ve absorbed so many slang terms (“guagua” instead of “autobus”, etc.), that I tend to appreciate the accents from the Americas better. In fact, I consider the northern Colombian accent to be the easiest to understand. I’ve been told by native Spanish speakers that Colombians tend to have the clearest enunciation. I tend to agree.