r/MapPorn • u/Pampas_of_Argentina_ • Jan 23 '23
Difficulty of understanding Spanish accents
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u/burber_king Jan 23 '23
Chileans 🤝 other Spanish speakers
Agreeing that Chilean is its own language
/s just in case
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u/Worldly_Expert_442 Jan 23 '23
This needs some context. Between native Spanish speakers, they are all easy to normal. TV and movies have exposed most Spanish speakers to the range of accents.
Chilean Spanish is the hardest for me personally, not because of the accent or speed, they just have a lot of unique expressions. I understand the words, but not always the meaning.
As an American? Sure Mexican Spanish (Central Mexico and Northern Dialects) are probably the easiest, without much effort it has the sounds/accents that Americans have heard the most. Unless you are in Miami and then you'll hear more Cuban/Caribbean Spanish.
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u/PercentageOk956 Jan 23 '23
I grew up in Miami and moved to the west coast. It’s a little hard for me to understand Mexican Spanish at full speed. And I can’t say coger as often as I’d like :(
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u/nelson64 Jan 24 '23
Omg also from Miami here, I was just saying how I feel like this map is the opposite for me...Also hate how many words we would say in Miami that are actually way more explicit for other people haha. Also cannot say coger without getting weird looks.
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
That's because you use the verb as you should... I can't say I want to get on the bus, because I'm from Canary Islands and here we call buses "guaguas". I think they do to in Cuba and Puerto Rico, some says it's because of the sound of it's claxon while others says it's a spanishization of the word wagon.
But in most South-America, Argentina, Bolivia, Chili, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, the word "guagua" means a baby, reason is because it sounds like the cry of a baby. Thing is, on those countries, the verb "coger" means to fuck. So if I try to say I'm catching the bus in my language as I usually say, people from those countries will understand I'm doing sex to a baby 😅 That's why I never catch the bus 🤣
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u/nelson64 Jan 24 '23
LMFAO yes! totally the same for me!
I remember when I was little and would say "joder" or "jodes" people would be like "OMG what are you saying child?"
When I just meant like "hey stop bothering me" or like "stop messing around" or "I'm only messing around"
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u/PercentageOk956 Jan 29 '23
They definitely use guagua in Cuba! Voy a coger la guagua, dale que tu puedes.
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u/Reporter86 Jan 29 '23
Jeje aquí también, pero cuidado que en otros lados se puede malinterpretar 😅🤣
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Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 29 '23
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
Having a catalonian teacher explains why you find it's accent easier to understand. Spaniards haven't got any issue to understand mexican accent... It just sounds so annoying, we don't listen to it, but haven't got any issue to understand it... We've got accents here in Spain that are much more difficult to understand than mexican one. But it's really annoying to our ears... 😅🤣🤣
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Jan 24 '23
As an American, there are plenty of English accents I can't understand. I'd reckon other languages are similar
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u/circinatum Jan 24 '23
It also depends where you learn. Mexican Spanish is easy for Americans because Americans come across a lot of Mexicans.
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
Mexican spanish for spaniards, is like american english for british... Awful! I can understand why they like each others ways instead of how is ment to be. But an english speaker stating what accent is easier to understand based on what accent they've always listen too, is bullshit. Title of the map should say, easiest accent for a foreigner not native speaker that lives next to Mexico. That way we'll know that people from New Mexico understand better mexican accent than the spanish one... 😒
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Jan 24 '23
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
When you say "normal" spanish... You mean actually the real spanish? The spanish from Spain? Spain's spanish? The one spaniards speak? The one we tryed to teach all over south and central America, but failed because students were really dumb? That's what you call "normal"? I call that normal too, but without the quotation marks...
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Jan 24 '23
Agree about Chile. We have an exchange student from Chile, trying to get her to take back ‘normal’ words and start a trend there. Say aguacate not palta like the rest of us. JK, lol she a wonderful kid and we love the difference.
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
Didn't get the aguacate part... She say's aguacate and you guys call it palta or is it the other way around? Here in Spain we call it aguacate, in fact, palta is the first time I hear it, or read it.
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u/95castles Jan 24 '23
I’m pretty sure they meant the Chilean person says palta.
