Are there different Spanish accents?
There are a lot of them! In fact, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language on the planet after Mandarin Chinese. So with over 400 million native speakers, it's no surprise that there are dozens of accents.
- Castilian. (Peninsular Spanish) ...
- Andalusian. (Peninsular Spanish) ...
- Murcian. (Peninsular Spanish) ...
- Canarian. (Canarian Spanish) ...
- Llanito. (Gibralter Spanish) ...
- Latin American Spanish. (LATAM Spanish) ...
- Rioplatense Spanish. (LATAM Spanish) ...
- Caribbean Spanish. (LATAM Spanish)
Even in Spain, there are five major dialects in the country: Castilian, Galician, Asturian, Basque, and Catalan. Of these, Castilian is the most common with 72% of the people speaking this dialect.
Known as the “purest” form of Spanish, the Castilian accent specifically stems from Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla Leon, two autonomous communities in Spain; however, the Castilian accent is one that is spoken by those who live throughout Spain.
While there are varieties within the country, the Spanish spoken in Madrid and in general in central and northern Spain is considered standard. More than 45 million people speak this version of Spanish, and it's the most preferred dialect of Spanish taught in schools.
Euskara (Basque)
Euskara is easily the most unusual language of Spain — and an unusual language for Europe as well, since it doesn't fit in the Indo-European family of languages that includes Spanish as well as French, English and the other Romance and Germanic languages.
Castilian Spanish
In fact, many refer to Castilian as the original Spanish language. This Spanish dialect is fairly clear and easy to understand. It used the personal pronoun vosotros, while most other dialects do not.
Spanish accents (tildes) can only be written over the five vowels (a, e, i, o, u), and the accent is written from lower left to upper right: á, é, í, ó, ú. In Spanish, an accent mark over one vowel of some word, indicates that the vowel is stressed.
Accent marks in Spanish, á, é, í, ó, ú may seem insignificant, but they represent an important way to show how words are pronounced. Accents point out emphasis. Each word in Spanish contains an accent, a syllable that is stressed, but these don't always have to be marked with an accent mark.
Which Spanish is hardest to understand? Chile, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Andalusia (Spain) are a few of the places considered to speak more difficult Spanish.
Do Spain and Mexico have different accents?
Most regions of Spain pronounce the letters “s,” “z,” and “c” before an “i” or an “e” as a /θ/ (“th” in the English word “thing”). In Mexico, this is pronounced as an /s/ or /z/ sound. For example, “gracias” is pronounced “grasias” in Mexico. In Spanish from Spain, it's often “grathias.”