What's The Most Difficult Thing In The Spanish Language?

[AdrianB1983]

It's always been funny to me the impression Argentines have about Spanish being so terribly difficult. If I take 3 minutes to explain the horrid Greek case system they start to get the clue that maybe castellano ain't so tough. Furthermore, try explaining the concept of a spelling bee to an argie: it doesn't exist here because the idea of having terribly hard to spell words doesn't exist in Spanish, which has the most consistent orthography I know of.

When I started this thread I never implied that spanish is difficult. I just wanted to know which were everyone's difficulties. IMO English is far harder, much more words, different vowel and consonant sounds that we don't have, lots of phrasal verbs (I actually have a whole dictionary for that... wtf?). Despite those facts I still haven't run into an English speaker who speaks spanish without making a mistake every two sentences (not to mention the accent). Have you ever talked to a spanish speaker who speaks perfect english?

 

[EdRooney]

Yeah my point doesn't actually touch on your original post, so sorry to hijack.

Yes I have run into Argentines who speak painfully perfect English, somewhat like many Scandinavians. But in this case they are like 19th Century Russian aristocrats who spoke French better than Russian. Without exception, all of these acquaintances of mine went to bi-lingual high schools and/or spent extensive time in the US, and as a class they have a general envy of all things from the US and a disdain for all things Argentine, and their linguistic emphases reflects this.

On the other hand, most of the English speaking expats I know here took up serious study of Spanish much later in life and it's not a cultural obsession for them the way it is for the Argentines, so they are much more prone to make clumsy errors and focus more on just communicating. Furthermore, in my experience the Norteamericano that makes a grammatical error is generally viewed as charming and beloved down here, whereas someone in the US who makes errors in English is seen as an 'ignorant immigrant'. Sad as it is, that is what I have seen.

 

[AdrianB1983]

Yeah my point doesn't actually touch on your original post, so sorry to hijack.

Yes I have run into Argentines who speak painfully perfect English, somewhat like many Scandinavians. But in this case they are like 19th Century Russian aristocrats who spoke French better than Russian. Without exception, all of these acquaintances of mine went to bi-lingual high schools and/or spent extensive time in the US, and as a class they have a general envy of all things from the US and a disdain for all things Argentine, and their linguistic emphases reflects this.

On the other hand, most of the English speaking expats I know here took up serious study of Spanish much later in life and it's not a cultural obsession for them the way it is for the Argentines, so they are much more prone to make clumsy errors and focus more on just communicating. Furthermore, in my experience the Norteamericano that makes a grammatical error is generally viewed as charming and beloved down here, whereas someone in the US who makes errors in English is seen as an 'ignorant immigrant'. Sad as it is, that is what I have seen.

Yes, I guess you're right. Besides in Argentina a very good level of english can get you better jobs whereas for you guys in the US I asume speaking spanish is pretty useless, unless you work with something related to Latin America. It's a matter of necessity to us. About the ignorant immigrant, that's if you are from Latin America, what if you are german? (and back to the racism/prejudice thread)

Spanish is so easy to pronounce I really envy you:

Nosh vemosh!

 

[wineguy999]

Though many Argentines cannot distinguish "b" from "v."

Me: "It's Haven...h-a-v-e-n."
Wife: "Hache-a-be...be de beso, o ve de vaca?"
Me: "V sweetheart, the only v in either of our alphabets."

Face palm.

 

[tapi_2]

Me: "It's Haven...h-a-v-e-n."
Wife: "Hache-a-be...be de beso, o ve de vaca?"
Me: "V sweetheart, the only v in either of our alphabets."

Face palm.

LOL. When I was younger I'd often ask it, " 'b' de burro o 'v' de vaca?" Sometimes people would joke, "si es para ti, siempre de burro".

Speaking Spanish and English in the States can land you a lot of customer service jobs in the southern states as well as NY, but it doesn't help you too much more than that unless your company does a lot of work with a Latin American company.

As far as knowing someone that speaks perfect English and perfect Spanish. I've only personally heard one. She's a young Mexican singer named Ximena Sariñana. Her music is okay, but she speaks amazingly well in both languages. Pretty much no accent as far as I can tell in either language.

How about this word for those that have a hard time rolling the 'rr': "Ferroviarrio".