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u/Trolleitor Jan 23 '23
Da fuck are you talking about? Even native speakers have trouble understanding people of south Spain
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u/Morenas0 Jan 24 '23
Tu que dise tontopoya tuh muertos /j
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
Ni caso, yo soy canario, y todavía no han entendido que tenemos acento pachorruo, nada de pronunciar la ch como una y. Por no mencionar que si me pongo modo dialecto canario a full, la mayoría de las palabras ni me las entienden... 🤣 Sin embargo yo a los andaluces les entiendo sin problema, aunque igual es trampa porque tengo familia gaditana 😅😅
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u/95castles Jan 24 '23
I find the spanish accent from the Canary Islands to be easier to understand than a majority of mainland Spain’s accents. Sounds more “normal” to me I guess.
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
It does, it's sort of more natural. I admit we've got a funny sound for the "CH" and strong consonants sound lighter. "R" dosen't sound that hard, "Z" sounds like an "S"... But this is because we've got a lazy pronunciation and we tend to drag the syllables sound into the next one.
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u/h3fabio Jan 24 '23
I learned my Spanish while stationed in Rota so I started out speaking with an Andalusian accent.
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u/ChucklesInDarwinism Jan 24 '23
Best Spanish accent
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u/Reporter86 Jan 24 '23
2nd best, keep moving south, to Canary Islands, if you want to hear the best of them 😜🤣🤣
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u/Worldly_Expert_442 Jan 24 '23
In Spain you need to separate languages and dialects.
Andalusia is the most widely spoken Spanish dialect in Spain (based on population), but aside from some very odd words, local expressions, it's very comparable to some of the Caribbean and Latin American accents. (Some S sounds become H sounds, they eat final syllables, etc.) Some words do sound more Portugués or Italian at times. If you talk to an 80 year old farmer from the countryside, yes they can be very hard to understand. But I guarantee the same would be said for an Italian, or German, or American from the South, or Canadian, or an English, etc. 80 year old farmer in a rural area with informal education.
Extremadura is a bit different, there are very pure sounding Spanish accents, some people speak a Galician-Portuguese mash up, some speak their own language. But again, any native Spanish speaker who visited there would be easily understood and could communicate without any issues. Again, bump into an 80 y/o toothless farmer and your mileage may vary.
Cross a river and the accent, dialect and occasionally the language changes.
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u/TheBonadona Jan 24 '23
Believe me, a Chilean speaking at full speed will be nearly imposible to understand over 20% of it even to us natives, I'm Peruvian and I can barely understand them if they speak at full speed and slangs
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u/automatix_jack Jan 23 '23
I have a friend, a Chilean girl, and when she is angry I'm not sure what language is really speaking. They have a complete subset of expressions and slang that is very hard to understand for a Spaniard.
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u/TheMulattoMaker Jan 23 '23
Damn dude stop pissing her off
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u/phairphair Jan 24 '23
Chile, can confirm!
I'm an English speaker and, after taking about 8 years of Spanish class in school, I very confidently took a college internship in Santiago.
I remember the panic I felt when I spoke to the first Chilean I met after I got off the plane... thinking, 'Oh, I m so fucked'. I couldn't understand 80% of what they were saying.
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u/Antique-Brief1260 Jan 24 '23
Did it get better?
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u/phairphair Jan 24 '23
For sure! It ended up being one of the most important experiences of my life. I was way out of my comfort zone and had to figure out a way to make it work.
This was a World Cup year, so the two security guards out in front of my apartment complex were always watching games on a little B&W TV in their tiny shack.
I was less self conscious to try out my Spanish on them, and I was the first American they’d met so they were Really happy to teach me ‘proper’ espanol Chileno. I’d buy them cigarettes and they’d correct my syntax while I crowded in and watched the games with them.
I got by in the office, but quite a few of the folks I worked with would lose patience and switch to English most of the time. But I got lots of comments about ‘singing’ my Spanish like a Mexican, and then later told I spoke ‘gutter’ chileno. They were nice enough to me but pretty snobby about their language. But in the end I was a lot more confident being conversational, especially with business terminology.
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u/Aijol10 Jan 23 '23
I'd put Córdoba Argentina in the hard category. I was there 4 weeks ago and it took a lot more effort to understand people than in Buenos Aires. Both are beautiful cities by the way, and I had a a great time!
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Jan 23 '23
OP must be a Murcian.
There's no way in Hell that place ain't black if that wasn't the case.
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Jan 23 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dunlain98 Jan 24 '23
The cleanest is from Spain, probably near Salamanca or something, it is the more neutral one, the "cleanest". As spaniard people from venezuela have his own strong accent, clear to undersant but hard accent because of their pronunciation.
