Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proudly and embarrassingly declared that he only "speaks American" while in a room filled with leaders from Latin America.
@[email protected] explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
Spanish orthography (which is not really grammar) is still very simple and logical compared to the mess we have in English, where spelling was largely frozen before the Great Vowel Shift happened. It was a perfectly decent West Germanic language until Norman French forced itself onto Anglo-Saxon and left us with a weird mish-mash of Germanic and Romance features.
@[email protected] explained it very well in their comment. To add, in Spanish, the letter “g” when followed by either an “i” or an “e” will be pronounced in three different ways depending on whether you add an “u” in between, and if that “u” has a diaeresis on it. If you add the dieresis, it means you have to pronounce the “u”. Think of “pingüino” (penguin in english). In order to say the “u” in the word, we add the diaeresis that says the reader that they have to say the “u”. In Spanish, “guillotina”, “pingüino” and “ginebra” you will read the sillabe with a “g” and an “i” differently on each of those words.
Spanish has tons of grammar rules. It’s hard to learn them all, but when you do, it makes extremely easy to know how to say a word when you read it. Even where to put the accent (even if there is no tilde in the word).
Spanish orthography (which is not really grammar) is still very simple and logical compared to the mess we have in English, where spelling was largely frozen before the Great Vowel Shift happened. It was a perfectly decent West Germanic language until Norman French forced itself onto Anglo-Saxon and left us with a weird mish-mash of Germanic and Romance features.