Job Discussion Forums

[johnson430]

[Revenant]

Johnson ignored the warning and found out what happens when you do.

[ghostdog]

Let me try and explain it anecdotally:

* Awhile back, I taught a group of university professors at what was generally considered one of the best universities in the country. Most of them needed to travel extensively in Latin America for their work. When I asked them if they had trouble making themselves understood on these trips because of their particular variety of Spanish, two-thirds said yes.

* I can think of at least two well-to-do Chilean parents I met in Santiago who told me that they had hired Peruvian nannies for their children rather than Chilean not for the likely reduced cost but because they did not want their children learning Spanish from a Chilean. (Now, whether the kids spend more time with the nanny than their parents, that's a different issue.)

* Two separate directors of small language schools in Santiago told me that Chileans did not like the way that Peruvians spoke Spanish because they spoke "too slowly "and "too clearly." I have yet to figure out how one can speak too clearly. (This also helps to explain why your Chilean friend dislikes the way Mexicans speak -- they would fall under this category as well.)

* Finally, one of my former roommates said to me, "We Chileans like it that no one can understand the way we speak Spanish except us."

Leaving out subjective terms such as "good" or "bad," if one were planning to live indefinitely in Chile, then this would obviously be the best place to learn to speak their language. If one's goal, however, was to be able to communicate with Spanish speakers throughout the (Spanish-speaking) world, then there might be better places to invest one's time and money than Chile. People may tend to be nationalistic about these things, but Chile is the only place where this notion seems to come up on a regular basis, and it is surprising that any number of Chileans, at least in my personal experience, seem to acknowledge the, um, idiosyncratic nature of Chilean Spanish.

[Revenant]

Since two more people decided to ignore the warning about keeping the thread on topic, those posts were deleted or modified. And this thread is now locked.

Any attempt to rehash it on a new thread or contiue to cause problems will result in the deactivation of the accounts of those involved.