When I watch a movie filmed by and for a British audience, I can struggle to understand. Some of it is word choice, and some is simply the unfamiliar accents.
When native Spanish speakers meet, can they end up with similar problems?
I wondered this while watching a baseball game where a Venezuelan catcher was talking to a Puerto Rican pitcher. Are their accents ever likely to be difficult for each other?
Absolutely yes. I am Cuban and when I talk to Argentinians I know they’re speaking spanish, but I can’t understand more than every other word. I can’t really say the same for any other nationalities though, unless it’s a slang word. There is just something about the Argentinian accent that throws me.
I’ve heard that Argentenians are particularly difficult to understand, due to their tendency to make the c and j a “ch” (as in change) sound. My Spanish teacher, who is not a native speaker, said he had trouble understanding people from northern Spain, while he could speak perfectly with those from the south.
(Not a native speaker). I understand Argentinians much, much easier than Cubans (and Puerto Ricans, for that matter).
Does this tend to be a difference that can be overcome by people speaking verrrrry sloooowly, or is it deeper than that? (This question is for anyone who has encountered this problem.)
I understand that Antonio Banderas, who does the voice of Puss in Boots for the Shrek movies also does the same part in Spanish for different regions (pretty neat, that). But he does it with different accents for different places – and it’s not the same accent as the place it’s going (which means that Puss always sounds like a foreigner). So he does him as an Iberian for the Mexican market, for instance, but some completely different accent for the version marketed in Spain.
I can’t understand either Cubans or Argentinians. 
Spanish is my second language, but I find Andean (Ecuadorian and Peruvian) and Guatemalan Spanish to be the easiest to understand. Caribbean Spanish (Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Panamanian) is often tough. Argentineans sometimes might as well be speaking Italian.
When I was in High school (57% Hispanic) I could identify where a native speaker was from just by listing to their accent and manner of speaking.
Cubans, for example, speak very fast compared to someone from Mexico.
my BIL lived in Equador for two years and learned to speak spanish there. He had to adjust his language and accent to speak with people who speak spanish at home. His wife is bilingual so I assume he now speaks spanish with the hispanic accent common to our area.
Accent is a natural part of language. Language evolves so of course it would evolve differently for people speaking in different geographic locations.
My Brazilian friends all tell me they have no trouble understanding spoken/written spanish. But a spaniard in Brazil-he cannot speak or understand portuguese-why is this? many of the verbs are the same.
jsgoddess writes:
> When I watch a movie filmed by and for a British audience, I can struggle to
> understand. Some of it is word choice, and some is simply the unfamiliar accents.
Do you seriously have problems understanding a standard British accent? I can understand if you have problems understanding some of the more unusual British accents, since you’re not likely to hear them very much, but how could you have problems with a standard British accent? How could any American make it to adulthood without having listened to a reasonable number of British movies, TV shows, and British actors being interviewed on American TV talk shows?
Colibri writes:
> Argentineans sometimes might as well be speaking Italian.
There were a lot of Italian immigrants to Argentina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, so there is a lot of Italian influence on Argentinean Spanish.
Yeah, in my experience they make pretty good pizza in Buenos Aires too. I especially liked the hearts of palm with mozzarella.
It has been said that an Argentinean is an Italian who speaks Spanish, acts French, and would like to be British. (No offense meant to any porteños 
).
By not watching a lot of TV or movies. I do fine with *written * British English.
Written British English is essentially the same thing as written American English. Did you actually grow up not watching TV or seeing movies? There are Americans who did such a thing, but most of them live out in the middle of nowhere.
I do fairly well with most programs. You’re kind of snotty, aren’t you?
There are a wide range of accents, across Hispanic America and also the regions of Spain. The classic theismo (which has nothing to do with theism, but rather with sounding the letter “c” as a theta (unvoiced th sound)) is Castilian. As I understand, Andalucians drop letters with abandon. Terminal -s is often unsounded in a couple of American dialects.
Iberian Spanish generally sounds the double L as a palatalized L sound, roughly as in English million. Most of Hispanic America renders it as a Y sound. And the Southern Cone – Argentina and neighboring countries – renders it as the d[sub]3[/sub] sound of English J as in Jones.
My impression, though, is that there’s a great deal of mutual comprehension, about equivalent to what you might hear in a discussion between someone with a Kansas rasp, a Georgia drawl, a New England twang, a braid Yorkshire accent, the clipped “U” English of Maggie Thatcher, and the indescribable Aussie accent of Steve Irwin – each of whom could understand all the others just fine, though he/she would sound strange to them and they to him/her.
I’ve heard Americans complain at times about having problems understanding British accents, and I find it hard to take their complaints seriously. Nearly all Americans grow up hearing a reasonably wide variety of British accents on TV and in movies. An American will hear a standard British accent spoken as often as any of the more obscure American accents. I find it weird then that some Americans claim that they can’t understand a standard British accent.
And incidentally, jsgoddess, I grew up on a farm in Ohio, so I was exposed to approximately the same variety of experiences as a child that you were.
Like some had said, it depends on the nation/region.
But if you’re talking about a film, chances are that yes, I would have no problem (as a Puerto Rican) understanding what they’re saying. That is because for film/movies/soap operas, productions generally use a more “generic” or formal way of speaking, such that can be understood by different audiences (of different countries).
Now, I may not know the meaning of some words/phrases, because they are slang or perfectly normal colloquialism, and that certainly varies from one country or region to the other.
Like I said, this is for film/media, and it also includes news. Someone from Venezuela interviewing someone from Puerto Rico is going to use some “standard” Spanish, avoiding Venezuelan idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms as much as possible when speaking to someone who is not from their country. Now that is just professionalism and politeness.
Teammates, playmates, and friends may talk to each other in their different accents, but spend enough time together that they know what the other one is talking about, even if they have different accents/slang. You will probably never hear me speak like someone from Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, or Venezuela, but when I talk with my friends and they use their native slang, I may already know what they mean (and if I don’t know, I ask).
Some two random people from different countries may recognize from where the other person is by their accent, may already know the slang words (common ones) of the other person’s region, and if not able to completely understand may at least say so knowing that the other person will understand and perhaps say it slower or use some other words.
Small anecdote: My Brazilians friends went to Mexico, and came back saying how fast they were talking Spanish, and that they were having trouble following them. I almost laughed in their faces, and told them that in general it is those from the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic) that speak the fastest, not Mexicans.
Well, as soon as someone complains, you be sure to speak up. Otherwise, unless you have something to say about Spanish speakers, you’re in the wrong thread.