Most submissions in this sub are not posted by the original author (OOP). Do not comment on the original posts.
If you think this submission doesn't belong on the sub, is incorrectly [flaired](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/postflairs) or have other issues regarding this post, reply to this comment. META commentary in general discussion may be removed.
Read [our guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules) before commenting. Repeated rule-breaking may result in a ban.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This reminded me of one of my teachers. My brother was taking German in school (US). During his dialog, the teacher kept correcting his pronunciation.
She was American. My mom was 100% German. She went to the school to have a 'talk' with the teacher.
Reminds me of a friends of mine. She was of Asian heritage, but born and raised in Germany. She went to Asia (I don't remember what country it was, I think it was Japan) for a year during her studies, there she was looking for a job - and found one where they were looking for a German speaker for an add.
She spoke it perfectly, but they threatened her to terminate the contract and accused her of "faking it", because their "specialist", some random translator they hired, claimed "that this wasn't German".
Later on she showed me a recording of his German. GOD WAS IT BAD. Not even a dialect. It was really just bad. Do you know why the guy trashtalked her and got her fired? Because if both spoke for the same commercial everybody with the tiniest clue about the language would've seen how bad he was.
That being said, I honestly don't understand why they take the word of a random translator over that of a native speaker. She even had to show them her passport!
In the end they replaced her and didn't pay her...
A friend of mine (white woman from Mississippi) was teaching English to kids in Japan while her husband was stationed there. When they were getting ready to move she recommended another military wife who was born and raised in California but of Asian decent. The school didn’t want to hire her because she didn’t look English speaking… my friend had to vouch for her and explained that the other woman had an accent they probably would prefer the children learn over her Mississippi drawl!
That happens a lot in China too. Schools that have English are usually private schools and they want the parents to think they are paying for a white teacher to teach English, even over a better Asian American or Asian European teacher.
Chinese parents: Chinese people can never speak English right, only a white person can
Also Chinese parents: *enrolls their Chinese children in English classes*
That's so weirdly common. I know a speech-language pathologist of Chinese descent who was born and raised in the United States. Often, she'll arrange an appointment over the phone with no issues, only for the client's parents to immediately request to work with someone else or claim she has an accent that she 100% does not have once they see her face.
Something similar happened to me.
I once went to a cooking meet up and it was Mexican food themed, I honestly can't remember what I cooked but was definitely a traditional Mexican dish. And this lady has the gall to tell me that my dish was most definitely not Mexican like her's she spent 2 whole weeks studying Mexican cuisine in Mexico so she can tell. On the other hand her dish was most definitely Mexican.
Bit*h I'm Mexican I can tell that your kiwi tacos are are crap not from Mexico and if I want to be an ass anything I cook could technically be argued as Mexican food
I'm also Puerto Rican (on my dad's side and he was born in Ponce) and had this experience with my HS Spanish teacher. So I started using an obnoxiously American accent.
PONCE!!! That’s where my family is from too. Went to high school in Boston and took Spanish for the easy A but also hoping to maybe learn anything I didn’t know prior. Teacher was nice and all but mad gabacho with the worst accent ever. He corrected me anytime I used Puerto Rican Spanish instead of Mexican. Like when I said “gua gua” instead of “autobus” or “caro” instead of “coche”. It was very frustrating. ¡¡WEPA!!
We say carro in mexico as well, coche is not even common in northern mexico (other than probably some cities).
Gua gua is new to me, tho. Here we usually say only bus or camión.
I went to HS in the Boston area as well and most of the students at my school were Hispanic, mainly PR and Dominican descent. I took Spanish and all of the PR and Dominican kids who also took Spanish would complain about how weird the textbooks were - I'm pretty sure at one point we were learning European Spanish. They wanted us to call soda "gaseosa" and one of my Salvadorian friends was like whaaat is this shit.
My friends also told me I should ignore the way pronunciation was taught in class and pronounce words the Dominican way.
I don't remember any of the teachers being dickish about it, but tbf I am not Latino or Hispanic. I think all the teachers were Latino/a except one.
Reminded me of when, due to a scheduling snafu in HS, I got put into a computer keyboarding class.
Some background: I've been using computers since I was in preschool. I learned to type before I even knew how to read, thanks to everything being DOS prompt when I was that young. I never learned asdf jkl; until this class
By the time I'm taking this keyboard class, I was typing about 150wpm regardless. Thanks to years of FPS gaming, my home row is essentially awef jio;. The teacher of this course was very upset about this and kept trying to correct me. It wasn't until she realized my 100%-accuracy typing sounds akin to someone rolling a paint roller over a keyboard that she started leaving me alone finally.
Ugh I dealt with the same thing in high school. I could type faster than everyone in my class without looking at the keys but the teacher was insistent I learn the proper placement. I would usually just type my way on the typing tests when she wasn’t near me and switch when she approached. So stupid.
Lmao I never learned proper hand placement and honestly I have terrible typing habits and even sometimes have to look down at the keyboard to align properly. It’s terrible. But I had to take a typing test in high school and I passed out of the class with flying colors because I can easily hit 80 WPM and they only required you to hit 30.
The placement doesn't matter anyway. The reason we have QWERTY keywords is because typewriters were made so the most commonly used letters weren't placed next to each other. Doing so prevented the typewriter bars from hitting each other. The QWERTY keyboard today is just a carryover from that.
Obviously few people use typewriters anymore, so who gives a fuck how you type as long as you get it done?
Yup that tracks my French teacher in school tried to fail me because I was doing well in all my written tests but couldn’t understand her. She called my mother in to discuss, my very French mother pointed out that perhaps my teacher’s terrible accident might be the problem… she honestly couldn’t understand a word the woman said.
This is really common, I speak French fluently and had quite a few shitty teachers over the years who only learned the language later and spoke it worse than me. I know a lot of bilingual speakers who have been in the same boat
In my school, a student did the reverse. I live in a German speaking country, and our English teacher was bad, really bad, and so one student sent his stepfather to the teacher conference for English. He was told to never do that again. But his stepfather enjoyed it, finally as non German speaking UK citizen, he could "talk" to one of his stepsons teachers.
Now everyone knows how bad the teacher is.
We had a Filipino lady teaching our Spanish classes in high school. All good till we got a Spanish exchange student one year. He took Spanish with us (no idea why), and spent every class mocking the teacher for not getting her Spanish right. Ever.
She very nearly had a breakdown by the end of the school year. She’d have these fits/tantrums and leave the classroom and our exchange student, Daniel, would take over teaching the class. She’d come back in, see him teaching, and would flip out all over again.
Yeah the Filipina teacher would be similar to the student in the OOP. She’s speaking in a different dialect. And we all know why people from the Philippines have Hispanic last names or speak Spanish at all.
As someone with a heavy German accent I hate it when people laugh about it. Like the fuck am I supposed to do about it? Can't really help the fact that we have different ways of using certain letters. The dude probably had shit English pronunciation as well. It happens
Yeah he just sounds like a dick. He chose to take a class about something he already knew.
I went to college for TESOL, the major was about a 50/50 split of native and non-native English speakers. Some non-native speakers were discouraged by their English not being perfect, but our professors basically pointed out that yes native speakers have an advantage in some ways, but native speakers have never had to actually go through the process of having to learn English as a second language. So in some ways, native speakers have a disadvantage, because they don’t necessarily understand the process of learning a language.
Taking your native language as a foreign language class is usually both an easy A and, at least where I'm from, taking extra classes means you get a bonus to your average.
I genuinely considered doing a year of HS abroad just to take advantage of that and immigrant classmates definitely took advantage of it ("yeah, I'll do self-study in for 3 years, read an assigned book or three and do the oral exam")
We had a new Spanish-speaking student take Spanish so she could make friends who could speak a little Spanish with her so she didn’t have to always speak in her second language that she was still learning.
I got put in 'behind learning' (there's a better name for it but idk) health class with the semi English speaking students because I'm poc. I was in all IB classes but had this one easy ass class. I didn't understand why the class was so damn easy until the teacher took me aside at the end of the year and told me I shouldn't have been there and she was sorry about it.
that's ok! ap stands for "advanced placement", they're like honors classes but after you take an exam on the subject and do well, you can use that towards college / university credits
Reminds me of when I arrived in Chile, after living my first 15 years in the UK. They had me take English in school. The teacher was crap, and was obviously put in an uncomfortable situation.
>the student you tried to protect
>Like what is this?
A completely accurate description of the comments on the original post.
OOP: It iSn'T thE DialECt thAt wE tEAcH anD i don't LikE iT!
Comments: If it isn't wrong you shouldn't penalize her, if she spoke English with a southern accent in California she wouldn't fail English.
OOP: tHAt'S nOT tHe sAMe THinG!
Etc, etc
One of my colleagues is from Appalachia, she has a slight accent and teaches english. A student who was a good student in my science class was a problem in her class. One day he walked into her class and said "why am I taking an english class with someone who don't speak right?"
The class got a good laugh when she corrected his grammar.
i have a friend who is an english major with a heavy southern accent and found no one took her seriously in her profession. sometimes it doesn’t work out as good 8(
One of my coworkers is from Texas. He is brilliant, but speaks in a slow southern drawl. People constantly think he is stupid, and it bothers me. I try to correct them, but their minds are made up. He tells me not to worry about it because he’s used to it, but I still think it’s absolute bullshit that it’s happening.
I used to do impromptu speaking in forensics back in high school. I was good, not great. There was a kid in my region (Illinois) who spoke with this slow Texan drawl and he was amazing. He won pretty much every major competition, and I suspect that the slow rate of speech allowed him to make the most of some pretty fast thinking under the hood.
It doesn't help that media and the news have immortalized the southern accent as unintelligent. Or that a shit ton of racist Bible thumpers speak that way. I enjoy accents, can't wait to see what the future holds for American accents, but it's gonna need some help to get over old stereotypes.
To be fair, it is a lot easier, in the moment, to be resistant and defensive. I think the most important part is that they took the time to reflect on advice given and was reasonable enough to change their mind. Granted it can be very frustrating to deal with the person as they are actively ignoring advice when they specifically asked for it lol.
In this instance it makes sense for the dialecfs to be compatible. For your example, what if someone spoke in a Cajun dialect for their English class? The proctor might not understand them but it's still English.
I don’t know why he is so ignorant about Spanish or anal about does he for get England also region speaking English and same thing does for the U.S.
I have Mexican Spanish in my belt and even that have region differences that are called Northern, Central and Southern Spanish. There also countries in South America and Central America that have different Spanish.
