Question
I understand that Spanish schools use the regional language like Basque, Catalan, Valenciano? What is the Spanish as we know it in the US? My guess is Castillan. What regions of Spain do they teach that? If I put my kid in private school do they teach using dual language?
Answers
These are the answers of some Facebook group members:
”I learned Spanish from a Mexican woman. I would guess most people who learn Spanish in the US learn from someone from Latin America, not Spain. What regional dialect this matches the best, I don’t know”
”Only some Comunidades Autónomas teach in their regional language. Cataluña and Basque Country for sure. The rest teach in Spanish. Mexican and Castilian are almost the same so don’t worry about that. Madrid, Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura, Andalucía… all teach in Spanish. I must warn you that the Spanish system of education is more rigid than the US system, it does not allow for each child to follow their pace. All children have to read the same list of books and memorize the same content in regard to geography, history, etc”
”There are indeed, but very few compared to Spain… trust me. The system is so much more flexible. Just allowing each child to pick the book they want to read and pick their own science project makes such a difference”
”Oh okay, I thought you were implying that every school had a different standard in the US. For example, I know that every US student had to read Romeo & Juliet as part of the curriculum”
”In the Basque Country, they will be forced to learn Basque and z Spanish. Both languages are a part of the curriculum”
”Depends on the school model, or at least when my kids were in school- you can do all classes in Spanish in some (model D?), all in Basque, or mix it up”
”My daughter is at an English school in Valencia. She has 5 days a week of Castellano and 1 day a week of Valenciano”
“Spanish” is Castilian and it is taught in all communities (in Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country, and Galicia along with the regional language). The particular blend of both depends on which community and which school”
”In Spain, Castilian Spanish (Castellano) is the pure/proper form of Spanish, spoken and taught in many areas, such as Madrid and Andalucía. Catalonia also uses Catalan, Valencia region uses Valenciano, the Basque region uses Euskera, etc. To be safe and have no regional accents or dialects, Madrid is your place”
”Madrid has strong accent though”
”We’re in Cataluyna – in all the schools (other than the private international schools) the language of instruction is Catalan with a few hours per week of English and Spanish (Castellano). There are a few “concertado” semi public/private schools in the city of Barcelona that offer trilingual education but they are largely impacted… Generally though, outside of the Spanish grammar class, they use castellano quite frequently in school, just outside of the teacher’s language instruction. For example among peers in class on group projects/activities, or during recess or lunch they often speak Spanish (or whatever language) between themselves. Catalans are so bilingual it’s natural for them to codeswitch…There aren’t any private Spanish only or half/half schools in Cataluyna, but several English international schools…Andalucia and Madrid will have Spanish/Castellano only schools (with english as a foreign language starting in primary like everywhere else)”
”The Spanish you learn in the USA tends to be a form of Mexican Spanish and more generally what you might call Telemundo Spanish in that it tends to use a mix of dialects, with Mexican more the default. You miss out on learning a bunch of tenses they use in Spain and there is a number of wording differences, more than you’d find between American English and British or Australian English. You tend to need to specifically seek out Castilian Spanish in the USA if you want to learn it because it isn’t the default. A lot depends on which school you chose to send your kid to, and where you end up living. There are some private schools that are mostly English if you want that, and some that may be mostly French or mostly Italian. Education, like in the USA, is often managed a bit with its own idiosyncrasies on a regional-by-region level with a national testing regime and some national standards. But language is one of those local issues”
”The reporters are from all different countries of Latin America and some from Spain! Some countries of Latin America speak better Spanish than some of the provinces of Spain. Colombia and Peru are good examples”
”Generally speaking, “Castellano” (aka: Castillian or Spanish) is taught and spoken throughout Spain, although certain regions emphasize their regional language more to varying extents, in particular Cataluyna and the Basque Country. Other regions with regional language/dialects: Galicia: Gallego, Valencia: Valenciano. Castellano-speaking regions include Madrid, Castilla La Mancha, Castilla Leon, Aragon, or Andalucia. That said, and again…generally speaking…NONE of the Spanish spoken here is quite like what most people in the US are used to”
