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Spanish

17 topics in 3 parts: grammar, register and regional dialects.

Grammar

10 topics

• Address: tú, vos, usted, ustedes, vosotrosWho you call what, and which verb form follows. This is the domain where the two standards differ structurally rather than stylistically — Latin America is missing a pronoun Spain has.10 options
• Pretérito perfecto and indefinidoWhich past tense reports something that just happened. The clean Spain-against-Latin-America split, and the same shape as the Italian prossimo/remoto divide.10 options
• Subjunctive rangeHow far the subjunctive reaches — including the corners a strong C1 has not needed yet. This is a C2 sheet rather than an acquisition sheet.10 options
• Clitic pronouns: leísmo and doublingWhich pronoun goes where, and whether it doubles. The one domain where the Academy licenses in Spain something Latin America treats as wrong.10 options
• The se constructionsFive different things one syllable does. Anchor A opens with two of them stacked in three words.10 options
• Ser and estar at the edgesThe cases where both are grammatical and mean different things. At C1 the basics are settled — this sheet is the residue.10 options
• Preposition governmentWhich preposition a verb, noun or adjective demands — and the two errors every Spanish speaker makes, on both continents.10 options
• Verbal periphrasis and aspectHow aspect gets expressed when there is no tense for it. Spanish has no perfect progressive, so a periphrasis carries it — and it is the one learners never produce.10 options
• Agreement and concordanceWhere agreement is contested rather than automatic. Both standards agree on the rules; the speech of both ignores the same ones.10 options
• Diminutives and augmentativesWhat the suffix is doing, which is rarely size. In Spanish the diminutive carries politeness, affection, hedging and sometimes contempt.10 options

Register

5 topics

• The formality ladderAnchor A, rewritten ten times. Same facts, same request, same deadline — ten heights.10 options
• Politeness and mitigationHow much padding sits around the ask. Spanish softens with the conditional, with the imperfect, and — in Latin America — heavily with diminutives.10 options
• Titles and address formsWhat title the other person gets. This is where Latin America and Spain differ most in daily practice and least in grammar.10 options
• Standard and spoken normWhich Spanish you are writing — the taught one or the spoken one. A narrower gap than Brazilian Portuguese has, and the same items on both continents.10 options
• Irony and humourHow the joke is made, and whether it is signalled. The thinnest sheet in this repository, and it says so on its face.10 options

Regional dialects

5 dialects and 2 overview sheets

• DominicanSanto Domingo and Santiago, Dominican Republic. How it sounds, what people say, and how to get through a day in it. Caribbean Spanish at its most compressed: the s goes, words get cut, and tú comes first.9 sound rules
• MexicanMexico City (chilango). The largest Spanish-speaking country and the most exported accent in the Americas. Every s is kept, unstressed vowels get swallowed instead, and politeness is built into the grammar.6 sound rules
• RioplatenseBuenos Aires and Montevideo. Spanish with an Italian melody. Vos replaces tú with its own verb forms, ll and y sound like sh, and the street vocabulary comes from lunfardo.5 sound rules
• MadridMadrid and central Spain. The variety textbooks in Spain are written in. A th sound for z and c, vosotros in daily use, and a final d that softens or vanishes.6 sound rules
• AndalusianSeville, Cádiz and western Andalusia. The southern Spanish that shares more with the Caribbean than with Madrid: consonants drop, the s breathes, and ch softens to sh.7 sound rules
• Regional accentWhich country the voice comes from. Ten varieties, and unlike the other two repositories the exam board itself supplies the audio.10 options · overview
• Regional lexiconWhich word names the ordinary thing, when Spanish has five. This is the domain where 'Latin American' stops being one thing.10 options · overview