Spain SPanish versus Latin American Spanish Rosetta Stone

[transientChris]

Is anyone familiar with these? Is there a large difference other than pronunciation? DD prefers to learn Castillian Spanish.

[Spock]

Is anyone familiar with these? Is there a large difference other than pronunciation? DD prefers to learn Castillian Spanish.

There are minor vocabulary differences from one Spanish speaking country to another (along the same lines as British/Australian/US/Canadian English). This shouldn't be a major problem, except maybe that tortilla means omelette in Spain, rather than the corn or flour flat bread eaten in Mexico and Central America. (My children's pet peeve is the common definition given for tortilla in textbooks "a Mexican pancake"--tortillas are neither pancakes nor exclusively Mexican.)

There is a minor pronunciation difference affecting only 2 sounds: /th/ instead of /s/ for z and for ce/ci; /ly/ instead of /y/ (or, in some island nations and parts of South America--/zh/) for ll.

Other than that, there is one verb form (vosotros--plural familiar form of you) which is used fairly commonly in Castillian Spanish and in the Spanish Bible, but is used only occasionally in Latin American Spanish. I don't know if Rosetta Stone includes vosotros in their Latin American Spanish or not, but many US Spanish teachers skip it in their classes.

If your daughter chooses to learn Castillian Spanish, she should still be able to understand Latin Americans and be understood by them.