My good friend Anastasia decided to learn Spanish. She speaks Arabish as her mother tongue, perfect English, and a very impressively good German. She started last year after we met each other. We were at a welcoming seminar for our voluntary service in Germany. There we met also another Spanish native speaker, Ingrid from Colombia. The basics sentences like buenas noches, buenos días, etc. weren't a problem at all, but then Anastasia wanted to know more specifics phrases (How can you say that or that in Spanish?). At that point, she received at least two different options that weren't similar.
I'm from El Salvador, Central America, and we usually don't use (I don't use it at all!) the second person tu, instead we use vos (not be confused with Spain vosotros). It's almost the same as in Argentina with a huge difference in the accent. On the other hand, I know that in some parts of Colombia is also vos used, especially among men, for example, my friend Santiago from Medellin asked my boyfriend ¿esto es de vos? while I would have asked ¿esto es tuyo?
What I'm trying to exemplify is that if you are a beginner, it would be easier to learn Spanish when you choose a Spanish-speaking country. You should try to immerse yourself with that specific accent and all the fines details. Since I'm in Germany I have had contact with a lot of people from Colombia. With my first friend, Camilo from Bogota, I was able to have a conversation but there were always words or phrases that I didn't understand as well Camilo. I never understood the voice messages from Santiago, because of his accents and his speed of speaking. But, and the end, we were able to use each other's slang and a fantastic way.
Anastasia is still thinking about choosing a country. She might choose Spain due to the proximity. I hope she doesn't do it because I will not be able to help her with the conjugation vosotros.
Hola
🐢 I think it's important to choose what accent to learn in whatever target language and it's advisable to do it before start. I'd recommend to just look where your foreign language is spoken( when I started learning Spanish, I knew only about Spain, Latin America didn't exist for me xbxb) now as I'm more aware of these subtleties. If she is confused, she can just choose Spanish from Spain. There're far more available recourses for learning castellano than any other accent(maybe apart from Mexican)(P.S if it's needed, I'll help you or her with looking up any text books or channels :)))As well as that, she always can change the accent as I've done recently with my English. Before I learned the British version since it's required at my school but due to misunderstanding, another misunderstanding I found out that for me it's tough to miss out on the sound "r") ufff it's just lyric xbx So that's ok over time to change mind and switch to another accent. The main point is BEEN UNDERSTOOD! Likewise, I don't think Spanish differs a lot from country to country, perhaps slang mostly, but there I'd advise to learn whatever buzzwords you come across. It wouldn't be excessive :)))🐢All the best to your friend !!! Spanish is a fantastic language that remains it no matter where it's spoken !🇪🇸🇲🇽🇨🇺🇨🇴🇻🇪