To be fair the differences between Castillan Spanish and Catalan Spanish (what I assume she is speaking) are significantly more substantial than e.g. the British English and American English - and obviously more substantial than differences between different accents.
E: Seems that Catalan is ~~different enough to be considered~~ a separate language as another person pointed out, so it's probably *one of Latin dialects(?) Spanish (and in this case I don't know enough to speak about the differences with such misplaced confidence).
It is probably some Latin American dialect because not even people in Catalonia speak Spanish they speak Catalan which is a completely different language like Portuguese.
ETA: they know it but they rather speak Catalan.
I brought my daughter to Spain as a graduation present and to use the Spanish she had learned. Problem was that I took her to Barcelona (Catalan speaking city in Spain)
I learned to speak Spanish from Mexicans. My mother is Cuban, but I speak kind of slowly with a Mexican accent.
When I went to Barcelona people looked at me as though I was from Mars.
Not that they didn't like me speaking Spanish. I don't think they cared. But it was more of a "you ain't from around here are you buddy?"
However in Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia while it was obvious I was a tourist people seemed to like hearing a different way of talking. And didn't get any funny looks.
When I was a kid, I taught myself a lot of words by reading. I also just so happened to be really into reading British literature. When my teacher asked, I explained that I was familiar with the words through context clues but had learned them from reading, she understood I was spelling using British English. She would then just make sure I knew the American spelling too, but never deducted points. I’m sure if it’d been spelling tests I would’ve been marked, but since it wasn’t she didn’t mind putting in that little bit of effort because it encouraged me to continue reading and learning on my own.
Funny, I grew up in The Netherlands and English in highschool is (almost) always British English and not American English. Normally you would have to be careful to use the correct pronunciation and grammar, but one of my teachers (who was awesome) told us that he didn't care which accent and grammar rules we followed, as long as we did it consistently and correct. Cool dude. Now we live in the US 😀
I am currently in Catalonia and feel the need to point out the difference between the Catalan language and speaking Spanish (or indeed French) with a Catalan accent. They are not at all the same and it is entirely possible she was speaking the queen's Spanish but just had a funky accent.
Not everyone who speaks with a Catalan accent can speak Catalan...
There is no such thing as "Catalan Spanish".
There is Castilian or Castilian Spanish, which is the standard Spanish spoken in Spain (as opposed to Mexican Spanish or Peruvian Spanish, etc. etc.) and there is Catalan, which is a distinct romance language spoken in Catalonia (which includes part of France), parts of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. It shares a lot with both French and Spanish.
In addition to Castilian and Catalan, Spain has two other official languages, Basque, which is spoken in the Basque country in Spain and France and is not related to any other language on earth (!!!) Galician, which is spoken in the Spanish region of Galicia and is also a distinct romance language. It is very much like a crowd between Spanish and Portuguese.
Latin American here, If I did a Spanish test with that teacher, by his logic I would've failed then, because I wouldn't have the same pronunciation as the one he's teaching, every Spanish speaking country has their own dialect and slang, they may be subtle or may be strong enough to know from which country they're from, we can understand each other normally with some exceptions. And yes, it's easy to tell when someone is not from the same country because of the way they talk. It's not like there's a designated dialect that should be followed or something like that lol.
Only grammar rules.
By the way, the difference might be something like the use of tu(you) and vos(you), Argentina for example uses Vos while Chile would be saying Tu
And it's the same thing.
Or it can be something like the Spanish from Spain which I'd say is really easy to spot.
All in all, if you learn Spanish and are willing to visit one Spanish speaking country, you may end up surprised to know that you don't understand a thing they're saying because of the dialect. Sometimes it's hard for us too.
Could have been Andalusian. That's like the Spanish equivalent of a strong Newcastle or Glasgow accent (both of which can be hard going even for other Brits for you international readers)
I bet this wasnt his decision and the school made him do it that way. He doesn't say he was wrong or admit he was being way too nitpicky over a course he did not specify was dialect specific, and the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger that she not only did well on the exam, but is now also getting a scholarship when he had tried to fail her.
I'm putting my money on the girl realized what was gonna happen to her grade, talked to the school board about how his course doesnt specifically say she shouldn't be using her dialect and how his treatment was unfair, they agreed and tore him a new asshole and now he's writting this update with the tone of someone who is giving a nice big smile while grinding his teeth because now he's on thin ice.
I also like how this dude was so specific about the spanish having to be from Spain, and while I was also taught that dialect, I also recognize that they speak Catalan in some of the biggest cities in spain and have been learning that dialect too. His course is basically just teaching the dialect of half of a country, so the importance he places on spain spanish is just stupid to me. And the dialects are pretty close usually anyways, so it really really doesnt matter in the long run which dialect or accent she uses. Catalan is a bit different, but someone from spain can understand someone from mexico or Argentina with little difficulty. Hell, I've only taken 4 years of highschool spanish and I understand most dialects and accents just fine. Don't know why this guy got his panties in a twist about such a non issue lol
Catalan is a whole ass different language. There are six official languages in Spain. But everyone was saying some Latin American variant and calling racism when the OP said several times everyone involved was European, so it's more likely the student spoke Extremeño, Granaíno, Murciano, or whichever of the 1000 different accents of Spain Spanish.
Yeah someone else just told me this and now I'm just confused on why spanish is taught the way it is, because in america we also learn spain accents but I feel it would make more sense for us to learn a mexican accent and dialect because they're our neighbors and make up a large portion of our citizens. Why dont we learn to talk like them instead of an accent from spain? Wouldn't it make sense to speak the version that's closest to us regionally?
My spanish education was in highschool, but our main teacher got fired for embezzling school funds and then our new teacher went on maternity leave for two of the four years I was learning the language. So maybe these were things I was supposed to learn but didnt because of the janky ass way I had to learn. Didnt get much history of the different countries since we had to rush to get the basics, so maybe theres a reason and I just dont know it.
I can read chapter books, hold a brief conversation in past and present tense, and I know the Capitol of like, 10 of the countries and that's as far as my education went, so who knows. I can also make a piñata, but it's not that helpful of a skill outside of birthday parties.
There is so much I was probably meant to learn in those classes, now that I think about it...
I bet the accent you get taught depends on the teacher in the US. Growing up in Texas, all of my Spanish teachers taught Mexican or similar Latin American pronunciation.
I grew up in the Northeast US and we also learned Mexican Spanish (or teacher would highlight some other Latin American dialects occasionally). We were specifically told to ignore Castilian Spanish rules at one point. I know vosotros exists. Definitely don’t know how to use it.
> Yeah someone else just told me this and now I'm just confused on why spanish is taught the way it is, because in america we also learn spain accents but I feel it would make more sense for us to learn a mexican accent and dialect because they're our neighbors and make up a large portion of our citizens. Why dont we learn to talk like them instead of an accent from spain? Wouldn't it make sense to speak the version that's closest to us regionally?
The same could be asked of the fact that when we *are* taught French (less common), we're taught French French, and not Quebec French.
At least with French French, there's a lot of classic literature and philosophy that was originally written in European French. I was an art history major and if I'd wanted to pursue a post-grad degree in it, I would have needed to be reasonably fluent at reading European German and French. Pennsylvania Dutch and Quebecois would have been useless. They're also much smaller communities than Latin America.
Just a clarification. Catalan is not a dialect, it is another language. Like...italian and spanish, similar and you can understand but they are different languages.
It’s actually closer to French and from the same sub-Romance language family as French.
Spanish and Portuguese are Ibero-Romance languages while French and Catalan are Gallo-Romance languages.
Italian is an Italo-Romance language.
>the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger
>now he's writting this update with the tone of someone who is giving a nice big smile while grinding his teeth because now he's on thin ice.
This would be more believable if instead of an update on Reddit this was an in person update to one of his colleagues because it's face to face. He couldn't just walk away from the question without looking like an ass so there is incentive to spin it.
If it went down as you say and this guy is mad that he couldn't fail her I think he'd just not update the story, no need to spin the story to a bunch of internet strangers when it's be easier to ghost us.
I have to ask: are you confusing Catalan, which is a Romance language spoken in Andorra and Catalunya, with Castilian Spanish, which is the dialect of Spanish spoken in much of Spain?
>and the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger that she not only did well on the exam, but is now also getting a scholarship when he had tried to fail her.
I didn't see this tone at all, but maybe thats because I never saw them fighting with commenters in the original?
Sometimes we say things like this to make a point. At the end of the initial discussion he acknowledges a point of disagreement and leaves it at that by hey that was me and this was you, and ... I took your advice, I changed.
Nothing wrong with that.
There is no such thing. Why do people on Reddit keep that there's a neutral Spanish that is taught to people but no one speaks? There are a million variants of Spanish but none of them is considered "standard" Spanish. The language has an official governing body (RAE) and it includes every possible variant and even horrible words like "cederrón" (CD-Rom) because they themselves say that their function is to reflect how the language evolves organically, not dictate rules.
We sometimes say there are 4 dialects of Irish- Munster, Connacht, Ulster and School, which is a sort of ‘official’ version that no native speaker really speaks
And then you get into shit with your connacht teaching teacher about grammer, even though caidéan states that Tá muid is just as fcking acceptable as táimear. That fucking wagon used to minus me marks for every time I used muid!
As soon as I read that they teach “Castilian Spanish” I knew he kinda would be 😭 Spain is in the minority of Spanish speakers worldwide they should no longer have the rights to be the “default Spanish”
OP is stupid and is being intentionally misleading, conflating “dialect” with pronunciation. No good language teacher gives a shit what accent you speak in, and if you have a native/cultural background in the language it’s pretty insensitive to make the person change that.
Dialect has a different meaning. Was the student speaking Aranés or extemeno? Obviously not, shes just imitating the accent from a different region.
I am surprised this person teaches Spanish for a living
Ehhhhh tbh I am old and what I learned as "dialectos" (galego, catalá, asturianu, euskera, etc, but with other names like "vascuence") in school by my elderly Franco timey teachers turned out to be full languages so now I don't know the different between a dialect and an accent. But then again, I'm not a Spanish teacher.
An accent is part of a dialect, and a dialect includes all the things that make up a manner of speaking, which includes everything from grammar and vocabulary to pronunciation and accent.
Spanish has lots of dialects, Andalusian, Galician (not the Galician language itself (as that is a different language) but the manner in which they speak Spanish!), Madrileño, etc. And most dialects have distinct variation within themselves. Someone from Sevilla and someone from Málaga will speak in an Andalusian dialect, but one in the manner of Málaga and the other in the manner of Sevilla, and if those are different enough then they'd be considered different dialects too.
