# Is the term "Continental Spanish" as opposed to American Spanish a proper term ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 1, 2015, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587 "2015-09-01T08:38:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/21 "2015-09-01T20:12:03Z")
My husband’s family is from Mexico. In school in CA, for who knows what reason, they teach Castillian Spanish. I once pointed out to my teacher that this wasn’t Mexican Spanish, which would be much more useful, and was accused of being racist. OK then. After 25 years of being with husband and his family, I have a very hard time in Barcelona, which I visit once a year for business. The accent is slightly different, but there is also a completely different regional language that gets mixed in, used on signs in restaurants, etc. I can order a meal or talk to a cabbie, but a I cannot carry on a conversation. Which I find extremely frustrating. Such is life. I too wish there was a way to easily convey the vast differences between types of Spanish. Alas, when I bring it up here (US) I still often get the weird reaction when I try to give examples. Of course there’s only one Spanish! :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/22 "2015-09-02T01:17:31Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > My husband’s family is from Mexico. In school in CA, for who knows what reason, they teach Castillian Spanish. I once pointed out to my teacher that this wasn’t Mexican Spanish, which would be much more useful, and was accused of being racist. OK then. > > After 25 years of being with husband and his family, I have a very hard time in Barcelona, which I visit once a year for business. The accent is slightly different, but there is also a completely different regional language that gets mixed in, used on signs in restaurants, etc. I can order a meal or talk to a cabbie, but a I cannot carry on a conversation. Which I find extremely frustrating. Such is life. > > I too wish there was a way to easily convey the vast differences between types of Spanish. Alas, when I bring it up here (US) I still often get the weird reaction when I try to give examples. Of course there’s only one Spanish! :rolleyes: Since they speak Catalan (and Spanish), and they may sound similar to someone not fluent in either, is it possible that they were speaking Catalan? FWIW, part of my immediate family lives in BCN. I never learned a word of Catalan. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/23 "2015-09-02T01:25:12Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Mexican Spanish is most divergent from Castilian? I don’t know the basis for that. Nor would I group Cuban with the “upper classes in South America.” > > Cuban and other Caribbean dialects including Panamanian were in more direct contact with Spain more recently than some areas, and may have a few features in common with modern Spanish spoken in Spain that may be absent elsewhere. But still, Caribbean dialects are rather distinctive. > > One pattern is that some dialects found in highland regions of Central America, the Andes, and Argentina is the use of [_vos_ as the second person singular](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voseo), a feature that has mostly died out in Spain. > > It depends on where in Colombia. Colombians from the Caribbean coast speak a Caribbean dialect like Panamanians, which can be very hard to understand. In my personal experience, the Spanish spoken in Andean regions of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru is the clearest and easiest to understand. When I spent some time in Panama I was shocked how much Panamanians looked and sound like Dominicans. PR also have a very different accent, I even asked a couple of people if they were sure that they weren’t Dominican. 😃 Spaniards used vosotros, not vos. Maybe Nava can correct me if I’m wrong. I attended Catholic school, back then most of the teachers were old Spanish nuns. I never heard a vos either. Same when I have been to Spain. Thanks for the info about Colombians. I have met many, and some didn’t speak such good Spanish. Some spoke it beautifully. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/24 "2015-09-02T01:30:04Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > After 25 years of being with husband and his family, I have a very hard time in Barcelona, which I visit once a year for business. The accent is slightly different, but there is also a completely different regional language that gets mixed in, used on signs in restaurants, etc. I can order a meal or talk to a cabbie, but a I cannot carry on a conversation. Which I find extremely frustrating. Such is life. [Five ways to piss off a Catalan.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80U-G3YETg) 1. Call them Spanish. 2. Imply that their Spanish isn’t that good, without realizing they’re speaking Catalan.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/25 "2015-09-02T01:30:49Z")
