Mexican Spanish

What is the difference beween Mexican Spanish and Peninsular Spanish?

Here is a great collection that you can check out: Mexican Spanish.

Most commonly, castellano and español both refer to the language of Cervantes, Borges, Lorca, and Vargas Llosa. However, in certain contexts, castellano is used to refer only to the language as spoken in Spain, and español to the language as it is spoken in Latin America.

Are castellano and español really that different? Isn’t Spanish all the same? Well yes, and no. Like English speakers from the UK, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the United States, there are obvious differences but people can still effectively communicate with and understand each other. And that is the function of language.

Yet what sounds right to one native speaker can sometimes sound strange, quaint, old-fashioned, or just plain wrong to a native speaker from another country. In the worst cases, incomprehension, misunderstandings, or arguments can arise as a result of linguistic differences, especially when it comes to slang. Nevertheless, the best rule of thumb is that good, educated language use is more often than not good and educated language wherever you are. Just be sure to allow for the differences that may arise.

Admittedly, talking of “Castillian Spanish” or “Latin American Spanish” can be misleading. Mexican Spanish is certainly different from the Spanish of Argentina, and Spanish in Galicia diverges from the Spanish of Andalucía. Even so, Spanish as it is spoken in Spain shares many common characteristics that set it apart from Spanish in Latin America, and that is what we will briefly examine here.

Pronunciation

Non-Spaniards sometimes affectionately refer to the Castillian “th” pronunciation of the “c” and “z” as a lisp; where in Latin America, this same “c” and “z” is pronounced as an “s”. As such, some words are indistinguishable in Latin American speech, “caza” and “casa” for example. Not so in Castillian Spanish, where their phonetic difference is preserved.