”Man..a few people are calling it Mexican Spanish. I suppose everyone in Central America and South America are speaking “Mexican Spanish”. No, they aren’t…& this terminology would make their skin crawl”
”Every private school is going to be different. Just as concertados also have some room to create the curriculum as they see fit. Maybe the public schools are the most rigid. Here in the Basque Country, the public schools are taught mostly in Euskera. It has nearly zero similarities to Spanish or any other language. So people here also speak Castellano. And there’s very little English. The concertado schools might teach half Euskera, and half Castellano. Or they might teach one-third of each of those and one-third in English. Our kids did not speak much Spanish, and Euskera wasn’t practical. So we put them in the American School which teaches mostly in English”
”All of Spain teaches Castellan in all schools, however, they will couple that with their regional language. In the US, they teach “castellan” Spanish but it’s heavily influenced by the population. I grew up in south FL where more Spanish is Cuban, PR, DR and Central American dialects. Some other areas of the USA are more influenced by Mexican Spanish. None of those are like Castellano. My kids and I live in Murcia Spain. Murcia does not have their own dialect. They attend a bilingual school public school here. Some classes are in English, others in Spanish. They are struggling some but they’re picking up Spanish very well while helping their classmates with their English”
”The Spanish in the Americas is Spanish, not Catalan/Valenciano or Basque or Gallego or Aranese or Castellano. Most of the conquistadores were Southern/southwestern Spaniards. In Spain, during the time of colonization of the Americas, there were two rough accent divisions in terms of how sibilants were pronounced – Northern/Central Spain (Castilian), and Southern Spain (Andalusian). Since many of the early colonizers were from the southern region1, the dialects brought to the Americas had the same features. Schooling: Just like in the States, every private school has its own curriculum.
”Well for the record ( and not meant as ” snarky” at all ) with the introduction of the internet & sm many individuals speak either according to their birthplace or upbringing. or their exposure to the language through work and sm. There is no longer just one prevalent version (in the US at least). For instance, there are some Chicanos, & some Mexicans who have told me they do not in any way relate nor understand Chicano Spanish. There is Central American Spanish, Cuban. Puerto Rican Spanish, Belize Spanish and many other dialects. Again just a clarification” In Spain they refer to general Spanish as Castellano.
”The Spanish taught in most US schools is Castillian Spanish and students learn the vosotros tense. I was a Spanish major in college and studied in middle and high school. What’s typically spoken amongst US residents and shown on TV is heavily influenced by Mexico and Central American / Caribbean countries”
”The Spanish we know in the US is Latin American Spanish but any Spanish people who are most likely Castilian. But it depends on where your kid is going to school with the language influences. But all of them will be Castilian at base”
”In all provinces castellano is at the school as far as I know. Then you have the second language also in vasc country, galicia, catalunya, valencia, Asturies. It depends on the school they will have or not subjects in castellano or the local language”
”A very interesting discussion topic! I have a Valenciano friend who lives in Gandia and he explained that at school he was taught both Valenciano and Castilian Spanish. I didn’t ask him what percentage of his classes were in each or if math was in Valenciano or Spanish. They don’t consider Valenciano a “Spanish” dialect but instead its own unique language. He speaks it at home with his family and when walking around a neighborhood in a small town in the Valencian region he spoke Valenciano with strangers on the street (just being friendly and saying hello or good evening). In my research, Castilian (castellano) Spanish is the official Spanish of Spain – the expectation is that all Spanish residents learn it in school. It has a slightly different vocabulary than Latin American Spanish (which is what I learned) but everyone understands me just fine and I usually understand them too. The accent is only different when pronouncing the soft “c” and “z” as far as I’ve noticed. In Castilian you pronounce them both with a “th” sound. It’s a myth that there was a queen with a lisp, btw.
