>As for the range of accents in English, does anybody know how much French accents differ from region to region, not to mention from France itself to other countries such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada? Juanmaria, what's the situation with Spanish? How much do different accents differ?


We have very different accents from region to region. Only in Spain there are at least eight easy recognizable regional accents but I, as Andalusian, can recognize at least four types of Andalusian accent, so I suppose that people from other regions can make further distinctions.
Regarding South American accents, I think I can distinguish among Mexican, Argentinean or Venezuelan but I can’t tell a region from another, I’m sure that people from those countries can distinguish accents from different regions.
Lately we are importing TV programs, mainly soap operas, from South America and this is improving our understanding of their Spanish.
Personally my favorites are Cuban and other Caribbean accents “Papi, mi amol”.


Juan Maria.