Talk:Castilian Spanish phrasebook

Merge

I don't think there is a significant enough difference between Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish to warrant a different article. I propose we merge this article into Spanish phrasebook The dog2 (talk) 13:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I imagine a separate article was started largely on the basis of providing a different space to give castillian pronunciation transliteration, so people using the guide in Mexico, for example, don't walk around saying "us-TETH" for "usted" or "zho" for "yo". Texugo (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

As per Talk:Spanish_phrasebook#Title it could probably use merging.

As I understand it, a Brazilian may not understand Portuguese very easily when spoken by someone from Portugal. I don't think the same thing holds for Castilian Spanish? Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:27, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The pronunciations are quite different, and the issue isn't whether locals would understand Castellano so much as whether a traveller would understand Castellano readily if s/he knew a little Latin American Spanish. See my remarks at Talk:Spanish phrasebook. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The thing is: There is more variety within either "standard" than there is between them. Just one example: Cadíz would be pronounced "kadeeth" by someone in Madrid. By someone in Mexico it would be pronounced "kadees" however, people in Cadíz itself tend to garble it to something like "Kaee". One frequent theory is that (some of) the differences between "standard" Latin American Spanish and Spanish Spanish go back to idiosyncrasies still found in Andalusian Spanish, because apparently the Andalusians were at a time the dominant group of migrants to Latin America. Just like the idiosyncrasies of Argentinian Spanish are mostly due the influence of Italian migrants ("zho me zhamo", anybody?). The biggest problem one might encounter is using words that are used differently in each variety. "coger" for example means "to take" in Spain (as in "voy a coger el bus numero 158") in many Latin American places (including Nicaragua) it means "to fuck" so the Spaniard would have said "I am going to fuck bus number 158". The unambiguous word is "tomar", in case you were wondering. However, said word is used in Spain mostly for eating and drinking. Still we don't have a "Australian English phrasebook" or a "Dixie drawl phrasebook" and they also notably differ from "standard" English (as does Scottish or Yorkshire English) Hobbitschuster (talk) 11:00, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

There is an Australian slang article, and we also have an English language varieties article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I realize this is an old discussion, but I agree with what Hobbitschuster said—the differences between Iberian and Latin American Spanish are not that huge, and there is lots of variety within each region. I think it's better to have one phrasebook (right now we have two that diverge pretty significantly even in things that are the same between Spain and Latin America) and note the relatively few relevant differences where they come up. We can describe the differences in pronunciation in the "Pronunciation guide" section (which we have to do already, because pronunciation varies within Spain and within Latin America). —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:46, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

If you'd like to make the merge and address the differences in pronunciation and, if relevant, vocabulary there, I think you should go ahead. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:38, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Done. I think the merged article is better than either of the previous ones, and it will now be much easier to maintain. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

x as in "exit"

That's "egg-zit" for me and many other Americans. I don't think people in Spain pronounce "x" like that. Should we substitute "usually like English x in x-ray"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:07, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

At any rate, this pronunciation of x is "most of the time but not always". Words like Mexico or Texas make a mockery of any attempt to say x is "usually" pronounced any specific way in Spanish. And that's before we get into more obscure stuff like "Xolotlan" or "Xochimilco" or the use of "x" as shorthand for "por". Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

But I'm sure it's not pronounced "gz" most of the time. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

No. That's for sure. It sounds much more like the German x when it is pronounced "normally" (which is as mentioned above a tenuous concept for this letter). Hobbitschuster (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Whereupon my question at the beginning of this thread: How about "x in x-ray"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:27, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it is a bit unfortunate to chose a example like x-ray which is basically "x as a letter" not "x as a sound" if you understand what I mean. But I don't know which words have x pronounced "hard" in all dialects of English or whether there even is such a word. What about "Ax"? Would you say "ex" and "eggs" are pronounced the same in "American English"? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:08, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

No. Either of those words would be fine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

I changed to "x" as in "axe". Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)