Achieving Fluency In Castellano (Esp. Comprehension)

[EdRooney]

Personally, I learned Argentino from watching Capusotto and La Llama que Llama.

This explains sooooo much.

 

[sleslie23]

This explains sooooo much.

Hmmm, I think you may be right.

Here are my favorites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFOBlAX-W3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKm8wBuE9w4

 

[Girino]

Slang -- there are quite a few Lunfardo books around, and there's a Diccionario del Habla de los Argentinos. There is also a website lurking around, I'll see if I can find it.

I was shown a dictionary of a printed dictionary of Lunfardo, what I meant is that there is no teaching book of Spanish from Argentina for foreigners. I looked everywhere in Capital (Yenny, Ateneo, etc.) for a book to study on, and I could only find ONE book for adults but for standard Spanish. Also the Spanish courses available online or in form of softwares or app, are for the standard Spanish. The only exception is the app "Buenos Entonces" which I knew through this forum.
So one should either learn "by hear" or learn the Spanish from Spain and then remember the Argentinian variants.

In the press -- I know that yes there are definitely mistakes, but I'm not sure if this is quite what you mean.

I mean spelling mistakes, mistakes such as "maceta" written as "mazeta" or "serca" instead of "cerca". Anyway this is happening also in Italy, where they pick young trainee to write articles for online editions of mainstream newspapers. In the past, you looked at newspaper to learn "the correct way" to say things, now an average person can spot mistakes in the press, and this contribute to the spreading of mistakes.

Do you maybe mean the use of future perfect?

I mean in the consecution temporum, especially when it involves the subjuntivo and condicional forms.

Also it's not just Argentina that has distincts words. Avocado for instance -- Southern Cone, Peru, Venezuela = palta. Rest of World = aguacate. Colombia? Cura. Oh those damned Colombians not even knowing or caring that there is a different word used by the rest of Spanish speakers. Oh if only they and the 460 million + other speakers of Spanish all referred to MADRID and the RAE. It's one thing to wish for a use of Spanish neutral on global news networks or in international editions of books. But seriously? To expect the average man in the street to look to the RAE. I know plenty of Argentines who work with language (linguists, translators, interpretors, professors) and yes, they read and maybe keep a bit more abreast of changes at the RAE. But the average guy in the street? Tell me, does the average guy in some tiny village in Southern Italy pay attention to what they dictate at La Cursa? I doubt it. And Italy is much smaller both geographically and in terms of numbers of speakers of that language.

I suppose that in Argentina they play movies and TV shows which are recorded elsewhere (cartoons dubbed in Mexico, for example), or sell book written in International Spanish, therefore sooner or later people get to hear "fresa" in their life. Also, it's not like in Argentina they never had Spaniards here, so it is just odd that they forgot so quickly about these differences in most common stuff (food, house).
Sometimes people can say to me the name of these stuff in Italian (with mistakes, clearly) because they have an Italian heritage, but there are at least as much Spanish descendants as Italian's, so it is so odd ignoring completely that they are called differently elsewhere in the Spanish world.

Btw, I don't like that the RAE should be used as a reference in the Spanish world, I also don't like the term "Standard Spanish" or "International Spanish" with reference with the Spanish of Spain. It is so colonialist! I don't think the Italian-Swiss use La Crusca as a reference for their Italian, for example. (Don't laugh, I was the first to believe there was no difference between Italian-Italy and Italian-Switzerland but I had to change my mind).

I just wish there was a RAE of Argentina for the Spanish spoken in Argentina. That's all.

 

[syngirl]

There is an RAE of Argentina -- Academia Argentina de Letras -- they are the ones that produced the DiHA -- Diccionario del Habla Argentina -- there were only 4500 entries but they release updates on the site, ie: http://www.letras.ed...gentinismos.pdf

Their site: http://www.letras.edu.ar/

One of my Argentine friends posting in a discussion about the origin of "mango" for money -- which we didn't solve too satisfactorily -- posted a link to this blog: http://fabiangradolp...o-hablamos.html

It's a brief article with a short Argentine-Spanish glossary at the bottom. In it he says:

Muchas veces, ni nos fijamos en las diferencias de uso de vocabulario entre unas zonas y otras. Simplemente hablamos y nos entendemos.

