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>Castellan as spoken by Spaniards is easy for me to understand, as I have spoken it since I was a child. In Spain you have many languages dependant upon where you are located. Spanish in southern Spain is often called Andaluz, and they speak a dialect of Castellan that includes chopping off the ending of words. This is flamenco country so I am very familiar with this region.
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Thank you for explaining it. BTW, I am curious, did you live in Spain as a child? Or what were the circumstances of your learning Spanish?

>My wife is from Peru, and has trouble listening to Andaluz and understanding it. Her family is from Zaragoza, Spain. An uncle is from Catalonia, where Catalan is spoken. No one in the family can understand the uncle except for his wife! If you go to Spain with the intent to learn Castellan, be careful where you go! You also have Galician and Basque to contend with.
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If I were to go to Spain, I would probably pick either Madrid or Barcelona. And I understand there they teach (at least in the immersion schools) kind of a "standard" Spanish. Which would be good enough for me.

>By the way our son speaks Castellan fluidly as does our daughter. In addition our daughter speaks German and Italian. Now she is learning Japanese.

I am impressed! Very impressed! You should be proud.