Cultural Difference

Introduction

“You never stop learning.” This is one of my favorite sayings, as rarely a week goes by when I don't learn something new—especially when it comes to languages. I have been speaking English now for over thirteen years, but still there are words that I haven't heard before and don't know the meaning of.

Discussion

Language is a living thing. It is always growing and changing. You just have to look at slang to see how people shape the language they use. No matter what language you speak, you'll find that words fall in and out of fashion, change their meanings subtly over time, and are used in different ways depending on who is saying them and in what context.

As a result, I think that it is wrong to talk about speaking a language “perfectly.” People use language to communicate, and, as long as they can communicate their meaning, they've used language appropriately. For example, compare spoken English with written English. How often do you speak in incomplete sentences, let propositions dangle, and misuse a word to get a laugh? You do it all the time! You don't have to have perfect grammar to speak and communicate well.

Too, there's no such thing as “perfect” Spanish. That's because the Spanish that is spoken in different regions can differ drastically from the Spanish spoken elsewhere. Mexican Spanish is different from Chilean Spanish, which is different from the Spanish spoken in Spain. Every country has a variety of local dialects as well.

When you're learning Spanish, you need to realize that what you're learning is going to be regionally influenced. A Spanish teacher from Spain will teach you different words and a different pronunciation from a Spanish teacher from Latin America.

During the creation of Rocket Spanish, these regional variations caused a lot of discussion and debate ...