Christine in Spain: A Beginner's Guide to Andaluz

To kick off my first post of the year, I have Christine, from Christine in Spain. Christine is an expat in Andalucía, and is an expert on all things Southern Spain. To balance out my posts about rainy Bilbao, I've asked her to write about something especially sunny and Southern-y. 

If you're a language nerd like me, you'll appreciate this post. It doesn't get more Southern than Andaluz! Enjoy, I know I learned a lot from this. 

Beginner's Guide to Andaluz

I still remember rather painfully my first few months in Andalucía. My non-existent background in Spanish made even the simplest of tasks seem like running a marathon...okay, a half. I could hardly speak, let alone understand what was being said around me or to me directly.

I was dealing not only with Spanish, but with Andalusian Spanish, or "Andalu" as those from Andalucía like to call it.

So what's the different between Spanish/Castellano and Andaluz? 

A fair amount, actually.

Despite Spain being a not-so-big country (says the American) the accents/dialects found within Spain are all over the map...pun intended! You see, those from the north of Spain don't sound like those from the center of Spain, and those from the center certainly don't sound like my dear amigos, Los Andaluces.

Andalusian Spanish is a whole 'nother beast, and from a learner's perspective is both a blessing and a curse. Why? Well, I'm of the belief that if you can learn Spanish in Andalucía, you can learn it anywhere! And, well, the curse is that if you're like me, packing up your bags and calling Al-Andalus home before you even speak the language, you're probably going to struggle.

So what makes Andalusian Spanish so different anyway? Well to start, they tend to eat a lot of final consonants. 

Examples?

Adios (ah-dee-ohs) becomes (ah-dee-oh)

Como estas (co-mo ehs-tas) becomes (co-mo-ta)

Para (pah-rah) becomes (pa)

Pared (par-ed) becomes (par-eh)

Comer (koh-mehr) becomes (com-eh)

What else?

The gender of some words in Andalusian Spanish are different from what you'll hear in other parts of the country. I learned that my first summer living in Spain when I was confused why everyone kept calling the heat "la calor" when I knew it was, in fact, el calor.

map credit

Also, I heard the infamous Spanish lisp super-exaggerated here. Though a soft lisp-like sound (similar to how we pronounce "th" in English) is used in Castilian Spanish for z, ci and ce, the Andalusian dialect, depending on what area of Andalucia, utilizes this sound for the letter "s" as well. I just so happen to live in this area. Linguists actually have a name for it: ceceo. It's counterpart is seseo, wich is the wide-spread non-distinction in Latin America between s, ci,ce and z resulting in an all-encompassing s sound.

Let me break it down.

Ceceo is like an Andalusian saying casa and caza in the same manner, essentially lisping both the s and z.

Seseo is when someone from mostly in Latin America saying casa and caza with the s sound, minus a lisp.

There's actually many, many more differences not only in how Andalusian Spanish is spoken, but also colloquialisms, syntax and more.

Spanish learners, have you ever heard a strong Andalusian accent? How did you fare with understanding the speaker?

Originally posted 1.4.12