Your post brings back memories. When I was at DLI in Monterrey, CA some of the students had quite a difficult time switching between tu and usted. Most decided to just concentrate on 'tu' since that was commonly used in most cases. When I first arrived in Panama there arose the need to interview some local city officials. The first interview was with a mayor of a very small town. Most of my cohorts couldn't remember the usted tenses so I got the assignment. The mayor only used usted the entire time and so did the other officials during the next month or so. Afterwards, since I was not a native speaker and not fluent yet, I almost always spoke using the formal usted because that was what I had focused on and I couldn't remember the informal endings for tu anymore! Most Panamanians used correct Spanish grammar except for the teens.

By the way, one of my favorite pastimes was visiting gardens in Boquete.

I was actually in Argentina for a couple of weeks and everyone I spoke with used usted. I don't know if that was unusual or not. When I speak with Latin Americans (in this country) they almost all use only tu and in fact, most (both from Puerto Rico and Mexico) speak very informally and almost at a grade school level of grammar as a rule (there are exceptions for Puerto Ricans that finished school and were forced by their parents at home to speak correctly as a matter of pride)

In Mexico, unless speaking with a relatively wealthy family, the people all spoke a sortof "Tex-Mex" that was grammatically incorrect in almost all cases and consisted mostly of slang (very much like the South here). It was very difficult to understand. It was like speaking with an 8 year old. It took me a while to realize that many did not continue school after the 8th grade and that ended their Spanish grammar lessons.

On the other hand, in general, most people I have met from other South American and Central American countries speak Spanish using correct grammar.

I went to Spain and I've met people from Spain and my experience has been that they speak better Spanish than most (if only they would drop that th! *G*). Also my experience in El Salavador, Nicaragua, Chile, Bolivia (La Paz is all I can talk about there) and Costa Rica was similar.

I sometimes wonder how any non-native English speakers can understand us in the South. Even listening to radio talk shows it is embarrassing to hear southerners speak. You very often hear things similar to:

"We was..."
"He be..."
"We run down to the store..."

They don't even realize it.



>>>So each verb has over 100 variations which I think comes from the Latin heritage. And of course not all verbs are regular...
>>
>>Is it like in French and German, though, where the endings of some persons are the same as for another? e.g. in German Sie Sind means both "You (plural) are" and "They are" - even the same pronoun!.
>
>Sometimes the endings are the same... but only sometimes :)
>
>Just to make things interesting, in spanish there are (besides I, you-singular, he, we, you-plural, they) three other "persons": "vos" (informal equivalent of you-singular which is used in Argentina and Central America and who knows were else) and "Usted" (respectful you-singular) and "Ustedes" (respectful you-plural... except that many places like Panama it is used informally instead of vosotros).
>
>For example, regular verb amar (to love)
>
>Present tense:
>
>Yo amo I love
>Tu amas You (singular) love
>El ama He loves
>Nosotros amamos We love
>Vosotros amáis You (plural) love
>Ellos aman They love
>Vos amás You (regional) love
>Usted ama You (respectful) love
>Ustedes aman You (respectful, but also informal in many places)
>
>Past tense:
>
>Yo amé I loved
>Tu amaste You (singular) loved
>El amó He loved
>Nosotros amamos We loved
>Vosotros amaisteis You (plural) loved
>Ellos amaron They loved
>Vos amaste You (regional) loved
>Usted amó You (respectful) loved
>Ustedes amaron You (respectful, but also informal in many places) loved
>
>And so on...
>
>>What's the point!?
>
>There is no point, it just is, and I agree with you that it's crazy. It is a result of history. The Latin language heritage I believe mixed who knows what.
>
>
>>>The unbelievable thing is that humans learn it easily when young! We are amazing.
>>
>>And it's interesting to watch how kids learn the rules and stick to them. It's amusing to hear my 5-year-old saying things like: "I taked it with me", "I swinged the rope", etc. The rules get like hard-coded then they have to learn the numerous exceptions.
>
>Yes. Amazing and cute too.
>
>>I expected Spanish would be a lot like French, with all these tenses, and, I suppose, Italian. French throws another spanner (wrench) into the works with their Past Historic tense; if I remember correctly, it's only used in the written word, for recounting stories. How mad is that!?
>
>These kinds of things only seem crazy to outsiders. Stuff like you have been hearing from outsiders about the way the English pronouce "Worcestershire" etc. and goose/geese kinds of things.
>
>>On the French theme: I believe that Canadian French has quite a few words, forms and expressions that aren't in the native language. And I expect the accent is different too (I suppose like the difference between Canadian English and English English. All this contributes to making the language very difficult to follow for those who learnt French French. e.g. the song "Une Complainte pour St. Catherine" by K & A McGarrigle has several un-French words and is practically unintelligible to me.
>
>Yes regional words and expressions, not to mention accents! Was it Henry Higgins who said that he could tell where someone was from within a mile or whatever by the accent?
>
>And another amazing thing is how deeply imprinted these nuances become. Like how it bothers us when someone uses an expression incorrectly :) For example your instead of you're.