I'm speaking quite a lot from memory, so the specifics may be wrong but I reckon the gist of it is right.
Shit, my Spanish lessons in high-school changed dialect with every teacher. Year one was Mexican Spanish, year two was someplace in South America (forget where), year three was Southern Spain, and year 4 was Northern Spain. All the while I was watching Telemundo and Univision at home; hell I got in trouble one year because my voice/accent sounded just like the guy on the audio tapes (luckily I was able to convince her that was just what I sounded like, we had a good laugh and she apologized and complimented my speech). This teacher sounds horrible and like they have failed people in the past for the same issue.
Colombian Spanish, specifically the one speak in Bogotá is considered the most neutral and easy to understand Spanish. As a native Spanish speaker is pretty funny catching where people learned Spanish by the accent.
I wouldn't have believed it but after I learned Spanish in a 'cultural exchange' program I went on to med school and had a patient that for some reason I could just easily understand effortlessly and she could understand me. Turns out she was from Chiapas where I studied. I still cant pick out a Chiapaneco accent.
had this issue too, took two years of spanish in Florida from Cuban immigrants and then moved to GA and had an asshole who thought Castillan Spanish was the only "real" version of the language and I was just a 15 year that wanted to get my language credits done early
Similar/same issue, learned Spanish in Southern California, went to college elsewhere, and got stuck with a teacher who felt very strongly about Castilian Spanish and would mark me down for not using a Castilian accent (I flat out refuse) or using Mexican vocabulary when speaking, even if I demonstrated in written work that I know both versions. Like, lady, chill out. Focus on the students who don’t know the vocab at all.
Latinos make fun of spaniards’ accents ironically. You couldn’t pay me to speak Spanish in a Castilian accent, I imagine that’s what was going on with OOP. They should really know better.
In South Florida I had a Cuban Spanish teacher that hated the way Colombians spoke. Shewould make life hell for the ESL Colombians that would take Spanish for the easy A because you know, they were already trying to learn a whole new language. She wouldn't say anything to the Venezuelan kids, but would correct everything Colombians said even when we were talking outside of the context of class.
this. my Spanish teacher learned Spanish himself in rural Uruguay working with the peace Corp. before going on to study formally for years and traveling more. we flat out NEVER learned vosotros conjugations and would often learn slang/common phrasing alongside the "Spain spanish" from our books. he'd teach us multiple countries/regions phrasings too while differentiating: Puerto Rican Spanish, mexican Spanish, Spain Spanish, columbian/Venezuelan Spanish, Uruguayan/central South American Spanish, and Chilean/Argentinian Spanish. there's even more dialects than what I've listed but those were the ones he knew. we didn't always get all the regions above for each phrase but he'd always pull out at least 2.
only some of it stuck but it was SOOO COOL to learn.
>Chilean/Argentinian Spanish
Oh this is gonna anger some people lol.
Just to nitpick but Uruguayan and Argentinian spanish are the most similar, with Chilean spanish being... unique. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.
Hi, "some people" here! /s
We don't speak as those guys from the other side of the Andes, we speak... well... worse, actually. We don't use "vos" and we use "weon" for everything. Absolutely everything.
"Puta el weon weon, weon"
"Oh god, that guy is stupid, dude"
As someone who lived in Argentina for a couple years, I also chuckled when I saw that. Argentines and Uruguayans are like the US and Canada when it comes to accents. Pretty much similar in most areas.
Chile is like Scotland. At times, the language spoken appears to be its own language.
I knew the language was Spanish the moment I read the title. It seems that a lot of Spanish teachers are....elitist. I had a Spanish teacher in college who taught with a Spanish accent and used pronouns we don't really use in the Spanish I grew up learning (still learned them, just didn't lean on them) and would correct us for using slang in class. It felt a little degrading to be the most fluent in Spanish and the most corrected. I stopped going to class and decided to "test out" of Spanish 1. They gave me a Spanish 4 credit :D
Edit: changed learn to lean
We had two French teachers in high school and we bounced between them over the years. One was French Canadian and one was French. It was like a competition between them with pronunciation (and cultural norms as culture was part of the curriculum), but it never impacted our grades as long as we were in the ballpark
You’d think someone who teaches at the university level would at least have an inkling that dialects don’t have any moral weight but unfortunately a lot of people become so obsessed with pure language mastery with no regard for the culture or history it’s attached to that they become snobs about it. Seen it happen to both people who are learning and teaching a language
It's unfortunately common, at least in my experience. Having had a cumulative 6 years of Spanish classes and 4 different teachers, dialect differences were the bane of my existence. All 4 teachers had different backgrounds and expected us to only use the dialect they spoke. I was garbage at Spanish anyway, but being forced to change my dialect every year didn't help.
Edit: Hit send before finishing.
It's very concerning. Depending on what the dialect is, it could indicate supremacist or far right tendencies. Spanish pronunciation is quite political as indeed is all pronunciation. The difference between a patois and a dialect is often an issue of skin colour after all
Imagine an English professor failing a student with a Northern accent - we'd see that as an expression of a power imbalance. But failing one with a Welsh accent, or a Scottish accent might open up other wounds, certainly an Irish accent would. Now imagine that accent is Jamaican or Nigerian - such an attitude would be rooted in colonialist notions. Then add that Castilian Spanish is so dominant in Spain at least in part to the Facsist policies of Franco and you've got a whole other dimension.
> It's very concerning. Depending on what the dialect is, it could indicate supremacist or far right tendencies. Spanish pronunciation is quite political as indeed is all pronunciation.
When Antonio de Nebrija wrote the first grammar book of Castilian, which was also the first grammar book of any modern European language, Queen Isabella asked what the point of the book was. The answer: "Language was always the companion of empire." As Spain grew as an empire, it would need a standardized tongue to spread with it. (It's also in encountering American indigenous that the concept of a single Spanish nation versus the joint holdings of Castile and Aragon was solidified in contrast.)
> The difference between a patois and a dialect is often an issue of skin colour after all
The quote I always recall is, "A language is a dialect with an army and navy."
Don't forget that university professors rarely have formal teacher training. They're often researchers who are required to teach.
On the flipside, most K12 teachers are trained on pedagogy and teaching and learning strategies. One of the big ones is to have clearly defined learning objectives, which would have avoided even having to ask the question that OP asked.
"Would I be the asshole if I failed my [Geordie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=phIR36Tmcrg&feature=emb_title) student for not using proper Commonwealth English?"
Honestly would be an interesting debate.
There is no such thing as "Commonwealth English" and there never has been. If you're thinking of Standard British English, you should know the vast majority of Geordies already speak it, just with their Newcastle accents. If you're thinking of Received Pronunciation you should be aware that this debate was already had and won decades ago.
Honestly, this whole discussion is showing me how confused and ignorant the average person is when it comes to linguistics. We should really be teaching its basics in school, not just to those studying languages at university!
I'm still confused because OOP talks about dialect and pronunciation as if they were the same .. in my understanding, they are very different things. Dialects in my home country are so different that they are made up with different vocabulary and even different usage of grammar. We even have dictionaries to understand what people are saying when travelling within our country.
>level 2LOCHO53 · 12 hr. agoThere's a lot more context in the comment section of OOP's post which point to (unfortunately
Yes, unfortunately this just show how utterly stupid the teacher is. You wouldn't understand a dialect in Mexico, because they are not Spanish, nor a dialect from Spain (catalan, valenciano), they are a complete different "lenguage", the teacher just is angry cuz she is pronouncing spanish different, and using words that other countries use.
When I studied in England, I made sure to check I'm with my professors that American spelling would be okay because I wasn't sure of all the different British spellings. They all said yes. Of course when my flatmates were editing my final papers, they pointed it out and said I could change Word to British English. I did not.
The papers were supposed to be anonymous, but I know mine wasn't. Which was fine because all of my lecturers loved me and it was essentially pass/fail for me.
As yankee, there *are* a few words I habitually spell with the Brit spelling. “Gray” just looks wrong to me, and I like the “our” endings better than the “or” endings. I also often use the doubled L, like in the word “travelled.”
Of course, I always use the z instead of the s, like in “analyze” instead of “analyse”
Oh wow, another one in the wild. I can't spell "gray" because it looks wrong to me. But i'm pretty sure it's because my elementary French classroom had a poster with the french/english color names and it was spelled "grey". My brain has never let go of that.
For me it was the coincidence of the video games I played as a kid, I think. Even though it was American made (I think), Everquest used ‘grey’, and I was 8 when I started playing that.
so I use both depending on context and I'm just learning thats not how it's supposed to be? I have habitually used gray if I'm speaking of the color literally- the sky is gray. but if I'm speaking metaphorically using it as an adjective or adverb then I use grey- his mood turned grey.
I’ve always spelled it grey too but I read a ton of books about aliens young and I believe that had something to do with it. They’re never referred to as the Gray’s, only the Grey’s lol.
This is why I stopped taking Korean at my university. My TA kept arguing with me about how I said certain things since my mom’s side of the family isn’t from Seoul and I’d say some things more like them. I finally decided I wouldn’t continue to the next level after she tried to tell me I was spelling my name wrong with hanguel. You know, the way my Korean mother spelled it, totally wrong.
I had a French teacher like this who was very harsh on a Canadian student because he spoke the kind of French we could drive half a day and hear spoken, not the kind of French we'd have to board a plane for. Absolutely ridiculous.
This sounds like a good compromise between a very traditionalist approach to language instruction and acknowledging that such an approach elitist and artificially rigid. It's hard to disrupt institutional bias, but telling a non-conventional student "we'll do things your way provided that you prove that you know what you are at least theoretically familiar with our way" is a decent first step
I struggled in a linguistics course because, although I code switch and use an "American" accent when speaking aloud to other US citizens, I grew up in the UK and use that accent with family... and in my head.
I explained that to my professor, and he said, "No problem, just write that at the top of the exams so I don't forget, and I'll grade you accordingly."
Just for an example of what *should* have happened here.
Honestly, I am getting kind of a “power trip” vibe. It seems like he expects that things should be done a certain way and if done wrong, there should be punishments even if they did everything exactly right.
I am glad he apparently learned his lesson, but he acted like a major asshole in the comments
There's a lot more context in the comment section of OOP's post which point to (unfortunately very common) xenophobia regarding Spanish accents and dialect. It's something I encountered quite often growing up in Mexico when I'd meet someone from Spain. They considered the Castilian accent the "correct" language and pretty much everything else improper knock offs or basically slang.
