10 lies about Spanish language you need to stop believing now

There are so many myth about Spanish language and about Spanish teaching that we have trust.  Today in Español con María we will talk about 10 lies about Spanish language that you need to stop believing now.

Denying myths of Spanish

From the grammar to the eternal discussion between the terms «lengua castellana» and «español». Here we will talk about 10 lies that we have been told when we study Spanish.

Top 10 lies about Spanish language

1. You have to learn Spanish from Spain:

   it is true that the Real Academia de la Lengua Española is headquartered in Spain, but that does not mean that the best Spanish is spoken there. Everything has to do with personal tastes and interests, if you want to go to live in Spain, it makes sense to learn Spanish with the characteristics that they speak there. However, for reasons of practicality, there are people who say that it is easier to learn Spanish with the variants of Latin America. There are 2 particular things that makes latin american Spanish simpler: the fact of not having to conjugate the verbs for «vosotros» and not having to master the sounds of the s, the z and the c, make the task simpler.

2. Spanish is easy:

   that depends a lot on your mother tongue. It is logical that for a person whose mother tongue is Portuguese, French or Italian, learning Spanish will be easier due to the similarities with their language. -Practice Spanish with my courses. There is something that is true and that is that since Spanish is a phonetic language, there are rapid advances in students because they learn how to say each word as soon as they read it.

3. Spanish is the fastest language in the world:

   That’s false. Spanish isn’t the fastest. In fact, it’s the second fastest.

4. The «castellano» and «español» are different: 

   This is a difficult knot to untangle. For me they are the same, when I studied they told me that CASTELLANO was how Spanish language was called  in Spanish, only that as in Spain they also speak Catalan and Basque, it is disrespectful to think that one language is more hispaniard (as español is also the denonym in Spanish for people and things from Spain) than the other. There is also a historical theme to call the Spanish language in different ways. However, in grammatical terms, the ESPAÑOL and LENGUA CASTELLANA are the same.

5. Spaniards vosean:

   this is false. Spaniards use VOSOTROS but not VOS. Vosear is using the VOS, that is common in Argentina, Uruguay, and in some regions of Bolivia and Colombia.

6. Talking using USTED is very polite:

   that’s what theory says and it also happens in many countries, however in Colombia it’s quite different. In Colombia sometimes we call USTED our brothers and friends and we do it out of habit.

7. The best Spanish is spoken in Colombia: 

   This is a myth that arose because Colombians are famous for taking good care of grammar on a daily basis, however there is no study that dictates that the Spanish of Colombia is the best in the world, because Colombia is a very large and extensive country where, in certain places, Spanish is spoken in better ways than in others.  Listen the interview to  Victor García de la Concha ex- RAE director, talking about this subject.

8. You shouldn’t learn Spanish slang:

   This is totally false. It’s true that slang change a lot from different countries, even different cities. Since you have more than 20 countries speaking Spanish, this can be hard. However it’s really important to learn Spanish slang, specially if you want to share with hispanics. You will find a slang free Spanish just in CNN, in real life street Spanish rules.

9. To speak Spanish correctly you have to eliminate the accent

   : I particularly do not agree with this. I think the accent gives you extra information about personal identities. It tells us where a person is from, it also has a meaning. The accent by itself is not bad, the problem is when the accent is so charged that it makes hard to understand someone. Now, if a Spanish student wants to be able to speak as a native, then he will need to neutralize the accent of his mother tongue and even learn Spanish with the accent of the country he wants to appear native. I feel that this is a matter of personal interests and tastes, but I do not agree that the accent is bad itself.

10. The most important thing is grammar:

    100% false. The most important thing is being able to communicate, that’s why we learn a new language. Grammar exist to help us learn the language and standardize it, but we are not interested in grammar by itself. For me it is much more important to have communication skills instead of having knowledge of all the grammar rules. I personally believe that this is one of the biggest lies about Spanish. This lie is one  the reasons why there are people who get frustrated learning the language

I hope you loved this article «lies about Spanish». If you know any other lie about Spanish, comment bellow.