Dialects
The Spanish Dialect: Spain Compared to Other Countries
Many people think of Spanish as being "uniform," but that is not the case. There are all types of different dialects, and what a person hears in Spain will not be the same thing heard in Mexico or in other countries where Spanish is spoken. Written Spanish uses the same standards, but spoken Spanish can be very different. There are local dialects, and then larger differences between Spain and Mexico. One of the biggest differences is in the phonemes, where there is maintenance of them in some dialects and loss of them in others. Some final syllables are weakened, as well, and central Mexico and the highlands of the Andes will show a loss of many of the unstressed vowel sounds - especially when these vowels come into contact with consonants that are also voiceless. It is not just the way things are pronounced, though. It is also some of the actual grammar. For example, the second-person pronouns vary between Spanish America and Spain.
Spain uses a second-person pronoun...
Some dialects also differentiate on second-person singular familiar, too, while others do not. Where a person comes from and/or where he or she learned to speak Spanish often determines whether that person will speak with a particular dialect. The vocabulary that is used in Spanish is very different depending on where the person learned to speak the language and what country he or she is in. Regional varieties and dialects of Spanish are very different from one another, and the differences can be highly significant. Clothing, everyday common objects, and different kinds of foods are among areas where there are major, obvious differences. Native American languages strongly influenced the Spanish that is spoken in Latin America, as well, and that adds to the differences.
There are a total of five different sets of variants in American Spanish. That alone can be confusing, and when it is added to the Spanish…