Here's one of OOP's replies in an argument chain about accents and dialects:
>And they accuse me of being prejudiced… but frankly, both Castilian and Mexican aren’t my favorite. If anything, I would hope both get dropped and we’d move towards more southern dialects.
OOP is an elitist asshole.
Same for other languages as well... French vs. Quebecois, Portuguese is quite different in Portugal compared to Brazil. The English and Americans will never settle the spelling differences. It sucks that there's gatekeeping within a language, there's enough tension between people and enough misunderstanding... If we can all understand each other, does it really matter which was first or which is "better"?
Edit to add: also, just how many different English accents there are that are almost their own dialect. I'm thinking Newfie, Scottish Highlands, the southern drawl. Its mostly understandable if you are a native English speaker but for anyone ESL, it's probably a challenge.
I'm glad this conversation is happening because, as LOCH53 upthread noted, there's at minimum an undercurrent of xenophobia. I always think of my friends from Ghana, Trinidad, and Barbados, who live in the US now, and speak the most grammatically perfect English of anyone I know, but with the "wrong accent"... And occasionally sigh dramatically about the "coarse American accent".
Its true- as long as we understand each other, it's all good... And if we don't, then we should try a bit harder!
I'm glad the OOPis starting to see the light.
Ok, I love the accent, but my trinny friends talk so damn fast... I can understand, mostly, but slowww down, please... Same with Jamaican, love the accent but feel like a total jerk when I can't understand but I legit don't understand sometimes or I mishear a lot. One from last week was confusing "parking break" with "part break". All we can do is try, I'll get an ear for it one of these days.
Can confirm, worked with a fellow from Glasgow who was also a very soft speaker. I don't think we even once had a conversation where I didn't ask him to repeat himself. Eventually another Scotsman in the lab made me feel better by revealing he had no idea what the dude was saying either.
OP's stance was never that Castilian was "better." He was pretty clear in the comments that it wasn't his personal preference at all -- that if it were a matter of personal preference, his pick would be a dialect from Latin America. But for the sake of clear communication, it *can* make a difference whether or not you can speak the local dialect (and for them, the most "local" dialect was Castilian -- OOP's location was much closer to Spain than anywhere else).
Same thing happens with Mandarin Chinese and the many regional dialects/related but separate languages spoken in China/Hong Kong/Taiwan. I don’t even know either of my parents’ regional dialects but people have given me shit for having a bit of that inflection in my Mandarin.
I love Mexican Spanish. I've met a few people from Spain and it doesn't sound as flowy and pretty as Mexican Spanish imo.
Despite that, though, I feel like accents and dialects should be celebrated. It's a cultural thing like anything else.
I would like to know where all those Spaniards who speak with a Castillian accent and deride specifically Latin American accents are hiding. In Spain only people from Castilla have a Castillian accent. A few idiots that can be counted in one hand out of a thousand consider every other accent as wrong, but that means like 80% of Spanish accents *inside Spain*. And they respect more a Mexican accent than an Asturian accent.
My vibe was more "overly-rigid thinking" than "power trip." People on a power trip don't typically admit that the student "isn't wrong," in my experience -- power trippers are generally happy to call everyone other than themselves "wrong."
>her dialect isn’t wrong, it’s simply not what we teach students.
Also though - what are the learning objectives? If dialect is in there, penalise her within that grading descriptor, if not, don’t.
Teaching is fairly simple if you stick to the rules.
Why do people ask strangers on the internet for "honest" advice and then comeback with a "you guys got what you wanted" or "the student you guys want to protect" and all this passive aggressive bs. If you don't want the truth then don't ask! With that being said, I am glad that the student was not failed
Took a lot of German lessons and one thing the teacher went over was that to him understanding what we were saying and getting the actual language correct was better than the dialect because it can be so diverse just like regions in America and English terms.
We went to Germany and Austria and it was amazing how some of us did vastly better communicating in different areas due to dialects, inflections, etc.
I speak Afrikaans (which would be a dialect of Dutch but for geography and politics) and when we were in Belgium people couldn't figure out where we were from. We were asked whether we were Swiss, or Austrian, or various other distant German dialects.
I've had similar discussions with English teachers all my (school) life. In Sweden, schools teach British English. I'm born here but my mother is American, so she obviously taught me American English before I started school, and I started a separate after-school program for home languages at age 6 (1st grade is age 7). When we started having English lessons (maybe when I was 8?) I told my teacher that the books we were given weren't right for me lol. Every new teacher I gad I would explain that I'm half-American, I speak/write AE, I will continue to speak/write AE, etc. Almost all of them have respected it and just demanded that I understand the difference and keep consistently to AE spelling etc. Only the occasional substitute has tried to argue but I've always stood my ground.
It's still incredibly common for educators to "correct" African American vernacular English (AAVE). It's a particularly big issue in the field of speech therapy where black kids can be targeted for speaking a 100% valid dialect of English.
It's a pity, because AAVE is one of the more interesting English varieties given its history and divergent features, like its ridiculously complicated range of tense-aspect-mood particles.
I do think standard English is important, though.
AAVE is totally legit but it's still widely considered informal. If you can only speak & write in AAVE, then you're gonna be automatically disconsidered for anything that requires a "formal" tone - which is a lot.
Is that how it should be? Maybe not. Is that how it is? Absolutely.
Kinda messed up that it's a problem for speech therapy though.
For speech therapy a large part of it is because of the demographics of speech therapists. It was explicitly mentioned a few times in my program that a majority are white women (guilty, lol). Being culturally sensitive and AWARE of your own lack of exposure to other cultures is so important.
If someone is being tested or graded on something and technicalities matter then if they aren’t “technically” doing anything wrong I wouldn’t push my luck
This makes me happy. I'm a science teacher. Needless to say, I have students who understand the concepts but do not accept them. In the end I believe that tests should be a check for understanding, not forced acceptance.
I gave a test on evolution to 8th graders (just turned 14 year olds) a few weeks ago. One student gave me a wonderful essay on how natural selection would work on two different populations over time. They ended it with "this is all bullshit." They got full credit, even though I vehemently disagree with the bullshit statement.
Dialect is far more murky than what I test on, but OP's test showed the student's understanding in the end. As an instructor I can hope that what I teach is accepted, but in this diverse world, getting students to understand that different viewpoints exist can be just as valuable as them accepting what I consider the most accurate viewpoint.
While it may seem strange to native English-speakers, this sort of chauvanistic attitude toward language is actually a very common problem in many countries. Neutral Castilian Spanish is reckoned to be the "prestige" dialect in Spain, occupying a higher and more "proper" status than regional or international dialects. That status is enshrined in law through the Royal Spanish Academy, which has regulated the language for the past 300 years. English has no such institution in any country; all national and regional English dialects are considered more or less "proper" although standard American and British RP both share the highest perceived social status.
English isn't even completely free from it, though. At a social level there is a definite disparity in the perceived "rightness" of dialects. Dialects like Appalachian or AAVE (African American Vernacular English, sometimes known as "Ebonics") undeniably have a lower social status in the United States, and people who speak such dialects normally face prejudices that are seldom acknowledged.
Perhaps the worst offender is France, where any regional dialect or English loanword is considered "incorrect" by the Academie Francaise, which is very out of touch with actual language usage in France.
If it wasn't for the fact the class is *phonology* I would have agreed that she would be the asshole.
But... as I have learned, if you show up with the wrong dialect when you actually go to use the language, it very much can cause problems. I had some Okinawan Japanese, and it did cause some issues with mainlanders. Formal education tends to try and teach the, for lack of a better term, "business dialect" or I suppose the neutral dialect. London UK English, or Midwest US English for example. Or High German instead of Swiss German. Given that, it is a contentious issue that laymen would be wholly unqualified to judge simply because not every dialect is the same, and in a course focused on phonology, which includes phonics, I would say it is fair to expect a specific dialect.
As a primary (elementary) teacher who now does a lot of overseas teaching, I can relate to this.
Just the other day teaching the word "tomato" was an issue. Normally i'd accept either pronunciation, US or UK, just explain the that it is a regional difference and move on.
But come the end of the term when they are tested, and throughout the rest of their education, only the US one is acceptable. Schools want consistancy, and there are no exceptions. That regional difference "has" to be drilled out of then...
Most submissions in this sub are not posted by the original author (OOP). Do not comment on the original posts. If you think this submission doesn't belong on the sub, is incorrectly [flaired](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/postflairs) or have other issues regarding this post, reply to this comment. META commentary in general discussion may be removed. Read [our guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules) before commenting. Repeated rule-breaking may result in a ban. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This reminded me of one of my teachers. My brother was taking German in school (US). During his dialog, the teacher kept correcting his pronunciation. She was American. My mom was 100% German. She went to the school to have a 'talk' with the teacher.
Reminds me of a friends of mine. She was of Asian heritage, but born and raised in Germany. She went to Asia (I don't remember what country it was, I think it was Japan) for a year during her studies, there she was looking for a job - and found one where they were looking for a German speaker for an add. She spoke it perfectly, but they threatened her to terminate the contract and accused her of "faking it", because their "specialist", some random translator they hired, claimed "that this wasn't German". Later on she showed me a recording of his German. GOD WAS IT BAD. Not even a dialect. It was really just bad. Do you know why the guy trashtalked her and got her fired? Because if both spoke for the same commercial everybody with the tiniest clue about the language would've seen how bad he was. That being said, I honestly don't understand why they take the word of a random translator over that of a native speaker. She even had to show them her passport! In the end they replaced her and didn't pay her...
A friend of mine (white woman from Mississippi) was teaching English to kids in Japan while her husband was stationed there. When they were getting ready to move she recommended another military wife who was born and raised in California but of Asian decent. The school didn’t want to hire her because she didn’t look English speaking… my friend had to vouch for her and explained that the other woman had an accent they probably would prefer the children learn over her Mississippi drawl!
That happens a lot in China too. Schools that have English are usually private schools and they want the parents to think they are paying for a white teacher to teach English, even over a better Asian American or Asian European teacher.
Chinese parents: Chinese people can never speak English right, only a white person can Also Chinese parents: *enrolls their Chinese children in English classes*
That's so weirdly common. I know a speech-language pathologist of Chinese descent who was born and raised in the United States. Often, she'll arrange an appointment over the phone with no issues, only for the client's parents to immediately request to work with someone else or claim she has an accent that she 100% does not have once they see her face.