Los niños, sin embargo, que son mucho más observadores que los adultos, tienden a fijarse más en las pequeñas diferencias.

I guess when we are learning languages we are like children and we tend to fret about these things, but as you grow more comfortable and become more adept at expressing yourself, you move to the adult step of simplemente hablamos y nos entendemos (even with the occasional, what on earth do you mean??)

This source might interest you as well Serafina haven't had a chance to read through but perhaps there are some more links for glossaries of lunfardo: http://www.elortiba.org/hablapop.html

beso

 

[sleslie23]

I was shown a dictionary of a printed dictionary of Lunfardo, what I meant is that there is no teaching book of Spanish from Argentina for foreigners. I looked everywhere in Capital (Yenny, Ateneo, etc.) for a book to study on, and I could only find ONE book for adults but for standard Spanish. Also the Spanish courses available online or in form of softwares or app, are for the standard Spanish. The only exception is the app "Buenos Entonces" which I knew through this forum.
So one should either learn "by hear" or learn the Spanish from Spain and then remember the Argentinian variants.

There are several books specifically for learning Argentine Spanish. I have a photocopy of one. I'll be back in BsAs on Saturday. I'll dig it out and send you the name. It may be out of print, however. Most of my friends are Spanish teachers. I'll ask them for the names of others.

 

[Girino]

There are several books specifically for learning Argentine Spanish. I have a photocopy of one. I'll be back in BsAs on Saturday. I'll dig it out and send you the name. It may be out of print, however. Most of my friends are Spanish teachers. I'll ask them for the names of others.

That would be awesome! I often get puzzled when I learn something from my grammar book and then go out and I am told "this doesn't exist here" or "we say it that way" which is also identical to something else. It is also frustrating, because once I get something from the book I find out that here it is not used.
For example I used "tu eres" for months, then I got the "vos" after I was repeatly asked "De donde sos vos?" without understanding it... i was checking it against "De donde eres?" and the sound I hear didn't match the words I knew for that question. I thought they said "son", which I knew it was a present form of the verb "to be", just for a different person, so I thought they were talking about something else (plural) and not about me.

But it was after a couple of week from that that finally someone told me I can't say "vos eres" because it was a mix that doesn't exist.
It's either "tu eres" (standard Spanish) or "vos sos" (Argentine Spanish, specifically from BsAs).

 

[Roxana]

I was shown a dictionary of a printed dictionary of Lunfardo, what I meant is that there is no teaching book of Spanish from Argentina for foreigners. I looked everywhere in Capital (Yenny, Ateneo, etc.) for a book to study on, and I could only find ONE book for adults but for standard Spanish. Also the Spanish courses available online or in form of softwares or app, are for the standard Spanish. The only exception is the app "Buenos Entonces" which I knew through this forum.
So one should either learn "by hear" or learn the Spanish from Spain and then remember the Argentinian variants.


I mean spelling mistakes, mistakes such as "maceta" written as "mazeta" or "serca" instead of "cerca". Anyway this is happening also in Italy, where they pick young trainee to write articles for online editions of mainstream newspapers. In the past, you looked at newspaper to learn "the correct way" to say things, now an average person can spot mistakes in the press, and this contribute to the spreading of mistakes.



I mean in the consecution temporum, especially when it involves the subjuntivo and condicional forms.



I suppose that in Argentina they play movies and TV shows which are recorded elsewhere (cartoons dubbed in Mexico, for example), or sell book written in International Spanish, therefore sooner or later people get to hear "fresa" in their life. Also, it's not like in Argentina they never had Spaniards here, so it is just odd that they forgot so quickly about these differences in most common stuff (food, house).
Sometimes people can say to me the name of these stuff in Italian (with mistakes, clearly) because they have an Italian heritage, but there are at least as much Spanish descendants as Italian's, so it is so odd ignoring completely that they are called differently elsewhere in the Spanish world.

