When I was a kid, the first time I read #Portuguese on a toy's packaging, I thought that their quality control was really terrible because they couldn't spell Spanish correctly.
In my defense, that also happened a lot. A lot of exports did have shoddy Spanish localisation.
@JordiGH So out of interest, what are your cradle languages, what languages do you speak/read natively, and in what other languages are you reasonably fluent? Just so I have some context.
@ColinTheMathmo I lived in Mexico City from birth until I was 18, then again from the ages of 23-30. I went for 12 years to a posh English-language school where all classes were in English except some requirements like Mexican history and Spanish literature. So I am native in both Spanish and English.
I haved lived in Montreal for close to a decade, so I picked up French informally from the streets. I also studied a bit of Russian because I dated a couple of Russians, in both my cities.
@JordiGH Thanks for that - it helps put some of your toots into context.
Do you know how different Mexico City Spanish is from, say, Barcelona Spanish? Or Madrid Spanish?
@ColinTheMathmo Broadly speaking, there is no problem of understanding between European and American varieties of #Spanish, but there are numerous differences in #vocabulary, #syntax, and #phonetics. The most prominent differences of syntax are that European Spanish uses some different personal pronouns and some verb tenses differently. In phonetics, the most obvious difference is that no American Spanishes make a distinction when pronouncing s and z while almost all European Spanishes do.
@JordiGH Useful, thanks.
@JordiGH @ColinTheMathmo Are there any European Spanishes outside Spain?
@ColinTheMathmo There is also much variety of the same kind between several American Spanishes.