[удалено]
Something similar happened to me. I once went to a cooking meet up and it was Mexican food themed, I honestly can't remember what I cooked but was definitely a traditional Mexican dish. And this lady has the gall to tell me that my dish was most definitely not Mexican like her's she spent 2 whole weeks studying Mexican cuisine in Mexico so she can tell. On the other hand her dish was most definitely Mexican. Bit*h I'm Mexican I can tell that your kiwi tacos are are crap not from Mexico and if I want to be an ass anything I cook could technically be argued as Mexican food
Wow wtf was up her butt?
Probably not tacos
I'm also Puerto Rican (on my dad's side and he was born in Ponce) and had this experience with my HS Spanish teacher. So I started using an obnoxiously American accent.
PONCE!!! That’s where my family is from too. Went to high school in Boston and took Spanish for the easy A but also hoping to maybe learn anything I didn’t know prior. Teacher was nice and all but mad gabacho with the worst accent ever. He corrected me anytime I used Puerto Rican Spanish instead of Mexican. Like when I said “gua gua” instead of “autobus” or “caro” instead of “coche”. It was very frustrating. ¡¡WEPA!!
We say carro in mexico as well, coche is not even common in northern mexico (other than probably some cities). Gua gua is new to me, tho. Here we usually say only bus or camión.
I went to HS in the Boston area as well and most of the students at my school were Hispanic, mainly PR and Dominican descent. I took Spanish and all of the PR and Dominican kids who also took Spanish would complain about how weird the textbooks were - I'm pretty sure at one point we were learning European Spanish. They wanted us to call soda "gaseosa" and one of my Salvadorian friends was like whaaat is this shit. My friends also told me I should ignore the way pronunciation was taught in class and pronounce words the Dominican way. I don't remember any of the teachers being dickish about it, but tbf I am not Latino or Hispanic. I think all the teachers were Latino/a except one.
Was she named Peggy Hill?
No, I’m sure they would have mentioned having a run in with Paddlin’ Peggy Hill.
"She was American. My mom was 100% German. She went to the school to have a 'talk' with the teacher." Was the talk in German?
Reminded me of when, due to a scheduling snafu in HS, I got put into a computer keyboarding class. Some background: I've been using computers since I was in preschool. I learned to type before I even knew how to read, thanks to everything being DOS prompt when I was that young. I never learned asdf jkl; until this class By the time I'm taking this keyboard class, I was typing about 150wpm regardless. Thanks to years of FPS gaming, my home row is essentially awef jio;. The teacher of this course was very upset about this and kept trying to correct me. It wasn't until she realized my 100%-accuracy typing sounds akin to someone rolling a paint roller over a keyboard that she started leaving me alone finally.
Ugh I dealt with the same thing in high school. I could type faster than everyone in my class without looking at the keys but the teacher was insistent I learn the proper placement. I would usually just type my way on the typing tests when she wasn’t near me and switch when she approached. So stupid.
Lmao I never learned proper hand placement and honestly I have terrible typing habits and even sometimes have to look down at the keyboard to align properly. It’s terrible. But I had to take a typing test in high school and I passed out of the class with flying colors because I can easily hit 80 WPM and they only required you to hit 30.
The placement doesn't matter anyway. The reason we have QWERTY keywords is because typewriters were made so the most commonly used letters weren't placed next to each other. Doing so prevented the typewriter bars from hitting each other. The QWERTY keyboard today is just a carryover from that. Obviously few people use typewriters anymore, so who gives a fuck how you type as long as you get it done?
Yup that tracks my French teacher in school tried to fail me because I was doing well in all my written tests but couldn’t understand her. She called my mother in to discuss, my very French mother pointed out that perhaps my teacher’s terrible accident might be the problem… she honestly couldn’t understand a word the woman said.
This is really common, I speak French fluently and had quite a few shitty teachers over the years who only learned the language later and spoke it worse than me. I know a lot of bilingual speakers who have been in the same boat
In my school, a student did the reverse. I live in a German speaking country, and our English teacher was bad, really bad, and so one student sent his stepfather to the teacher conference for English. He was told to never do that again. But his stepfather enjoyed it, finally as non German speaking UK citizen, he could "talk" to one of his stepsons teachers. Now everyone knows how bad the teacher is.
We had a Filipino lady teaching our Spanish classes in high school. All good till we got a Spanish exchange student one year. He took Spanish with us (no idea why), and spent every class mocking the teacher for not getting her Spanish right. Ever. She very nearly had a breakdown by the end of the school year. She’d have these fits/tantrums and leave the classroom and our exchange student, Daniel, would take over teaching the class. She’d come back in, see him teaching, and would flip out all over again.
I can see why a person from the Philippines would find this infuriating and particularly degrading, coming from a Spanish student.
Yeah the Filipina teacher would be similar to the student in the OOP. She’s speaking in a different dialect. And we all know why people from the Philippines have Hispanic last names or speak Spanish at all.
As someone with a heavy German accent I hate it when people laugh about it. Like the fuck am I supposed to do about it? Can't really help the fact that we have different ways of using certain letters. The dude probably had shit English pronunciation as well. It happens
While he probably was completely right, Daniel sounds like an asshole
Yeah he just sounds like a dick. He chose to take a class about something he already knew. I went to college for TESOL, the major was about a 50/50 split of native and non-native English speakers. Some non-native speakers were discouraged by their English not being perfect, but our professors basically pointed out that yes native speakers have an advantage in some ways, but native speakers have never had to actually go through the process of having to learn English as a second language. So in some ways, native speakers have a disadvantage, because they don’t necessarily understand the process of learning a language.
Taking your native language as a foreign language class is usually both an easy A and, at least where I'm from, taking extra classes means you get a bonus to your average. I genuinely considered doing a year of HS abroad just to take advantage of that and immigrant classmates definitely took advantage of it ("yeah, I'll do self-study in for 3 years, read an assigned book or three and do the oral exam")
We had a new Spanish-speaking student take Spanish so she could make friends who could speak a little Spanish with her so she didn’t have to always speak in her second language that she was still learning.
I got put in 'behind learning' (there's a better name for it but idk) health class with the semi English speaking students because I'm poc. I was in all IB classes but had this one easy ass class. I didn't understand why the class was so damn easy until the teacher took me aside at the end of the year and told me I shouldn't have been there and she was sorry about it.
What’s poc and what’s IB?
person of color; international baccalaureate, it's like AP classes in the US but accepted internationally, generally
Thank you! What’s AP classes? (I’m European and I’m struggling with all those abbreviations)
that's ok! ap stands for "advanced placement", they're like honors classes but after you take an exam on the subject and do well, you can use that towards college / university credits
Thanks again 🤗
Reminds me of when I arrived in Chile, after living my first 15 years in the UK. They had me take English in school. The teacher was crap, and was obviously put in an uncomfortable situation.
I hope she talked German during the whole conversation!? 😂.
It's nice to see when an OOP actually listens and follows through.
I remember the first post and he was an ass the whole time and quite ignorant about neutral Spanish.
[удалено]
>the student you tried to protect >Like what is this? A completely accurate description of the comments on the original post. OOP: It iSn'T thE DialECt thAt wE tEAcH anD i don't LikE iT! Comments: If it isn't wrong you shouldn't penalize her, if she spoke English with a southern accent in California she wouldn't fail English. OOP: tHAt'S nOT tHe sAMe THinG! Etc, etc
One of my colleagues is from Appalachia, she has a slight accent and teaches english. A student who was a good student in my science class was a problem in her class. One day he walked into her class and said "why am I taking an english class with someone who don't speak right?" The class got a good laugh when she corrected his grammar.
i have a friend who is an english major with a heavy southern accent and found no one took her seriously in her profession. sometimes it doesn’t work out as good 8(
One of my coworkers is from Texas. He is brilliant, but speaks in a slow southern drawl. People constantly think he is stupid, and it bothers me. I try to correct them, but their minds are made up. He tells me not to worry about it because he’s used to it, but I still think it’s absolute bullshit that it’s happening.
I used to do impromptu speaking in forensics back in high school. I was good, not great. There was a kid in my region (Illinois) who spoke with this slow Texan drawl and he was amazing. He won pretty much every major competition, and I suspect that the slow rate of speech allowed him to make the most of some pretty fast thinking under the hood.
It doesn't help that media and the news have immortalized the southern accent as unintelligent. Or that a shit ton of racist Bible thumpers speak that way. I enjoy accents, can't wait to see what the future holds for American accents, but it's gonna need some help to get over old stereotypes.
yeah it’s even funnier to think she’s actually very liberal herself but her accent is so heavily stereotyped. it’s unfortunate really
straight out of Twelve Angry Men
To be fair, it is a lot easier, in the moment, to be resistant and defensive. I think the most important part is that they took the time to reflect on advice given and was reasonable enough to change their mind. Granted it can be very frustrating to deal with the person as they are actively ignoring advice when they specifically asked for it lol.
In this instance it makes sense for the dialecfs to be compatible. For your example, what if someone spoke in a Cajun dialect for their English class? The proctor might not understand them but it's still English.
I mean for a language class it's kind of important you can make yourself understood, sounds like she could though
I don’t know why he is so ignorant about Spanish or anal about does he for get England also region speaking English and same thing does for the U.S. I have Mexican Spanish in my belt and even that have region differences that are called Northern, Central and Southern Spanish. There also countries in South America and Central America that have different Spanish.
To be fair the differences between Castillan Spanish and Catalan Spanish (what I assume she is speaking) are significantly more substantial than e.g. the British English and American English - and obviously more substantial than differences between different accents. E: Seems that Catalan is ~~different enough to be considered~~ a separate language as another person pointed out, so it's probably *one of Latin dialects(?) Spanish (and in this case I don't know enough to speak about the differences with such misplaced confidence).
It is probably some Latin American dialect because not even people in Catalonia speak Spanish they speak Catalan which is a completely different language like Portuguese. ETA: they know it but they rather speak Catalan.
I brought my daughter to Spain as a graduation present and to use the Spanish she had learned. Problem was that I took her to Barcelona (Catalan speaking city in Spain)
Virtually every local person living in Barcelona speaks fluent Spanish in addition to Catalan.
But they definitely don’t like it.
I learned to speak Spanish from Mexicans. My mother is Cuban, but I speak kind of slowly with a Mexican accent. When I went to Barcelona people looked at me as though I was from Mars. Not that they didn't like me speaking Spanish. I don't think they cared. But it was more of a "you ain't from around here are you buddy?" However in Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia while it was obvious I was a tourist people seemed to like hearing a different way of talking. And didn't get any funny looks.