Btw, I don't like that the RAE should be used as a reference in the Spanish world, I also don't like the term "Standard Spanish" or "International Spanish" with reference with the Spanish of Spain. It is so colonialist! I don't think the Italian-Swiss use La Crusca as a reference for their Italian, for example. (Don't laugh, I was the first to believe there was no difference between Italian-Italy and Italian-Switzerland but I had to change my mind).

I just wish there was a RAE of Argentina for the Spanish spoken in Argentina. That's all.

You can contact one of the Academias del Lunfardo, they have monthly meetings.

 

[Crema Americana]

It's been my experience that Argentines are familiar with other ways to say things due to their exposure to "neutral" Spanish dubbing/subtitles or to literature studied in school, but they're not going to use them and may forget. Fruits/vegetables and items of clothing seem to be the most different... but other than that, it's mostly just a difference of slang (and the vos conjugation, which really is just an offshoot of old Spanish.) They are also taught vosotros / tu conjugations in school.

As to the RAE... it's a lot like the Oxford dictionary. Each country has their own dictionaries and words, but you can't deny that English originated in England or that Spanish originated in Spain. And considering the fact that the world is getting smaller (in terms of communication, culture, etc) it's a natural process for the lexicon to be more similar, not less (apart from regional slang and such, which these days even that is often shared or heard.) That doesn't mean each country can't have its own "Language Keepers", but I don't find it colonialist at all. Other than vos and some other small vocabulary details, sentence structure, spelling, and grammar are essentially the same.

As for the Academia Argentina de Letras.... from their website:
[font=Droid Sans']La 23.ª edición del [/font]Diccionario de la lengua española[font=Droid Sans'], conocido popularmente como [/font]DRAE[font=Droid Sans'] y publicado por la Real Academia Española (RAE) y la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), fue lanzada simultáneamente en España y en América el jueves 16 de octubre. El más importante[/font] Diccionario[font=Droid Sans'] de referencia y consulta del español es editado por Espasa, de Editorial Planeta, y ya está disponible en librerías de la Argentina y de todo el mundo hispanohablante.[/font]

The RAE isn't just "Madrid Castellano", lately it's been more inclusive of South American Spanish and even accepting regional differences (like Andalusian Spanish.) Look up chorro on the RAE website and it not only gives you the standard definition, but also colloquial terms, including that of Chile/Argentina.

There are several scientific studies that shown that you are really fluent in your not- native language when you think and dream using the second language. Stadistically, the time required to switch and be able to think and dream, is about 3 months living with locals.

This is interesting... I would say that my Spanish now is better than it's ever been, but I almost never think or dream in Spanish. However, when I was about 20, I lived for a year with my aunt in Spain and at that time I did start to think and dream in Spanish - not exclusively, but often enough to the point I was even forgetting common English words. The difference was that at that time, I had nobody to speak English to and had no access to English tv -- I didn't even have internet. Now, even though I speak Spanish almost always with my husband and it's the predominant language in my life, I hear a lot of English - tv shows, internet, even movies at the movie theater - so my brain still operates in English.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd say most people never really get to the point where they're thinking/dreaming in the foreign language as if it were their primary language - at least not as long as their first language is in their life. Definitely not after a few months.

The science behind it is interesting. It's funny how even toddlers can differentiate between languages (my niece wants nothing to do with English and even gets mad when I speak it! :lol: )

 

[Rich One]

ver video....!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xyp7xt-ygy0

 

[wineguy999]

There are several scientific studies that shown that you are really fluent in your not- native language when you think and dream using the second language. Stadistically, the time required to switch and be able to think and dream, is about 3 months living with locals.

An acid test for fluency? Crossword puzzles.