Learning a second language - Spanish and Latin American

When I learned to speak French I was disappointed to go to Canada and find they spoke with a different accent to my Paris accent French.  People learning English as a second language nowadays are aware from the internet how american English and British English sound different and the ming differences between them.

I now want to learn Spanish and most of my existing text books are for Spanish Spanish because I have bought them in the UK. I need to decide which form of Spanish I want to concentrate on first. But wait a minute - wouldn't it be easiest to learn both.

People often say that you should not learn two close languages such as Spanish and Italian because you will be muddled. I disagree. It is much easier to learn a second language when the two have similarities. I pick up and enjoy Spanish more more easily than Japanese and Chinese. I always found it easy to remember the French for you is v o u s because it sounds so similar the the English.

I am now learning both Spanish and Italian on the website of d u o l i n g o (no spaces - the spaces stop the auto correct changing the word) website.

Duo lingo has just told me that in Latin America you plural (addressing a group of people) would be 'vosotros in Spain, but ustedes in Latin America'. How handy to know. How do I remember which to use where. Vosotros is most useful when you are in Europe, using the v like French, who live next door to the Spaniards in Spain. But ustedes like you is used in Latin America and like their nearest neighbours the Americans. For me when in Spain or Speaking Spanish to others Europe the Spanish for you are eating is vosotros coméis, with an upwards accent like the French. I might ask in English, 'what are you people eating?', or 'I guess you lot are eating Spanish food,' or even, 'what are you folks eating'. C o m é i s ends in S, the first letter of the word Spain.

But in Latin America or parts of North America where people have flowed in from Spain it would be used c o m e n. Ending n as in Latin. In addition the duo lingo site translates it into a phrase used in America which I would never use in London, 'you guys'. It will be interesting to re-read this, written in 2016, in two or three years time and see whether the American phrase has become current in the UK.

Glossary
English - Spanish
you eat (plural you) - vosotros coméis
English - Latin American (Spanish)
ustedes comen - you guys eat

So from the site I am learning American English as well as Spanish and Latin American Spanish.
Very handy. And that's at my laptop before breakfast.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, English Language teacher, own home tutor, and internet tutor, workshop leader, Grammarian at meetings of Toastmasters International in London, England, Language Evaluator at meetings of Toastmasters International in Singapore.