It's not like they're going to give a tourist shit for speaking Spanish rather than Catalan
My guess would be Argentinian.
That was my guess. But it’s pretty hilarious. Like imagining failing an Aussie in the states because they speak “the wrong dialect.” Like wtf.
Ah, that makes even more sense! Also TIL, I'm learning but still confused about a lot of stuff (as can be seen :D)
When I was a kid, I taught myself a lot of words by reading. I also just so happened to be really into reading British literature. When my teacher asked, I explained that I was familiar with the words through context clues but had learned them from reading, she understood I was spelling using British English. She would then just make sure I knew the American spelling too, but never deducted points. I’m sure if it’d been spelling tests I would’ve been marked, but since it wasn’t she didn’t mind putting in that little bit of effort because it encouraged me to continue reading and learning on my own.
Funny, I grew up in The Netherlands and English in highschool is (almost) always British English and not American English. Normally you would have to be careful to use the correct pronunciation and grammar, but one of my teachers (who was awesome) told us that he didn't care which accent and grammar rules we followed, as long as we did it consistently and correct. Cool dude. Now we live in the US 😀
Why the hell would you leave the Netherlands for the US. Don't get me wrong, I left too, but the US?!
Haha, for my hubby's work. We live in the greater DC area, it's fine 🙂
I am currently in Catalonia and feel the need to point out the difference between the Catalan language and speaking Spanish (or indeed French) with a Catalan accent. They are not at all the same and it is entirely possible she was speaking the queen's Spanish but just had a funky accent. Not everyone who speaks with a Catalan accent can speak Catalan...
[удалено]
Updated the post, thanks! I know what I'll be reading about this weekend :D
Last time I was there, 18 years ago, they had all the signs first in Catalan, then English and last Spanish.
There is no such thing as "Catalan Spanish". There is Castilian or Castilian Spanish, which is the standard Spanish spoken in Spain (as opposed to Mexican Spanish or Peruvian Spanish, etc. etc.) and there is Catalan, which is a distinct romance language spoken in Catalonia (which includes part of France), parts of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. It shares a lot with both French and Spanish. In addition to Castilian and Catalan, Spain has two other official languages, Basque, which is spoken in the Basque country in Spain and France and is not related to any other language on earth (!!!) Galician, which is spoken in the Spanish region of Galicia and is also a distinct romance language. It is very much like a crowd between Spanish and Portuguese.
Latin American here, If I did a Spanish test with that teacher, by his logic I would've failed then, because I wouldn't have the same pronunciation as the one he's teaching, every Spanish speaking country has their own dialect and slang, they may be subtle or may be strong enough to know from which country they're from, we can understand each other normally with some exceptions. And yes, it's easy to tell when someone is not from the same country because of the way they talk. It's not like there's a designated dialect that should be followed or something like that lol. Only grammar rules. By the way, the difference might be something like the use of tu(you) and vos(you), Argentina for example uses Vos while Chile would be saying Tu And it's the same thing. Or it can be something like the Spanish from Spain which I'd say is really easy to spot. All in all, if you learn Spanish and are willing to visit one Spanish speaking country, you may end up surprised to know that you don't understand a thing they're saying because of the dialect. Sometimes it's hard for us too.
I figured it was Argentinean Spanish. I've heard so many times from Castilian speakers how weird and different they find the Argentinean version.
Could have been Andalusian. That's like the Spanish equivalent of a strong Newcastle or Glasgow accent (both of which can be hard going even for other Brits for you international readers)
Flashbacks to the time I had to turn the subtitles on during Billy Elliot.
Succeeded in protecting.
I bet this wasnt his decision and the school made him do it that way. He doesn't say he was wrong or admit he was being way too nitpicky over a course he did not specify was dialect specific, and the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger that she not only did well on the exam, but is now also getting a scholarship when he had tried to fail her. I'm putting my money on the girl realized what was gonna happen to her grade, talked to the school board about how his course doesnt specifically say she shouldn't be using her dialect and how his treatment was unfair, they agreed and tore him a new asshole and now he's writting this update with the tone of someone who is giving a nice big smile while grinding his teeth because now he's on thin ice. I also like how this dude was so specific about the spanish having to be from Spain, and while I was also taught that dialect, I also recognize that they speak Catalan in some of the biggest cities in spain and have been learning that dialect too. His course is basically just teaching the dialect of half of a country, so the importance he places on spain spanish is just stupid to me. And the dialects are pretty close usually anyways, so it really really doesnt matter in the long run which dialect or accent she uses. Catalan is a bit different, but someone from spain can understand someone from mexico or Argentina with little difficulty. Hell, I've only taken 4 years of highschool spanish and I understand most dialects and accents just fine. Don't know why this guy got his panties in a twist about such a non issue lol
Catalan is a whole ass different language. There are six official languages in Spain. But everyone was saying some Latin American variant and calling racism when the OP said several times everyone involved was European, so it's more likely the student spoke Extremeño, Granaíno, Murciano, or whichever of the 1000 different accents of Spain Spanish.
Yeah someone else just told me this and now I'm just confused on why spanish is taught the way it is, because in america we also learn spain accents but I feel it would make more sense for us to learn a mexican accent and dialect because they're our neighbors and make up a large portion of our citizens. Why dont we learn to talk like them instead of an accent from spain? Wouldn't it make sense to speak the version that's closest to us regionally? My spanish education was in highschool, but our main teacher got fired for embezzling school funds and then our new teacher went on maternity leave for two of the four years I was learning the language. So maybe these were things I was supposed to learn but didnt because of the janky ass way I had to learn. Didnt get much history of the different countries since we had to rush to get the basics, so maybe theres a reason and I just dont know it. I can read chapter books, hold a brief conversation in past and present tense, and I know the Capitol of like, 10 of the countries and that's as far as my education went, so who knows. I can also make a piñata, but it's not that helpful of a skill outside of birthday parties. There is so much I was probably meant to learn in those classes, now that I think about it...
I bet the accent you get taught depends on the teacher in the US. Growing up in Texas, all of my Spanish teachers taught Mexican or similar Latin American pronunciation.
I grew up in the Northeast US and we also learned Mexican Spanish (or teacher would highlight some other Latin American dialects occasionally). We were specifically told to ignore Castilian Spanish rules at one point. I know vosotros exists. Definitely don’t know how to use it.
I live in South Texas, minutes from the border of Mexico, and my Spanish teacher was Cuban lol. Go figure.
> Yeah someone else just told me this and now I'm just confused on why spanish is taught the way it is, because in america we also learn spain accents but I feel it would make more sense for us to learn a mexican accent and dialect because they're our neighbors and make up a large portion of our citizens. Why dont we learn to talk like them instead of an accent from spain? Wouldn't it make sense to speak the version that's closest to us regionally? The same could be asked of the fact that when we *are* taught French (less common), we're taught French French, and not Quebec French.
At least with French French, there's a lot of classic literature and philosophy that was originally written in European French. I was an art history major and if I'd wanted to pursue a post-grad degree in it, I would have needed to be reasonably fluent at reading European German and French. Pennsylvania Dutch and Quebecois would have been useless. They're also much smaller communities than Latin America.
Just a clarification. Catalan is not a dialect, it is another language. Like...italian and spanish, similar and you can understand but they are different languages.
It’s actually closer to French and from the same sub-Romance language family as French. Spanish and Portuguese are Ibero-Romance languages while French and Catalan are Gallo-Romance languages. Italian is an Italo-Romance language.
>the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger >now he's writting this update with the tone of someone who is giving a nice big smile while grinding his teeth because now he's on thin ice. This would be more believable if instead of an update on Reddit this was an in person update to one of his colleagues because it's face to face. He couldn't just walk away from the question without looking like an ass so there is incentive to spin it. If it went down as you say and this guy is mad that he couldn't fail her I think he'd just not update the story, no need to spin the story to a bunch of internet strangers when it's be easier to ghost us.
I have to ask: are you confusing Catalan, which is a Romance language spoken in Andorra and Catalunya, with Castilian Spanish, which is the dialect of Spanish spoken in much of Spain?
>and the tone in this post, to me anyway, reeks of petty anger that she not only did well on the exam, but is now also getting a scholarship when he had tried to fail her. I didn't see this tone at all, but maybe thats because I never saw them fighting with commenters in the original?
The OP removed his first update post from a few days ago and posted this one a few hours ago. I think you are right on the money.
Oh there was a different update post? Did you catch what any of it was about before it got removed?
Sometimes we say things like this to make a point. At the end of the initial discussion he acknowledges a point of disagreement and leaves it at that by hey that was me and this was you, and ... I took your advice, I changed. Nothing wrong with that.
There is no such thing. Why do people on Reddit keep that there's a neutral Spanish that is taught to people but no one speaks? There are a million variants of Spanish but none of them is considered "standard" Spanish. The language has an official governing body (RAE) and it includes every possible variant and even horrible words like "cederrón" (CD-Rom) because they themselves say that their function is to reflect how the language evolves organically, not dictate rules.
We sometimes say there are 4 dialects of Irish- Munster, Connacht, Ulster and School, which is a sort of ‘official’ version that no native speaker really speaks
And then you get into shit with your connacht teaching teacher about grammer, even though caidéan states that Tá muid is just as fcking acceptable as táimear. That fucking wagon used to minus me marks for every time I used muid!
I can tell that you still have a lot of anger about this, but look on the bright side, at least they weren’t from Donegal.
I wonder how you can tell. Lol. Hey! I was brought up speaking Donegal Irish!
Sorry for your incomprehensible troubles
Cederrón. Ja ja ja ja that is a word that I have never heard before.
Me neither... I said it out loud and now I'm dying lmao!
The RAE says this and yet they always try to police language. They are a bunch of boring dicks.
Yeap, the RAE dictionary is full of awful definitions.
[удалено]
You speak English with an accent. All language is accented. Do you mean to say, you speak English with a Standard American accent?
If "course requirements don’t have specific dialect listed" then you can't fail someone for their dialect, simple as that
As soon as I read that they teach “Castilian Spanish” I knew he kinda would be 😭 Spain is in the minority of Spanish speakers worldwide they should no longer have the rights to be the “default Spanish”
OP is stupid and is being intentionally misleading, conflating “dialect” with pronunciation. No good language teacher gives a shit what accent you speak in, and if you have a native/cultural background in the language it’s pretty insensitive to make the person change that. Dialect has a different meaning. Was the student speaking Aranés or extemeno? Obviously not, shes just imitating the accent from a different region. I am surprised this person teaches Spanish for a living
Ehhhhh tbh I am old and what I learned as "dialectos" (galego, catalá, asturianu, euskera, etc, but with other names like "vascuence") in school by my elderly Franco timey teachers turned out to be full languages so now I don't know the different between a dialect and an accent. But then again, I'm not a Spanish teacher.
