Comment on How come in most school in the USA (at least mine) they teach Spain Spanish instead of Mexico Spanish? Would not Mexico Spanish be an obvious choice to teach?

• gooble@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  a couple reasons I can think of:

  -choosing which dialects are taught where would be messy and complicated -it would make producing and distributing textbooks and other learning materials more complicated and expensive

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  • Lemminary@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I don’t know what you mean by “choosing a dialect would be messy and complicated” since Mexican Spanish is an obvious choice. The rest of Latin America understands Mexican Spanish well because they grew up watching our shows, listening to our music and watching movies with Mexican dubs. I’ve met at least one Uruguayan, Argentinian, and a Peruvian who told me so. Don’t you think its widespread would make the choice easier?

    And how do you mean it’d be more complicated and expensive? The learning materials are already made and widely used. I think it’d be a licensing issue at worst if they really wanted to switch over.

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    • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Good points.

      Still at such an early level I’m not sure the distinction will be apparent or meaningful. Might be like learning German. Why pick a Hannover style of speaking over Bavarian so early?

      That said I do think Mexican Spanish is more neutral in accent and cadence.

      Also please enjoy this.

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• southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Formality and standardized grammar.

  At some point, when you’re involving teaching a language to a class, you need a systematic way of doing so.

  Typically, that means going with dictionaries and that in turn is likely to be the most formal version of a language’s pronunciation. And, with grammar, you start with the simplest but also most standardized, codified version because that’s what the books are going to use.

  You don’t worry about idiom and dialect until you’ve got a fairly good grasp of the formal. Since Castilian Spanish is more or less the oldest formal Spanish, we end up learning that first.

  Like, I suck at learning languages. But I tried several. One of those was Spanish. School Spanish is kinda like school English, it’s taught in strict way. Vocabulary with pronunciation, grammar rules, verb conjugation. Conversationsal Spanish just isn’t what most schools are going to start with. One could argue whether or not that’s the best place to start or not, but it is the way most languages get taught.

  I dated a girl from Mexico City during that time, and she said the books were essentially the same there at least.

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