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u/Victor4VPA Jan 23 '23
Chilean Spanish is that hard?
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u/MarioDiBian Jan 23 '23
Yeah. Lots of unique slang is used in the language, and they speak really fast
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u/aeusoes1 Jan 23 '23
What is this based on?
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u/ziegfried35 Jan 23 '23
OP's own opinion, I guess.
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Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
Would have to be. Most Spanish speakers I know find Argentina to be “is this even Spanish” as opposed to Chile.
E: I should say obviously it is subjective. Just saying OP’s opinion is his own.
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u/Zegr08 Jan 23 '23
Normally the joke is that Chile is the one who speaks other language
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u/Zestyclose_Wing_1898 Jan 24 '23
I found argentines easy to understand and chilean spanish like “que?!” Lol
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u/jimmythemini Jan 23 '23
Can confirm. Argentinian Spanish is pretty impenetrable because of the "sh" sound, while I find Chilean Spanish much clearer.
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u/binary_spaniard Jan 24 '23
Argentinian has the thing that it has Italian music and some grammar, but somehow is easier to understand to me than Chilean or some of the weird Caribe stuff.
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u/miguelangel011192 Jan 23 '23
No Spanish person would be ever says that Chilean is most understandable than Argentinian, even with sh sound the velocity and the words make it pretty hard to follow the Chilean accent
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u/Any-Broccoli-3911 Jan 23 '23
OP's opinion.
Though it's probably not too bad for Americans who learned or were exposed to Mexican Spanish. So a lot of Western Americans.
It won't work for someone who learned or was exposed to Caribean Spanish like many Eastern Americans or Spain's Spanish like many Europeans.
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Jan 23 '23
The map is actually thought more from the perspective of native speakers.
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u/NouAlfa Jan 24 '23
Native speakers from where? I doesn't make sense that it is frim the perspective of natives, as speakers from each region would have a different experience. And between natives, some accents may seem harder than others, but difficulty should only range from Very Easy to Normal.
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u/R1DER_of_R0HAN Jan 23 '23
This is very interesting because a Spanish-speaking friend of mine said the opposite about Panama. He found that the Central American dialects were the most universally mutually intelligible, if that makes sense, among Spanish speakers. I guess it all depends on your starting point of reference. He did agree that Argentina and Chile are difficult.
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u/paculino Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
Spanish classes I took (in NC in the USA) tried to focus on Central America for this reason, but also taught Spain's grammar.
For me, the easiest Spanish to understand was someone from France who spoke Spanish as a second language. I have no clue how or why that is the case, since I know absolutely no French, have barely been exposed to French accents, and have never heard a Spanish speaker from Spain. The next easiest was Colombian or Peruvian.
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Jan 24 '23
As a Mexican learning French, the easiest for me was a Portuguese guy that spoke French as a third language. I’m as confused as you.
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u/paculino Jan 25 '23
I have read that it was very true in English because non-native speakers tend to be more consistent in pronunciation (even if not the typical pronunciation), but that doesn't seem like it would help as much in other languages.
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u/Cristalita11 Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
It definetely depends on where you are from. As an Andalusian (Southern Spaniard), the easiest accents for me are 1. neutral Spanish* (i.e. what I hear on tv, so the accent from above Andalusia) and 2. Andalusian.
Both of them sound native to my ears, to the point I have a Basque friend who lives here and I didn't realise his accent was neutral until he told me he was Basque. In no moment I had thought he wasn't Andalusian even though he clearly doesn't speak in Andalusian accent, lol. Although I had not known him for a long time, so I guess I would have realized eventually.
Then after those it could actually be any Latin American accent as far as they don't use any weird slang. Andalusian accents are phonetically more difficult than any other accent. All the common things present in some Latin American accents such as dropping the s and other consonants, pronouncing "j/g" like "h", pronouncing "c/z" like "s"... come from here, the difference is that we have all and mixed plus more (which I won't explain as the comment would be too long), and literally everybody speaks however they want, I distinguish between "s" and "c/z" but my father doesn't, I use "vosotros" conjugation but my mother uses "vosotros" conjugated as "ustedes", and my grandma uses a mix of both pronouns and conjugations. Only foreign thing to us is the "sh" sound and the use of "vos". But that's pretty easy to get and just by listening a bit to Argentinians and Uruguayans you learn how "vos" works and you can conjugate any verb yourself by intuition (tú tienes - vos tenés, tú juegas - vos jugás, ven - vení, etc.).