”Castillian is the name for the Spanish spoken in Castille, Spain. it is simply stated as one of the many flavours that encompasses the rich and flavorful Spanish language. Spanish is the general term used to define the variations of the Spanish language spoken by various Spanish-speaking countries. It is important to understand that both Castillian Spanish and Spanish both incorporate words and phrases from different languages. A language is dynamic in nature, it grows, changes and transforms itself over time”
”In Spain there are several languages and dialects. The most difficult is Andalusian. One example: de Cai a Graná means from Cádiz to Granada”
”Your kid will learn both languages regardless. I grew up in Catalonia, receiving most of my classes in Catalan. Had a 9.5 (out of 10) in Selectividad (the pre-college test). Way above Spain’s average grade as a whole. Learning additional languages will only do good to your kids”
”Wow. I did not need a tutorial on the nuances of the Spanish language or what is spoken inArgentina vs Mexico. We are moving to Andalucia most likely Malaga or Granada. My 10yo daughter has 5 years of Spanish due to a dual language program here in California. I assume this is Castillan. I want her to go to a school that will continue her Spanish as well as English education without relearning a different form of Spanish. I would appreciate other people’s experience on how they navigated this issue and maybe some recommendations of schools in Malaga or Granada. I don’t think an international school is necessarily the answer. Maybe a private school that teaches both English and Spanish”
”Many Spaniards would argue that Castilian is not a language anymore except for in historical context. Castilian was brought to America by the conquerors from the Castile and Aragon kingdom. Spanish is the language spoken in Spain today and the others are also languages spoken in the various Comunidades..Valenciano, Vasco, Catalan, Galego, etc. They are languages on their own and not variations of Spanish..if anything they are variations of latin except for Vasco”
”I grew up on the US border with Mexico, but we were taught Castillian in school”
”Every school is different and you need to reach out to them to ask. We’re in Valencia and our local public school teaches in regular Spanish (Castellano) and offers a class in Valenciano that students can choose to opt out of (which we did). Our school also teaches English as one of the required classes and has a very large expat population, which made the transition a lot easier for my daughter, who was 12 when we made the move”
”Asturias and Cantabria schools also teach in Castilian since they do not have a dialect accepted as an official language”
”Perhaps it is good to take a larger view because I have seen this type of debate time and again with regard to many languages. “Standardizing” a language is a political event. Invariably at the beginning of our modern era, countries had (and still have) many dialects, but someone’s dialect gets chosen by the powers that be to be the standard. Then a governing body is set up (Oxford, Académie Française, Real Academia Española) to stabilize the language. This leads to ongoing regional and often class-based tensions. But language evolves, as several others have said. Terms like “original” and “pure” are misnomers and offensive. “As prescribed by Real Academia Española” is the only accurate way to describe the concept. Standardization of accent is much newer; it came in with the advent of the recorded medium. In the USA, newcasters used to be selected preferentially from the midwest because that accent was designated as “neutral” — note that I’m not saying it was neutral, somebody somewhere in the broadcast world decided it was. But no accent is neutral except to some non-self-aware folks that speak it”
”Spanish is spoken and taught all over the country. However, some regions also have their own languages. If you want to avoid that, you can move to Madrid or Andalucía, or Zaragoza. My kid goes to a “concertado” school in Torrent, Valencia and most of the subjects are taught in Spanish. He only studies Music and Geography/History in valenciano, and of course, Valenciano. Public schools are the ones which teach most subjects in the regional language if there is one”
In conclusion, according to Spainguru Facebook group members, in Spain, in Spain, Castilian Spanish (Castellano) is the official language taught in most regions, along with regional languages like Basque, Catalan, and Valenciano. The Spanish taught in the US tends to be influenced by Latin American Spanish, with regional variations, different to Castillian Spanish. Private schools may offer dual language instruction of other European languages, but it varies.