It should read “Cuba an PR…” Gosh, I hate Tapatalk! ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/26 "2015-09-02T09:14:11Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > When I spent some time in Panama I was shocked how much Panamanians looked and sound like Dominicans. PR also have a very different accent, I even asked a couple of people if they were sure that they weren’t Dominican. 😃 > > Spaniards used vosotros, not vos. Maybe Nava can correct me if I’m wrong. I attended Catholic school, back then most of the teachers were old Spanish nuns. I never heard a vos either. Same when I have been to Spain. > > Thanks for the info about Colombians. I have met many, and some didn’t speak such good Spanish. Some spoke it beautifully. Vos was singular, vosotros was plural, was the way I remember it being taught. I don’t remember when I was in primary school if they told us everyone who used them except, “not us” and some people in South America. Thanks for the first paragraph. When I visited Panama the first time I was “I know there are Dominicans everywhere, but it is not possible that I’m meeting every single one of them here. Maybe they’re Panamanians? My mind is confused!” You’re the first Dominican I know who has commented on the similarity of their accent to Panamanians. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/27 "2015-09-02T09:17:46Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > It depends on where in Colombia. Colombians from the Caribbean coast speak a Caribbean dialect like Panamanians, which can be very hard to understand. . . . Añoñi, cuadro! In terms of dictionary labels, I have a really old Larousse Spanish-English unabridged, which gets around the issue in the OP by not labeling European Spanish at all, but rather by just presenting it as the default. If something is of the “New World,”–or “aberrant”–it gets the label _Amer._, (for “Americanism”). Newer references that I’ve used now often just say _Spanish_ if something is limited to Europe, and _Latin American_ (or more specifically, _Mexico_, or _Southern Cone_, etc.), for things limited to areas of the western hemisphere. However, that is really only practicable as a label in a dictionary entry. It doesn’t seem feasible to me, when one is speaking or writing in English, to describe something as “Spanish Spanish,” being opposed to Latin American Spanish. As mentioned above, I think the most commonly accepted term is _peninsular Spanish_. Even though probably quite a few (English-speaking) Americans at least might not know what you mean, it confuses them less than when you say _Castillian_, I think. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/28 "2015-09-02T09:30:39Z")
Still, is there an accepted term that only distinguishes between Spanish in the Americas and otherwise? Like we have American English and International English? Sure, that covers a lot of varieties, but they’re just being grouped together. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/29 "2015-09-02T09:52:18Z")
> [@ddsun](#): > > My husband’s family is from Mexico. In school in CA, for who knows what reason, they teach Castillian Spanish. I once pointed out to my teacher that this wasn’t Mexican Spanish, which would be much more useful, and was accused of being racist. OK then. Indeed. I think that type is dying out, though. I once had the unenviable challenge of trying to rid an evening adult EL program (in a very large CA district that will go unnamed) of one of its teachers who not only taught mostly in Spanish (good luck, Koreans), but wanted everyone to know she was doing it in “proper Castillian.” (She was an elderly Spaniard who taught Spanish to kids in the morning.) This challenge came up when it became apparent that she would have the darker skinned students (typically the indigenous Guatemalans) always sit in the back rows, while her preferred, lighter skinned students sat in front. I caught her once literally rehearsing her class beforehand, which she viewed as a performance for the students, who would “benefit” from her perfect diction. In fact, I think she’d been an actress in Mexico or Spain, and “teaching” these poor people was how she could keep an captive audience. But she didn’t know shit about language acquisition, and they weren’t learning anything. Unfortunately, many school districts at one time hired people like this (because the belief was that you had to know Spanish to teach English to Spanish speakers), but they’ve thankfully mostly retired now, as she did. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/30 "2015-09-02T11:02:39Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > In terms of dictionary labels, I have a really old Larousse Spanish-English unabridged, which gets around the issue in the OP by not labeling European Spanish at all, but rather by just presenting it as the default. If something is of the “New World,”–or “aberrant”–it gets the label Amer., (for “Americanism”). > > Newer references that I’ve used now often just say Spanish if something is limited to Europe, and Latin American (or more specifically, Mexico, or Southern Cone, etc.), for things limited to areas of the western hemisphere. Newer Spanish dictionaries, at least the ones from the _Academias_, do include the countries that use the word, and list entries if they vary by country. A favorite example, _[fotuto](http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=fotuto)_. And not even countries, but if the meaning varies by general branch or by region (Americas) or area of Spain. An example of this is [_cuchara_](http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=cuchara). When no country is next to the entry, it is a general meaning that is accepted in most of the Spanish-speaking world. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/31 "2015-09-02T13:14:42Z")