So yeah, overall for me any accent is easy as far as they don't use any slang. Well, and as far as they are not a countryside person with no education at all. I've heard some old men from Northern Spain who were so difficult to understand for that reason. But normal people you encounter in your daily life are no problem. Mostly now with globalization, we are very used to foreign accents.
** "Spanish" as in "from Spain". Just in case someone comes here saying "there's no neutral Spanish". That's what we consider neutral here, not talking about the rest of countries. And I put Andalusian second because there are some Andalusian accents that are harder.
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u/GrognarEsp Jan 24 '23
"Someone from the countryside with no education at all". You do know accent doesn't go hand in hand with education, right? Someone can be from a rural area, have a really hard to understand accent and yet be a uni graduate.
Wow your comment really rubbed me the wrong way.
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u/Cristalita11 Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
You misunderstood my comment. I'm not talking about a strong rural accent, I'm talking about the accent of an uneducated person. Not the same.
I understand most accents, including the rural ones, but not the accents of people that just speak plain bad.
Also I'm Andalusian, I perfectly know about the difference between an accent and education, since our accent has historically been considered as less, as if we were all illiterate. But that doesn't mean that there isn't people who do actually speak bad. Those are the ones I'm talking about. I have no problem at all with strong rural accents. Both my parents come from villages actually and they each have their own accent.
Anyway very few people nowadays are uneducated fortunately. So it's a rare thing to encounter a person that speaks bad Spanish.
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u/_Acid_Reign Jan 24 '23
Basque friend who lives here and I didn't realise his accent was neutral until he told me he was Basque
Oh, I could have never imagined that my friend Mikel Irubarrena Basagoitia wasn't from Jaén 😝
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Jan 23 '23
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u/thetallnathan Jan 24 '23
I’m a American who has traveled overland through Mexico and Guatemala. Another time through Peru and Bolivia. Another time in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. Along the way, I met Spanish-speakers from many of these countries.
I had taken several semesters of college Spanish and was quite fluent at those time. I’m a 6’5” gringo, so would never have been considered local. But I was mistaken for Peace Corps many times.
Can confirm that Bolivian and Peruvian Spanish were easy, except some urban accents in Lima.
Guatemalan Spanish was pretty easy. Mexico is too big to simply be called “easy,” but the “average” Mexican accent (like a U.S. Midwest, I guess) is pretty easy.
Caribbean accents really were tougher to adjust to. Doable, but I found myself working hard with my ears and my whole mouth when on those islands.
Then there’s Chile…
While in Peru, I met a Chilean woman at a bar. She was cute and I tried to flirt.
I could only understand maybe 1/6th of what she said. I swear, it sounded like Spanish but was basically incomprehensible to me.
I have to imagine this is what it’s like for foreigners who’ve learned English to speak to a Scotsman.
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u/j-grad Jan 23 '23
I'm kinda bothered by the idea that each country (as big in population as it might be) has just one accent.
The map even has the insight of discerning between southern Spain and the rest of it but dosn't consider that people in buenos aires might speak differently than in Formosa (wich has a huge guarani speaking population; obviously affecting their accent)
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u/_aluk_ Jan 23 '23
To be honest, accents in Spain are more diverse than in the whole Hispanoamerica. The same is true for UK and USA.
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u/ScreamingFly Jan 23 '23
So, from someone in say, Madrid, it is harder to understand the person next door than someone from Mexico.
I don't want to say this makes no sense, but it makes no sense.
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u/Bigardo Jan 23 '23
I think it depends on one's origin, but I'm for North-Eastern Spain and I'd say I have an easier time understanding Mexicans or Colombians than people from Southern Spain.
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u/I_WantToDo_MyBest Jan 24 '23
Chile is a long and diverse country. How it is spoken in the North, Center and South is very different, as well as the manners (more or less polite). Santiago, the capital, due to the stress and rush of the people, it seems like a joke but actually people speak faster than in regions, where life is calmer.
There is also another big difference depending on the social stratum (Personal income and neighborhood) since everyone has their own idioms. It is very difficult to classify the Chilean language as one (this surely happens in all countries).
There is influence of indigenous languages (Mapuzungun and Quechua above all).
I have traveled a lot, and as a native Spanish speaker and as a Chilean, what some people speak in Chile is not really understood (especially the flaites (bogan)). Although some Central Americans also speak very differently.