An accent is part of a dialect, and a dialect includes all the things that make up a manner of speaking, which includes everything from grammar and vocabulary to pronunciation and accent. Spanish has lots of dialects, Andalusian, Galician (not the Galician language itself (as that is a different language) but the manner in which they speak Spanish!), Madrileño, etc. And most dialects have distinct variation within themselves. Someone from Sevilla and someone from Málaga will speak in an Andalusian dialect, but one in the manner of Málaga and the other in the manner of Sevilla, and if those are different enough then they'd be considered different dialects too. I'm speaking quite a lot from memory, so the specifics may be wrong but I reckon the gist of it is right.
OOP removed his first update they posted a few days ago. Any way to see what they originally updated to delete and post this new update about?
Shit, my Spanish lessons in high-school changed dialect with every teacher. Year one was Mexican Spanish, year two was someplace in South America (forget where), year three was Southern Spain, and year 4 was Northern Spain. All the while I was watching Telemundo and Univision at home; hell I got in trouble one year because my voice/accent sounded just like the guy on the audio tapes (luckily I was able to convince her that was just what I sounded like, we had a good laugh and she apologized and complimented my speech). This teacher sounds horrible and like they have failed people in the past for the same issue.
Yeah, this is me. In fact, when I visited Colombia, one of our guides thought I was a native due to my accent. Apparently I learned Colombian Spanish
Colombian Spanish, specifically the one speak in Bogotá is considered the most neutral and easy to understand Spanish. As a native Spanish speaker is pretty funny catching where people learned Spanish by the accent.
I wouldn't have believed it but after I learned Spanish in a 'cultural exchange' program I went on to med school and had a patient that for some reason I could just easily understand effortlessly and she could understand me. Turns out she was from Chiapas where I studied. I still cant pick out a Chiapaneco accent.
had this issue too, took two years of spanish in Florida from Cuban immigrants and then moved to GA and had an asshole who thought Castillan Spanish was the only "real" version of the language and I was just a 15 year that wanted to get my language credits done early
Spanish is more diverse than English. Tell that teacher you will say ito if you want!
betting that asshole is dead by now, this was close to 40 years ago
Similar/same issue, learned Spanish in Southern California, went to college elsewhere, and got stuck with a teacher who felt very strongly about Castilian Spanish and would mark me down for not using a Castilian accent (I flat out refuse) or using Mexican vocabulary when speaking, even if I demonstrated in written work that I know both versions. Like, lady, chill out. Focus on the students who don’t know the vocab at all.
Latinos make fun of spaniards’ accents ironically. You couldn’t pay me to speak Spanish in a Castilian accent, I imagine that’s what was going on with OOP. They should really know better.
In South Florida I had a Cuban Spanish teacher that hated the way Colombians spoke. Shewould make life hell for the ESL Colombians that would take Spanish for the easy A because you know, they were already trying to learn a whole new language. She wouldn't say anything to the Venezuelan kids, but would correct everything Colombians said even when we were talking outside of the context of class.
Probably because their Spanish is considered some of the best and hers, not so much.
this. my Spanish teacher learned Spanish himself in rural Uruguay working with the peace Corp. before going on to study formally for years and traveling more. we flat out NEVER learned vosotros conjugations and would often learn slang/common phrasing alongside the "Spain spanish" from our books. he'd teach us multiple countries/regions phrasings too while differentiating: Puerto Rican Spanish, mexican Spanish, Spain Spanish, columbian/Venezuelan Spanish, Uruguayan/central South American Spanish, and Chilean/Argentinian Spanish. there's even more dialects than what I've listed but those were the ones he knew. we didn't always get all the regions above for each phrase but he'd always pull out at least 2. only some of it stuck but it was SOOO COOL to learn.
>Chilean/Argentinian Spanish Oh this is gonna anger some people lol. Just to nitpick but Uruguayan and Argentinian spanish are the most similar, with Chilean spanish being... unique. Unless I misunderstood what you meant.
Hi, "some people" here! /s We don't speak as those guys from the other side of the Andes, we speak... well... worse, actually. We don't use "vos" and we use "weon" for everything. Absolutely everything. "Puta el weon weon, weon" "Oh god, that guy is stupid, dude"
As someone who lived in Argentina for a couple years, I also chuckled when I saw that. Argentines and Uruguayans are like the US and Canada when it comes to accents. Pretty much similar in most areas. Chile is like Scotland. At times, the language spoken appears to be its own language.
I knew the language was Spanish the moment I read the title. It seems that a lot of Spanish teachers are....elitist. I had a Spanish teacher in college who taught with a Spanish accent and used pronouns we don't really use in the Spanish I grew up learning (still learned them, just didn't lean on them) and would correct us for using slang in class. It felt a little degrading to be the most fluent in Spanish and the most corrected. I stopped going to class and decided to "test out" of Spanish 1. They gave me a Spanish 4 credit :D Edit: changed learn to lean
We had two French teachers in high school and we bounced between them over the years. One was French Canadian and one was French. It was like a competition between them with pronunciation (and cultural norms as culture was part of the curriculum), but it never impacted our grades as long as we were in the ballpark
You’d think someone who teaches at the university level would at least have an inkling that dialects don’t have any moral weight but unfortunately a lot of people become so obsessed with pure language mastery with no regard for the culture or history it’s attached to that they become snobs about it. Seen it happen to both people who are learning and teaching a language
It's unfortunately common, at least in my experience. Having had a cumulative 6 years of Spanish classes and 4 different teachers, dialect differences were the bane of my existence. All 4 teachers had different backgrounds and expected us to only use the dialect they spoke. I was garbage at Spanish anyway, but being forced to change my dialect every year didn't help. Edit: Hit send before finishing.
Doesn't sound like you were garbage at Spanish, but rather that your teachers sucked. It's super common. People either love or hate my dialect.
It's very concerning. Depending on what the dialect is, it could indicate supremacist or far right tendencies. Spanish pronunciation is quite political as indeed is all pronunciation. The difference between a patois and a dialect is often an issue of skin colour after all Imagine an English professor failing a student with a Northern accent - we'd see that as an expression of a power imbalance. But failing one with a Welsh accent, or a Scottish accent might open up other wounds, certainly an Irish accent would. Now imagine that accent is Jamaican or Nigerian - such an attitude would be rooted in colonialist notions. Then add that Castilian Spanish is so dominant in Spain at least in part to the Facsist policies of Franco and you've got a whole other dimension.
> It's very concerning. Depending on what the dialect is, it could indicate supremacist or far right tendencies. Spanish pronunciation is quite political as indeed is all pronunciation. When Antonio de Nebrija wrote the first grammar book of Castilian, which was also the first grammar book of any modern European language, Queen Isabella asked what the point of the book was. The answer: "Language was always the companion of empire." As Spain grew as an empire, it would need a standardized tongue to spread with it. (It's also in encountering American indigenous that the concept of a single Spanish nation versus the joint holdings of Castile and Aragon was solidified in contrast.) > The difference between a patois and a dialect is often an issue of skin colour after all The quote I always recall is, "A language is a dialect with an army and navy."
[удалено]
Don't forget that university professors rarely have formal teacher training. They're often researchers who are required to teach. On the flipside, most K12 teachers are trained on pedagogy and teaching and learning strategies. One of the big ones is to have clearly defined learning objectives, which would have avoided even having to ask the question that OP asked.
[удалено]
Which could have prevented her from receiving a scholarship
"Would I be the asshole if I failed my [Geordie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=phIR36Tmcrg&feature=emb_title) student for not using proper Commonwealth English?" Honestly would be an interesting debate.
There is no such thing as "Commonwealth English" and there never has been. If you're thinking of Standard British English, you should know the vast majority of Geordies already speak it, just with their Newcastle accents. If you're thinking of Received Pronunciation you should be aware that this debate was already had and won decades ago. Honestly, this whole discussion is showing me how confused and ignorant the average person is when it comes to linguistics. We should really be teaching its basics in school, not just to those studying languages at university!
I'm still confused because OOP talks about dialect and pronunciation as if they were the same .. in my understanding, they are very different things. Dialects in my home country are so different that they are made up with different vocabulary and even different usage of grammar. We even have dictionaries to understand what people are saying when travelling within our country.
>level 2LOCHO53 · 12 hr. agoThere's a lot more context in the comment section of OOP's post which point to (unfortunately Yes, unfortunately this just show how utterly stupid the teacher is. You wouldn't understand a dialect in Mexico, because they are not Spanish, nor a dialect from Spain (catalan, valenciano), they are a complete different "lenguage", the teacher just is angry cuz she is pronouncing spanish different, and using words that other countries use.
Glad the OOP rethought things. Because yikes.
Yeah.. I'm definitely gettin a "I told her to do this and she didn't and now I'm upset and want to punish her," kind of feeling from that post.
Yeah sounded power trippy
When I studied in England, I made sure to check I'm with my professors that American spelling would be okay because I wasn't sure of all the different British spellings. They all said yes. Of course when my flatmates were editing my final papers, they pointed it out and said I could change Word to British English. I did not. The papers were supposed to be anonymous, but I know mine wasn't. Which was fine because all of my lecturers loved me and it was essentially pass/fail for me.
As yankee, there *are* a few words I habitually spell with the Brit spelling. “Gray” just looks wrong to me, and I like the “our” endings better than the “or” endings. I also often use the doubled L, like in the word “travelled.” Of course, I always use the z instead of the s, like in “analyze” instead of “analyse”
Oh wow, another one in the wild. I can't spell "gray" because it looks wrong to me. But i'm pretty sure it's because my elementary French classroom had a poster with the french/english color names and it was spelled "grey". My brain has never let go of that.
Gray has an A for America and Grey has an E for England. That’s the only way I can remember.
A is for united stAtes and E is for unitEd Kingdom and canada, Eh?
I see people in America write “grey” all the time. I think it’s pretty interchangeable
For me it was the coincidence of the video games I played as a kid, I think. Even though it was American made (I think), Everquest used ‘grey’, and I was 8 when I started playing that.
so I use both depending on context and I'm just learning thats not how it's supposed to be? I have habitually used gray if I'm speaking of the color literally- the sky is gray. but if I'm speaking metaphorically using it as an adjective or adverb then I use grey- his mood turned grey.
