thanks again for the reply. appreciate the discussion. glad i was mostly right in my claims.

However i also saw some things that made me thing that racism or skin color is an issue in the DR. i assume it would be the same in most spanish speaking countries but i don't want to lump all the countries into one just like that. 

The first issue was with the television shows. 98.99% of the people who appeared on the domincian shows were of white skin (i think that most of the novelas are taped in spain actually). The problem i saw with this is that most dominicans that i encountered were  of darker skin. Morenos and what they consider negros. I think the blancos and carinetos (sp?)  are in the minority. I was not there long enough to really validate this but i was in the capital Santo domingo so i figured that would be a good representation of what the general make up of the country was like.

The other thing was the haitian issue. I do not know the politics behind this totally since i do not live there but from what i could tell it is very similar to the situation in the US and your country. The only difference is the motives for the migrations. The haitians was due to the hurricane that destroyed many peoples homes and mexicanos because of search for a better life.  Some would call it classism like you hinted but i found it to be down right racism. The haitians were treated almost like they were beneath the dominicans.  At times they would be hunted down by the politur and taken off to jail if they failed to produce identity papers (sound familiar?).  However i do think that some of the dominicans have learned to live with the haitianos but the rest of the population seem to have a down right hatred for them.  I asked a few people about this and they hinted to it being because they were taking their jobs and so forth. Which is funny to me because its like i tell all the people  here in the states who want all the "illegal immigrants" to be departed and stop taking their jobs.  The jobs that the majority of them are doing are ones that most americans and dominicans would not like to do. so why are you complaining?

anyways sorry for the long reply i just find this topic so fascinating. Anyways buena suerte con tus clases

yeah man its cool. i figured you would get to it when you had time. As for the points you made i kind of agree with you but not totally. i spent a few months this year in the dominican republic (visiting my girlfriends parents). What i saw there was interesting to say they least.  people would greet each other by saying things like "hola blanca, " "hola morena, "  "hola negra."

The funny thing was that no malice was ever intended when they said this (at least from what i could tell from peoples body language).  Now if people tried this over in the States not only would fights break out but protests of racism would follow. I suspect that this was what Luis Suarez of Liverpool did with Patrice Evra of Manchester United. I think it might have gotten lost in translation with patrice being a french man but i digress.

i also heard "hola flacca" and "hola gorda" alot. I don't know if this is just a dominican thing or if you guys do that as well in Mexico but i just thought it was interested. It would probably go over the head of most Americas unfortunately.

hey man i am curious to know what your thoughts are on the thing Korey was talking about on ACOCO (the sheeitt meme).  i remember you alway post in the comment section about how f'ed up america is and how we tend to have the most f'ed up people. I am curious to know since you are in a spanish speaking country.

i have been to a few spanish speaking countries and i found many to have the similar mindset about blacks as the one Korey alluded to in the podcast.

ok thanks alot. i  took spanish in high school and i found it to be useless (i went up to spanish 5 honors). i think i learned more watching telenovelas than i did with all my years in high school. i am bilingual already but i really want to learn spanish and french (at least one of them) by next year. College work has kept me a bit busy but i am trying to get back on track.

i will try what you said with the sound.

So your recommendation is to watch channels like telemundo?  i already watch goltv (i am a huge football fan) and i try to make out what they are saying in the commericals and stuff.

i went to the dominican republic last summer and i found their spanish to be the hardest. they speak with slang and very quickly.

the only dominican artist that i can understand lyrics for is prince royce. He talks pretty slow for a dominician.

also i was wondering if you had any tips on how i can learn/improve my spanish? i have the rosetta stone program. i can read and comprehend well but speaking and hearing is a bit more difficult. 

my girlfirend is dominican and i have her talk to me in spanish sometimes but any advice you can give would be appreciated.

i understood everything that El capitan mexico posted on your comment. only a few words like "flojera" and "masacrando" threw me off.