Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- Note for teachers of American English
- List of phonetic symbols
- Acknowledgements
- Dutch speakers
- Speakers of Scandinavian languages
- German speakers
- French speakers
- Italian speakers
- Speakers of Spanish and Catalan
- Portuguese speakers
- Greek speakers
- Russian speakers
- Polish speakers
- Farsi speakers
- Arabic speakers
- Turkish speakers
- Speakers of South Asian languages
- Speakers of Dravidian languages
- Speakers of West African languages
- Swahili speakers
- Malay/Indonesian speakers
- Japanese speakers
- Chinese speakers
- Korean speakers
- Thai speakers
- The cassette and CD
Speakers of Spanish and Catalan
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- Note for teachers of American English
- List of phonetic symbols
- Acknowledgements
- Dutch speakers
- Speakers of Scandinavian languages
- German speakers
- French speakers
- Italian speakers
- Speakers of Spanish and Catalan
- Portuguese speakers
- Greek speakers
- Russian speakers
- Polish speakers
- Farsi speakers
- Arabic speakers
- Turkish speakers
- Speakers of South Asian languages
- Speakers of Dravidian languages
- Speakers of West African languages
- Swahili speakers
- Malay/Indonesian speakers
- Japanese speakers
- Chinese speakers
- Korean speakers
- Thai speakers
- The cassette and CD
Summary
Distribution
Spanish: SPAIN, including the Canaries; the whole of SOUTH AMERICA except Brazil and the Guianas; CENTRAL AMERICA; MEXICO; CUBA; PUERTO RICO and THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC; Western Sahara; some urban centres in north Morocco; Equatorial Guinea; some parts of the USA.
Catalan: CATALONIA, ANDORRA, the BALEARIC ISLANDS, parts of Valencia and Alicante, France (eastern Pyrenees). Nowadays there are very few people who speak Catalan exclusively; most Catalan speakers also speak Spanish or French (depending on where they live).
Introduction
Spanish and Catalan are Romance languages, closely related to Italian and Portuguese; they belong to the Indo-European family. Variations in Spanish are noticeable within Spain itself, and also between metropolitan Spain and the varieties spoken in the Americas. However, these differences are largely confined to pronunciation and vocabulary, morphology and syntax being fairly standard everywhere. With a little experience, all varieties are mutually intelligible.
Despite its limited geographical spread, Catalan varies appreciably from one area to another, though the variations are largely within pronunciation and vocabulary. There is a large degree of mutual intelligibility, though the variety spoken in the Balearics is significantly different from mainland Catalan.
Phonology
General
While the Spanish and English consonant systems show many similarities, the vowel systems and sentence stress are very different, and these can cause great difficulty for Spanish-speaking learners of English. European Spanish speakers, in particular, find English pronunciation harder than speakers of most other European languages.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Learner EnglishA Teacher's Guide to Interference and Other Problems, pp. 90 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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