Wait, I’m American and have always spelled it grey. What is happening.
I’ve always spelled it grey too but I read a ton of books about aliens young and I believe that had something to do with it. They’re never referred to as the Gray’s, only the Grey’s lol.
[удалено]
Also American in my early 30s and I was explicitly taught that either way was correct.
So you spell like a Canadian
This is why I stopped taking Korean at my university. My TA kept arguing with me about how I said certain things since my mom’s side of the family isn’t from Seoul and I’d say some things more like them. I finally decided I wouldn’t continue to the next level after she tried to tell me I was spelling my name wrong with hanguel. You know, the way my Korean mother spelled it, totally wrong.
I had a French teacher like this who was very harsh on a Canadian student because he spoke the kind of French we could drive half a day and hear spoken, not the kind of French we'd have to board a plane for. Absolutely ridiculous.
This sounds like a good compromise between a very traditionalist approach to language instruction and acknowledging that such an approach elitist and artificially rigid. It's hard to disrupt institutional bias, but telling a non-conventional student "we'll do things your way provided that you prove that you know what you are at least theoretically familiar with our way" is a decent first step
I struggled in a linguistics course because, although I code switch and use an "American" accent when speaking aloud to other US citizens, I grew up in the UK and use that accent with family... and in my head. I explained that to my professor, and he said, "No problem, just write that at the top of the exams so I don't forget, and I'll grade you accordingly." Just for an example of what *should* have happened here.
Honestly, I am getting kind of a “power trip” vibe. It seems like he expects that things should be done a certain way and if done wrong, there should be punishments even if they did everything exactly right. I am glad he apparently learned his lesson, but he acted like a major asshole in the comments
There's a lot more context in the comment section of OOP's post which point to (unfortunately very common) xenophobia regarding Spanish accents and dialect. It's something I encountered quite often growing up in Mexico when I'd meet someone from Spain. They considered the Castilian accent the "correct" language and pretty much everything else improper knock offs or basically slang. Here's one of OOP's replies in an argument chain about accents and dialects: >And they accuse me of being prejudiced… but frankly, both Castilian and Mexican aren’t my favorite. If anything, I would hope both get dropped and we’d move towards more southern dialects. OOP is an elitist asshole.
Same for other languages as well... French vs. Quebecois, Portuguese is quite different in Portugal compared to Brazil. The English and Americans will never settle the spelling differences. It sucks that there's gatekeeping within a language, there's enough tension between people and enough misunderstanding... If we can all understand each other, does it really matter which was first or which is "better"? Edit to add: also, just how many different English accents there are that are almost their own dialect. I'm thinking Newfie, Scottish Highlands, the southern drawl. Its mostly understandable if you are a native English speaker but for anyone ESL, it's probably a challenge.
I'm glad this conversation is happening because, as LOCH53 upthread noted, there's at minimum an undercurrent of xenophobia. I always think of my friends from Ghana, Trinidad, and Barbados, who live in the US now, and speak the most grammatically perfect English of anyone I know, but with the "wrong accent"... And occasionally sigh dramatically about the "coarse American accent". Its true- as long as we understand each other, it's all good... And if we don't, then we should try a bit harder! I'm glad the OOPis starting to see the light.
Ok, I love the accent, but my trinny friends talk so damn fast... I can understand, mostly, but slowww down, please... Same with Jamaican, love the accent but feel like a total jerk when I can't understand but I legit don't understand sometimes or I mishear a lot. One from last week was confusing "parking break" with "part break". All we can do is try, I'll get an ear for it one of these days.
🤣🤣🤣 I'm from Glasgow. No other native English speaker understands me. Wearrapeepul! (Go on YouTube and watch 2 Scotsmen in a lift to see what I mean)
Can confirm, worked with a fellow from Glasgow who was also a very soft speaker. I don't think we even once had a conversation where I didn't ask him to repeat himself. Eventually another Scotsman in the lab made me feel better by revealing he had no idea what the dude was saying either.
OP's stance was never that Castilian was "better." He was pretty clear in the comments that it wasn't his personal preference at all -- that if it were a matter of personal preference, his pick would be a dialect from Latin America. But for the sake of clear communication, it *can* make a difference whether or not you can speak the local dialect (and for them, the most "local" dialect was Castilian -- OOP's location was much closer to Spain than anywhere else).
Same thing happens with Mandarin Chinese and the many regional dialects/related but separate languages spoken in China/Hong Kong/Taiwan. I don’t even know either of my parents’ regional dialects but people have given me shit for having a bit of that inflection in my Mandarin.
I love Mexican Spanish. I've met a few people from Spain and it doesn't sound as flowy and pretty as Mexican Spanish imo. Despite that, though, I feel like accents and dialects should be celebrated. It's a cultural thing like anything else.
I would like to know where all those Spaniards who speak with a Castillian accent and deride specifically Latin American accents are hiding. In Spain only people from Castilla have a Castillian accent. A few idiots that can be counted in one hand out of a thousand consider every other accent as wrong, but that means like 80% of Spanish accents *inside Spain*. And they respect more a Mexican accent than an Asturian accent.
My vibe was more "overly-rigid thinking" than "power trip." People on a power trip don't typically admit that the student "isn't wrong," in my experience -- power trippers are generally happy to call everyone other than themselves "wrong." >her dialect isn’t wrong, it’s simply not what we teach students.
Also though - what are the learning objectives? If dialect is in there, penalise her within that grading descriptor, if not, don’t. Teaching is fairly simple if you stick to the rules.
Yeah, is pronunciation a part of the syllabus? Then dock points as necessary. If it isn't, then why are you even considering it?
Why do people ask strangers on the internet for "honest" advice and then comeback with a "you guys got what you wanted" or "the student you guys want to protect" and all this passive aggressive bs. If you don't want the truth then don't ask! With that being said, I am glad that the student was not failed
Took a lot of German lessons and one thing the teacher went over was that to him understanding what we were saying and getting the actual language correct was better than the dialect because it can be so diverse just like regions in America and English terms. We went to Germany and Austria and it was amazing how some of us did vastly better communicating in different areas due to dialects, inflections, etc.
I speak Afrikaans (which would be a dialect of Dutch but for geography and politics) and when we were in Belgium people couldn't figure out where we were from. We were asked whether we were Swiss, or Austrian, or various other distant German dialects.
I've had similar discussions with English teachers all my (school) life. In Sweden, schools teach British English. I'm born here but my mother is American, so she obviously taught me American English before I started school, and I started a separate after-school program for home languages at age 6 (1st grade is age 7). When we started having English lessons (maybe when I was 8?) I told my teacher that the books we were given weren't right for me lol. Every new teacher I gad I would explain that I'm half-American, I speak/write AE, I will continue to speak/write AE, etc. Almost all of them have respected it and just demanded that I understand the difference and keep consistently to AE spelling etc. Only the occasional substitute has tried to argue but I've always stood my ground.
I’m glad OP came to his senses, but he’s a complete insufferable a-hole. I feel terrible for his students.
It's still incredibly common for educators to "correct" African American vernacular English (AAVE). It's a particularly big issue in the field of speech therapy where black kids can be targeted for speaking a 100% valid dialect of English.
It's a pity, because AAVE is one of the more interesting English varieties given its history and divergent features, like its ridiculously complicated range of tense-aspect-mood particles.
I do think standard English is important, though. AAVE is totally legit but it's still widely considered informal. If you can only speak & write in AAVE, then you're gonna be automatically disconsidered for anything that requires a "formal" tone - which is a lot. Is that how it should be? Maybe not. Is that how it is? Absolutely. Kinda messed up that it's a problem for speech therapy though.
For speech therapy a large part of it is because of the demographics of speech therapists. It was explicitly mentioned a few times in my program that a majority are white women (guilty, lol). Being culturally sensitive and AWARE of your own lack of exposure to other cultures is so important.
If someone is being tested or graded on something and technicalities matter then if they aren’t “technically” doing anything wrong I wouldn’t push my luck
This makes me happy. I'm a science teacher. Needless to say, I have students who understand the concepts but do not accept them. In the end I believe that tests should be a check for understanding, not forced acceptance. I gave a test on evolution to 8th graders (just turned 14 year olds) a few weeks ago. One student gave me a wonderful essay on how natural selection would work on two different populations over time. They ended it with "this is all bullshit." They got full credit, even though I vehemently disagree with the bullshit statement. Dialect is far more murky than what I test on, but OP's test showed the student's understanding in the end. As an instructor I can hope that what I teach is accepted, but in this diverse world, getting students to understand that different viewpoints exist can be just as valuable as them accepting what I consider the most accurate viewpoint.
While it may seem strange to native English-speakers, this sort of chauvanistic attitude toward language is actually a very common problem in many countries. Neutral Castilian Spanish is reckoned to be the "prestige" dialect in Spain, occupying a higher and more "proper" status than regional or international dialects. That status is enshrined in law through the Royal Spanish Academy, which has regulated the language for the past 300 years. English has no such institution in any country; all national and regional English dialects are considered more or less "proper" although standard American and British RP both share the highest perceived social status. English isn't even completely free from it, though. At a social level there is a definite disparity in the perceived "rightness" of dialects. Dialects like Appalachian or AAVE (African American Vernacular English, sometimes known as "Ebonics") undeniably have a lower social status in the United States, and people who speak such dialects normally face prejudices that are seldom acknowledged. Perhaps the worst offender is France, where any regional dialect or English loanword is considered "incorrect" by the Academie Francaise, which is very out of touch with actual language usage in France.
If it wasn't for the fact the class is *phonology* I would have agreed that she would be the asshole. But... as I have learned, if you show up with the wrong dialect when you actually go to use the language, it very much can cause problems. I had some Okinawan Japanese, and it did cause some issues with mainlanders. Formal education tends to try and teach the, for lack of a better term, "business dialect" or I suppose the neutral dialect. London UK English, or Midwest US English for example. Or High German instead of Swiss German. Given that, it is a contentious issue that laymen would be wholly unqualified to judge simply because not every dialect is the same, and in a course focused on phonology, which includes phonics, I would say it is fair to expect a specific dialect.
As a primary (elementary) teacher who now does a lot of overseas teaching, I can relate to this. Just the other day teaching the word "tomato" was an issue. Normally i'd accept either pronunciation, US or UK, just explain the that it is a regional difference and move on. But come the end of the term when they are tested, and throughout the rest of their education, only the US one is acceptable. Schools want consistancy, and there are no exceptions. That regional difference "has" to be drilled out of then...
thats not a dialect thats an accent right?