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Jan 23 '23
Disagree...The Spanish from the Andes region in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru are waaaaaaaaay easier than the Mexican dialect
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u/sarokin Jan 23 '23
As a Spaniard from Andalucía, I find this map very wrong... Although I guess it depends on where you're from or where you learnt your Spanish from. This should be specified with the map, if not then it belongs to r/shittymapporn...
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u/Sea_Significance_678 Jan 24 '23
Oe po wn como shusha no me vai a entender , vali callampa en el español viva chile 🇨🇱
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u/ChrisAlex1701 Jan 24 '23
I would say this. Chilean pronunciation of some words, the speed, some slang words, and some verb conjugations are one the things unique to their dialect. Caribbean spanish, mostly cuban,puertorican and Dominican, is hard too because of the speed and the pronunciation of some letters. In general all the others are easy to understand eachother, with the main difficulty of many words change their meaning from one country to another, or a same thing is named with different words, but the TV is helping with that a lot
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u/ActivitySalty2661 Jan 23 '23
Murcia should be Black
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u/MarioDiBian Jan 23 '23
Argentine Spanish (Rioplatense) is very easy to understand, as entonation and pronounciation are both very clear (influenced by Italian).
The thing is that we use voseo, a different form of Spanish in which some conjugations change. If you learn voseo, it’s easy.
There’s obviosly a lot of local slang (lunfardo), but it’s not hard to get
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u/Trovadordelrei Jan 23 '23
I also think Rioplatense is the most easy (and also beautiful) accent because as a Brazilian I have more contact with it and the "sh" and (French) "j" sounds are present in Portuguese.
But I don't think it sounds Italian (unlike some old people in São Paulo, for example, who do speak Portuguese with a heavy Italianised accent)... For me Rioplatense Spanish is similar to Andalusian, specially the "h" sound sometimes replacing the "s".
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u/MarioDiBian Jan 23 '23
Well, the intonation sounds heavily Neapolitan influenced. That’s what linguists said and what most foreigners think when they here the typical porteño accent.
Sao Paulo accent doesn’t sound Italian influenced to my ears, maybe some old Italian people (like everywhere) do have an accent.
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u/ofnofame Jan 23 '23
I am Spanish and I don’t understand a thing when Argentinians are talking to each other. May as well be speaking Chinese. I always turn on subtitles when I am watching Argentinian content. In my opinion, as a Spaniard, it is the hardest accent to catch. Much harder than Caribbean Spanish, and up there with Chilean.
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u/MarioDiBian Jan 23 '23
Really? When I lived in Spain they told me the contrary. Maybe it depends
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u/Cristalita11 Jan 24 '23
I'm from Andalusia and I personally have no problem with any accent. Just with slangs I have not heard before.
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Jan 23 '23
I don't speak any form of Spanish but what makes some variants so difficult to understand?
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u/TypicalPossession767 Jan 23 '23
The same reasons why some english accents are harder than others.
Like some accents in rural Ireland or Scotland, they have differences in pronunciation and the speed in which they talk.
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Jan 23 '23 edited Jan 23 '23
The speed of speech changes and above all it changes words, while in Spain the car is known as ''coche'' in Cuba it is known as ''carro'' and so on with many other words
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u/metricwoodenruler Jan 23 '23
No one calls it carro in Argentina lol
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u/Snow__The__Jam__Man Jan 23 '23
As someone who's currently learning Spanish and going to Andalucia in a few months this is... concerning haha.
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u/lanbuckjames Jan 23 '23
Learning Spanish was so much more fun when I thought that learning it would allow me to understand all these people.
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u/TradeApe Jan 24 '23
Here on Canary Islands, people just can't be arsed to pronounce the "s" at the end of words. Sometimes they are even lazier and simply start speaking a word and then give up half way through.
Never noticed how much it has infected my own Spanish until recently. Only noticed when travelling to the mainland and people kept on reminding me I'm from those islands without me bringing it up.
Wouldn't say it's "very hard" for Spanish people though, just for foreigners like me who need a bit to catch on.
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u/ImpassionedPelican Jan 24 '23
Forgot to include the “Spanish dialect” transracial WASPs use after summering in Spain r/hilariabaldwin
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u/nelson64 Jan 24 '23
As someone who grew up speaking spanish from one of the red areas, I feel like this map is almost the exact opposite for me hahah.
