Doing my internship in Seville: how I learnt to speak Andalusian!

Doing my internship in Seville: how I learnt to speak Andalusian! 

¡Hola! My name is Anaëlle and I am French intern at Andalucía Tours and Discovery. Before I arrived to Seville I studied during six months in Málaga, with a simple objective: learning Spanish. However, I had to face a difficulty: in Andalusia, the language is a bit different than in the rest of Spain!

When I arrived in Málaga, the first thing that stroke me was the accent. At the beginning, I was a bit lost: Andalusian people speak super fast, and have a (great) tendency to shorten some words: they often cut off the “s”, and do not pronounce the last letters, or even the last syllables! I finally got used to it: now I do not say “Gracias” anymore but “Gracia' ”, and I do not say “Mas o menos” (more or less) but “Ma o meno”... When I order fish in a restaurant, I do not say “Pescado” but “Pecao”. Also, since I arrived, I have learnt a few expressions. I often say “¡No ni na! ” - which is used a lot in the South of Spain and means “Of course not! ”. In short, if you come here you will be learning Andalusian more than Spanish!

Then I decided to move to Seville for the summer, where I am doing a translation internship. I thought I was already used to the Andalusian accent, but I quickly noticed some differences with the Spanish I had been hearing during six months in Málaga. Actually, there are many accents in the South of Spain! I sometimes use typical expressions of Málaga – and people are staring at me in a weird way. For example, I once said I wanted to eat a “pitufo”. In Málaga, it is a small sandwich – but in Seville, it only means “Smurf”!

However I am very happy I have been learning Spanish directly in Spain, and especially in Andalusia. Doing internships in Spain is the fastest way to learn Spanish: you are learning the real language, which is different from the one you learn in school. Even though I still have my French accent, I feel more and more integrated and I believe spending some tome here is the most effective way to learn Spanish!

So, as Andalusian people would say: “Adio' !”