Cultural Response Portfolio
Lin217 Paola Correa  

Click here to edit subtitle

Language

In Dominican Republic, the official language is Spanish. However, the Dominican culture has molded and created a dialect so unique that in the Spanish world considers it its own language. Dominicans are known to speak fast and very loud. In the DR, there are regions where people speak English and Haitian Creole. The Dominican Spanish is said to have many African and Taino expressions. The video on the right, demonstrates how Spanish speaking individuals from other Spanish speaking countries cannot guess common words used in the Dominican Republic.

The man on the left translates an English greeting to the way a Spanish Dominican individual would say it. Many of the words do not translate to the original meaning of the English words.

Difficulties Learning English

Learning the English Language can be difficult for anyone to learn. The differences in writing and speaking Spanish with the differences of writing and speaking English are almost polar opposite. For example, in

Spanish the third person distinguishes between direct and indirect object pronouns (lo, la, los, las, les, le). Whereas in English, simple sentences  like "I found her" and "I sent her a letter" use the same pronoun "her," a distinction is made in Spanish. The first sentence would be "La encontré," where la is a direct object, while the second would be "Le mandé una carta" with le being the indirect object. Learning pronunciation is also difficult for Dominicans to grasp. Originally, many Dominicans have a hard time rolling and pronouncing the "r" sound in the Spanish language. In Spanish, Dominicans interchange the "r" for an "l". Learning words like car, door, and hair a Dominican learner will pronounce car like cal, door like dol, and hair like hel. Speaking English for the first time can be intimidating for a child. It is said that English speakers are hyper aware of grammar and will notice almost immediately if a grammatical error is made, even if this is the smallest of errors, English speakers are incredibly proud of the language and look negatively on it being used incorrectly. A negative reaction from a native English speaker can lower a person's self esteem and cause the person to retract from wanting to speak the American language.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Es9_AuPX4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtszYOl_dAQ
http://www.colonialzone-dr.com/language.html
http://spanish.about.com/od/Ovrviews/a/pronouns-objects.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/englishlearningchallenges.htm