Diversity of Spanish cultures...

I think the thing that is standing out to me the most about Spanish culture right now is the wide range of people who speak the language and the differences between the countries and smaller populations included in that larger group. As someone who has studied German and Italian in the past, this is a fairly significant change.

German language has influences a lot of places, including here in central Texas, but isn't actually spoken as a primary language in more than a couple countries outside of Germany itself. Four countries beyond the boarders of Germany have large populations that speak the language.

Italian is spoken by small groups in a few countries outside of Italy itself but isn't those countries' primary language. Within the country the dialects range greatly to the point where Sicilian Italian and Roman Italian sound very different, for example, but comparatively one would expect that range to be relatively small in comparison to Spanish.

Spanish has the same kind of influences in this part of Texas that German does (if not more so), and has subgroups in many countries that speak versions of the language (like those we studied who settled in Louisiana who mix their old culture with the current one), but also have several other nations that speak versions of Spanish as their primary language. It's a little bit daunting to think that we're learning the basics of a language that almost certainly must come in a wide variety of styles and versions.

I think that when Prof. Zambrano talked about her experience watching No Country For Old Men that it really stood out to me. English, like Spanish, is spoken in a wide variety of places and has quite a bit of differentiation between those locations. Her comment about struggling to understand what was being said and what phrases meant, even though they were speaking "United States English," emphasized that even within our country there is a wide variety of versions of the language. Thinking about how tough it can be to understand certain British or Australian English speakers emphasizes the point further.

Spanish seems like it might even be more diversified across the subgroups that speak it. It seems like, by learning basics (and by virtue of the fact that we're likely to talk pretty slow as new Spanish speakers), I would hope that people who speak the language natively would be able to understand my basic meanings if I were to attempt to speak to them. In contrast though, it seems like being able to understand people from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico would be very, very difficult, even if they were speaking slow and using "basic" words.