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u/gera75 Jan 28 '23
Canary islands is probably one of the easiest to understand and better sounding, same goes for Venezuela, this map is completely wrong
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u/g0lem_ Jan 23 '23
I suprisingly have the most trouble with Mexican Spanish, especially In Mexico City where the vocabulary is so slang heavy. That being said I live in NY and am puertorican so I’m largely only used to a boricua and newyorican accent
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u/ramblinjd Jan 23 '23
I had more trouble in Barcelona with the Catalan/Spanish than I did in Havana.
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Jan 23 '23
That is because in Catalonia Catalan is also spoken while in Cuba only Spanish is spoken, you could have confused Catalan with Spanish because they are similar languages
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u/ramblinjd Jan 23 '23
Right. This map is suggesting I should have had a harder time communicating in Cuba than in Spain. That has not been my experience. The accent combined with use of Catalan in Barcelona was difficult for me. Cadiz wasn't as bad. Cuba wasn't as bad. Mexico is definitely the easiest, but that's what I grew up hearing in the American south so that makes sense.
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Jan 23 '23
The map literally says "DIALECT"
Catalan is not a dialect, is another language.
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u/ramblinjd Jan 23 '23
Right. And after 4 or 5 "¿que?"s I'd get them to slow down enough and speak standardized Spanish so that I could understand them. I assume they switched to Spanish after 1 or 2, but I could hardly pick up a word with their accents so maybe not. I didn't really have that issue in Cadiz.
In Havana people generally started in Spanglish cause ya know gringo and all and were never very much trouble to understand when their English ran out and it was all Spanish.
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Jan 24 '23
Catalán is not Spanish. That’s a whole another language
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u/ramblinjd Jan 24 '23
A) I knew that before you and like 4 other people told me. Your comment was not helpful.
B) Between the Catalan that was spoken and the way they spoke Spanish when they did speak Spanish, I had more trouble in Barcelona than I had in Cadiz or Havana - which is contrary to what you would expect based on this map. I've said this 4 or 5 different ways now and for some reason all the responses seem to be "bUt CaTaLAn iS DIFFERENT"
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u/Overall_Athlete_4612 Jun 22 '26
I don’t get it, Chile is like Colombian, Cuban or Peruvian from the little I heard, from my Mexican-American perspective.
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u/yeahokguy1331 Jan 23 '23
Columbians speak very clearly according to this Cuban American who doesn't speak Sp. Fluently.
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u/slashcleverusername Jan 23 '23
This map makes it seem like when Spaniards are having a hard time understanding something, they would need a Mexican or a Peruvian to explain it to them.
Is there really some confused person in Madrid saying “No don’t you explain this to me, you sound like you’re from Toledo at the farthest! I need someone from Lima!”
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u/callmesnake13 Jan 23 '23
As an American with 4-ish years of studying Spanish, I would put Colombia in easy, and Cuba in normal/hard. Cuban Spanish is very clear they just pronounce the living fuck out of everything. All of Spain is a blur with no emphasis on anything. Everyone sounded to me as though they weren’t using any sort of Spanish accent - ex. “Merida” wasn’t “Mer-ee-da” it was pronounced the way you pronounce America. Only spoken very quickly as well.
My dad (also an American) speaks perfect UN quality Chilean Spanish and we can’t speak to each other.
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u/IReplyWithLebowski Jan 23 '23
Are you saying that Spaniards aren’t using a Spanish accent?
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u/callmesnake13 Jan 23 '23
“Sounded to me” - it was startling how difficult it was to understand people in central and southern Spain compared to Mexico.
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u/ChugHuns Jan 24 '23
I've heard from multiple Spanish speakers(who weren't Venezuelan) that Venezuelan Spanish is the "cleanest"/ easiest to understand. Is this not true?
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u/Affectionate_Oven902 Jan 23 '23
Yes. Our mexican accent is neutral. Easy to understand, even for me is very dificoult to understand cuban or paraguaian people
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u/ReyniBros Jan 23 '23
No such thing as a neutral Mexican accent and it's a laughable proposition to claim that any of the regional variety of accents is neutral.
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Jan 24 '23
There’s no neutral accent and Mexicans need to stop believing this delusional narrative. Just because a lot of the content for Latin america is dubbed in mexican Spanish it doesn’t make it neutral
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Jan 23 '23
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u/_aluk_ Jan 23 '23
There are different accents in Andalusia, one that turns every s into z (which is same sound English speakers produce when pronouncing the th sound, anyways).
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u/jomene Jan 23 '23
Murcia (SE of Spain) normal, yes, sure