Thinko Thenas

Having some regrets about learning 'peninsula' or 'Castellano' Spanish instead of the Latin American variety. I'm still plodding through Pimsleur's Castillian Spanish audio recordings and have concluded that correct pronunciation is harder to achieve than with its counterpart.  The difficulty arises with the major difference between the two dialects:  the 'th' sound.  You'd think that sound would be a cinch to make for English speakers, since so many of our words contain the 'th' sound as in 'think.'  But I've found that when the sound has to be repeated in the same word or in a quick succession of words, such as cinco cenas (five dinners).  For some reason I find saying thinko thenas very difficult to articulate.  And when there are three or four of these sounds in the same sentence, I start feeling tongue-tied, which slows down the all-important fluidity of my Spanish.  



My logic for studying peninsula Spanish instead of Latino was that, since I lean toward the sound of Castellano a bit more than the Latin American accent, I could use oral study materials with that pronunciation and modify the pronunciation slightly should I need to speak the Latino version at some point.  I could have just as easily done the reverse, and now I sort of wish I had.  It's much easier to find Latin American learning materials in the U.S. and I wouldn't have to concern myself with all that lisping (I don't mean for that term to be derogatory).  I think that if I learned the Latino way first, I'd already have the rhythm of the language down pat and it would be much easier to add the "th's" on after I have mastered the other pronunciation problems that are for the most part identical in both dialects, such as the softer g's and d's.  Agua seems to me to be pronounced more like 'awa' than 'agua.'  Well, no harm done, since I can still revert to Latin American Spanish if I choose to. 

In so many ways it's amazing, really, that Spanish retained so much of its purity when it left the borders of the Iberian Peninsula during Spain's imperialist age.  English, it seems to me, did not make the transition quite as intact.  Though most North American's can easily understand British, or Scottish, or Australian, et al., English, there are major differences in vocabulary, intonation, and the pronunciation of certain vowels and a few consonants.  When I watch Downton Abbey on PBS, for example, every now and then an individual word or phrase doesn't register with me and I'm not quite sure what they meant. 

Perhaps one reason why Spanish exported so smoothly was that for the most part it's much easier to learn to pronounce than English is.  It's pronunciation is way more consistent and there are very few (with the possible exception of some 'g' and 'j' sounds) guttural or 'toothy' sound (with the exception of that ubiquitous 'th').  English contains so many cases of possible pronunciations of such diphthongs as 'ou,' for instance.  And the grammar for the most part is very logical and versatile.