Do Hispanic Latin Americans understand Spanish from Spain?
Item
issuer
Quora
Language
English
Date Accepted
11/29/19
Title
Do Hispanic Latin Americans understand Spanish from Spain?
list of contributors
Alvaro Fernandez
content
Yes, they do, provided the Spaniard does not have too thick an accent. Some accents and intonations in Spain that I find particularly annoying and my grandparents are from Spain for the most part are those were the Spaniard speaks very softly and very quickly. Combined with a slightly different emphasis on syllables this makes understanding somebody rather difficult.
in a similar vein a friend of mine from grad school is African American and from the countryside of Arkansas. I had difficulty understanding him at first. His wife was also from Arkansas , but she was more from the city and there was really no trouble understanding her at all.
The problem was the accent of my African-American friend ate up consonants and overemphasized parts of words that I was not used to.
Same thing happens when somebody from for example Madrid goes to Latin America and speaks in a soft clipped and extremely fast voice.
in a similar vein a friend of mine from grad school is African American and from the countryside of Arkansas. I had difficulty understanding him at first. His wife was also from Arkansas , but she was more from the city and there was really no trouble understanding her at all.
The problem was the accent of my African-American friend ate up consonants and overemphasized parts of words that I was not used to.
Same thing happens when somebody from for example Madrid goes to Latin America and speaks in a soft clipped and extremely fast voice.