Spanish accents

this truly one of the difficult aspects of spanish every spanish country has diferences in vocabulary ,slang .some use vos or tu conjugations does anyone find this complex or is it just me? i dont know which accent to focus on i recently found a youtube channel from a chilean lady that i enjoy very much but this variety of spanish is very particular and some spanish natives tell me they find it a little difficult to understand at times.

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Learn Russian instead :wink: Just kidding. Good point. Would also love to know the answer. My wife is learning Spanish.

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Personally, I don’t have a problem with this aspect of Spanish.

The general rule with any language is that other people should be able to understand you clearly when you speak. You don’t have to imitate any particular accent if you don’t like it. In this case, concentrate on being understood by the general population and avoid using slang unless you are really fluent and know what to do.

If you are talking about listening and not speaking, you should focus on what you enjoy most or on your specific goals.
I don’t know why you are learning Spanish, you know that better than I do. Focus on that. If you are learning it to interact with Spanish people, then focus on their vocabulary, if you want to go to Argentina, then focus on that.

At the end of the day, once you are comfortable with the core of the Spanish language, these differences are not really a big deal.
Imho.

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I considered focusing in on one accent, but I gave that up early on. I love the variety in Spanish.

In conversation, the Spanish speakers I hang out with are from various countries, and use a kind of lowest-common-denominator Spanish amongst themselves, so the accents aren’t a problem. I think more Spanish speakers can adjust in this way speaking to you 1-on-1. They also understand my relatively non-regionally specific Spanish just fine.

If you will spend much time conversing with groups of people who speak one regionally specific variety, I’m sure it would be beneficial to get more input from that area and to use more of their regional vocabulary.

BTW, LingQ in combination with Jergozo (a regional slang dictionary you can select as a Dictionary in LingQ) and ChatGPT is a really effective combination to decipher content that contains more regionalisms.

Have fun!

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I don’t find this aspect to be particularly limiting. You’re referring to the ‘voseo’, the use of “vos” instead of “tú” in some Spanish-speaking countries, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador.

However, using “vos” instead of “tú” does not change the conjugation of verbs in Spanish sentences except for the present indicative and the affirmative imperative mood. Conjugation of all other moods and tenses using “vos” is the same as in “tú” form.

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