> [@Mighty\_Girl](#): > > And the consensus seems to be that Colombians are the easiest to understand by everyone. I am not sure if that would be Colombians from a specific region, because I’ve heard some Colombians mutilate the language like the best of us. I’ve watched Colombian soap operas, and with my Guanajuato, Mexico Spanish (which is distinct from other regions of Mexico, thankyouverymuch) they’ve always been very, very easy to understand. Even watching Mexican soap operas I could usually pick out the Colombians. (Spanish isn’t my native language.) > [@ddsun](#): > > After 25 years of being with husband and his family, I have a very hard time in Barcelona, which I visit once a year for business. The accent is slightly different, but there is also a completely different regional language that gets mixed in, used on signs in restaurants, etc. I can order a meal or talk to a cabbie, but a I cannot carry on a conversation. I had a vastly different experience in Barcelona. I was worried that everyone spoke Spain-movie-Spanish (Madrid accent, I guess) and I’d have a terrible time understanding them, or that they would insist on Catalan, but in the end it was a lot easier to adapt to than the Spanish spoken in Sonora, Mexico when I first lived there (as above, my Spanish is Guanajuato Spanish). > [@UDS](#): > > Most attempts to descibe variation of Spanish identify five or six different variants found in the Americas (of which Mexicano is the variant most often encountered in the US) and maybe two variants dominating in Spain - Castellano and Andaluz. But I think these variants are more differences in accent and pronunciation than in grammar or vocabulary. Most dictionaries I’ve looked at in the last 15 years indicate the specific country or countries if it’s specific, including the United States which is developing its own pidgin (if multiple versions forming a new version of the same language can be described such). ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/32 "2015-09-02T15:59:56Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > I’ve watched Colombian soap operas, and with my Guanajuato, Mexico Spanish (which is distinct from other regions of Mexico, thankyouverymuch) they’ve always been very, very easy to understand. Even watching Mexican soap operas I could usually pick out the Colombians. (Spanish isn’t my native language.) I would expect that Colombian actors in _telenovelas_ intended for international distribution would primarily use the Andean accent rather than that from the Caribbean coast, which as I said is generally easier to understand. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/33 "2015-09-02T16:05:26Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Still, is there an accepted term that only distinguishes between Spanish in the Americas and otherwise? Like we have American English and International English? Sure, that covers a lot of varieties, but they’re just being grouped together. Linguistics and phonetics texts frequently use, when further precision is not necessary, “Castilian (Spanish)” or “Iberian Spanish” as a collective term for “_the dialects of Spanish spoken in Spain, considered as a group_”. Either of these terms would commonly be contrasted with “Latin American Spanish” (= “_the dialects of Spanish spoken in the Americas, considered as a group_”). Where further precision is required, specific names of countries or regions within countries would typically be used. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/34 "2015-09-02T16:19:11Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > When I was learning German in college, the instructor was fond of pointing out that he was teaching us “High German”, and that basically no one spoke it in everyday conversation. I thought it wasn’t called “high German” after it being a “lofty” or “proper” dialect, but rather that the “high” refers to the geography where it’s spoken (the more elevated regions of Germany in the south.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/35 "2015-09-02T17:02:21Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Spain-movie-Spanish (Madrid accent, I guess) Not really, most made-in-Spain movies use academic accents. Castilian (as in Old Castille) would be closest of all the regional ones, but Madrid manages to mix the _laismos_ and _loismos_ of OC with the J-for-S of Manchego. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/36 "2015-09-03T17:50:57Z")
Thank you all. I learned a lot. davidmich ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/37 "2015-09-03T17:58:02Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I thought it wasn’t called “high German” after it being a “lofty” or “proper” dialect, but rather that the “high” refers to the geography where it’s spoken (the more elevated regions of Germany in the south.) It’s can be used for [either](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochdeutsch). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587/38 "2015-09-03T19:07:36Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > It’s can be used for [either](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochdeutsch). Ah, so it linguistically refers to what I was thinking, but also it means standard German, although it is based on the linguistic High German dialects. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-term-continental-spanish-as-opposed-to-american-spanish-a-proper-term/729587.md?page=1)