Studying Spanish in Argentina

Pros and Cons to Learning a Foreign Language in the Rio de la Plata

Sep 8, 2008

Since the financial crash of 2001, Argentina has become an affordable place for students to learn the Spanish language.

The financial crash of 2001 in Argentina led to a peso devalutation that sparked a major foreign tourism boom. One long term result of this has been the opening of a number of high quality Spanish schools. Here are the benefits and pitfalls to studying Spanish in Argentina.

Few Argentines Speak English

Unlike countries in the northern hemisphere that have more contact with American tourists, businesses, and pop culture, Argentina has had relatively little contact with the English-speaking world. Until recently, elite Argentines considered French the language of high culture and those with the means and interest to devote themselves to learning a second language usually learned French. Although Argentines are fast changing their attitude (the provincial legislature of Buenos Aires recently voted to make English instruction an obligatory part of public school education), English is still seldom spoken fluently by Argentine natives. This serves as a great benefit for students of Spanish because they will be forced to speak in the local language in order to get by.

Argentines Are Easy To Understand

Argentines do not speak too fast, nor do they mumble their words or swallow consonants, like Carribean or Central American speakers (although they do often aspirate their "s's"). Many beginning students have trouble differentiating between words when listening to spoken Spanish because they cannot hear when one word starts and the other stops. Learning Spanish in Argentina reduces this problem.

Argentines Talk a Lot

Spanish students will have little trouble finding people to practice with because Argentina is a notoriously talkative culture. It is easy to strike up a conversation with perfect strangers and foreigners are looked upon with good natured curiosity. A foreign accent inevitably invites the question "Where are you from?" Uninhibited students will benefit from the open environment.

Ending up With an Argentine Accent

One of the potential drawbacks to studying Spanish in Argentina is that students will inevitably wind up imitating the highly distinctive local accent. Argentines speak with an exaggeratedly Italian-inflected cadence and regularly use slang words from the local argot known as lunfardo. Both features are the result of a wave of mass immigration from Italy that began around 1870 and started petering out sometime around the First World War. Picking up these characteristics will mark the student as an Argentine non-Argentine Spanish speakers for as long as they continue to employ the accent.

This is not a bad thing, but students should be aware that Argentines are often looked upon as arrogant, elitist, and racist by other Latin Americans. This view of Argentines is largely innaccurate. Visitors to Argentina will find that Argentines are pleasant, outgoing, and love to converse with anyone. They are, however, more wealthy on average. In a largely poverty-striken continent, wealth can easily breed ill-will. The stereotype of the racist Argentine originated in the early twentieth century when the country's poliiticians tried to distance themselves from the rest of Latin America by promoting Argentina as a modern, Europeanized enclave in South America - a claim partly based on the country's large percentage of white inhabitants, most of whom immigrated to Argentina from Europe.

But speaking with an Argentine accent is certainly nothing to be ashamed of - students simply need to speak with confidence and be able to take a joke every now and then. And for every person hostile to the Argentine accent, there is someone who finds it charming.

The copyright of the article Studying Spanish in Argentina in Argentina Travel is owned by Roque Daniel Planas. Permission to republish Studying Spanish in Argentina in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.