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Dialects and Accents of Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| readwritedance Newbie United States Joined 4544 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 5 09 July 2012 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
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I took a year of Spanish in 8th grade, but since next year I won't be taking Spanish in class, I want to continue with it on my own. I have a VERY basic understanding of elementary Spanish grammar, and the resources to learn more, but I don't know what to do about regional variation and such.
In my Spanish class last year, the teacher wasn't a native Spanish teacher (Spanish being our secondary language at school), and so most of the native Spanish pronounciation that I heard was from my friend, who speaks Portuguese, Hebrew, English, and Argentine Spanish at home. I wanted to sound more like her, and less like my teacher (who had a great grasp of the language, but sounded ridiculously American), so I started saying "y" and "ll" with a slight j sound. Now, learning on my own, I'm wondering if that is something I should stop myself from doing (as in, is that very localized?) A couple other questions I had about similar issues: What should I do with vosotros? All the books I have mention it, so I've been putting it in my Anki deck, but it's not that useful as far as I've heard and my teacher last year taught it but never had us use it. And is there a certain dialect of Spanish I should try to speak, or just use whatever the books say is more standard? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| GRagazzo Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4962 days ago 115 posts - 168 votes  Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: Spanish, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 5 09 July 2012 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
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My Venezuelan teacher pronounces her y's and ll's with a j sound and when I speak Spanish
I usually do the same thing. It is localized, many Spanish speakers from Spain will pronounce it as Y while South Americans will pronounce it as j. you will be understood anyway you pick so just go with which ever one you like more. As for the Vosotros I think you might as well study it, that way if you are speaking to someone from Spain who uses the Vosotros you can use it too, and if you are talking to a South American who uses Uds then you can use Uds. As for the accent or dialect of Spanish, just start off by learning the grammar and vocabulary. And choose a region that you like and start listening to music and TV from that area so that you can acquire that regions pronunciation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ajackso3 Newbie United States Joined 4554 days ago 29 posts - 52 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 3 of 5 11 July 2012 at 5:13am | IP Logged |
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I would say be aware that vosotros exists, and perhaps the very basics (ending in áis or éis or ís in the present
tense...) I did nothing with it besides this in my high school classes and understand it just fine when my professors from Spain have used it. If you have plans of travelling extensively in Spain (more than in Latin America), it might be worth looking at more closely. But if you would spend more time in Latin America or speaking with Latin Americans, it isn't really necessary, at least in my experience. And remember, just because certain forms aren't necessarily used in a give region or country, doesn't mean they won't be understood. At this point in your studies, it is probably more important to focus on not sounding like an "American"--learn how the language is supposed to sound (a Spanish A isn't going to sound like the A in apple etc...) While it might be fun to pick a specific regional accent to focus on, it can probably wait until you are a little more advanced. For now, I would focus on gaining as much exposure to the language as possible, from as many different sources as possible. You wouldn't want to spend all of your time listening to Spanish from northern Spain and then have to try to talk to a Mexican or a Dominican or an Argentinean, as they all sound very different and it would be more difficult for your brain to try and switch to understanding this new accent if you had only been exposed to a certain one and hadn't had practice listening to various others. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4512 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 4 of 5 21 July 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged |
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As far as I'm concerned, most of Spaniards don't distinguise between ll and y sounds. I think everybody will understand you by the way_
"Vosotros" is always preferred in Spain and some parts of Latin America, whereas "vos" is preferred in other parts of Latin America. Formerly, "vos" was part (and it is yet in Spain) of a respectful use of the language which is used along with an especific verb conjugation in many cases. For instance: Tú eres (informal) = vos sois (very respectful) = usted es (respectful) Tú haces (informal) = vos hacéis (very respectful) = usted hace (respectful) Vosotros tenéis = vos tenéis = ustedes tienen I think "vos" instead of "vosotros" is quite strange, at the very least it sounds very strange to me, an it reminds me to Galician. Otherwise, switching "tú", "vos" and "usted" is quite usual in many parts of America, not in Spain. Edited by Dagane on 21 July 2012 at 3:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 5 of 5 21 July 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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In Argentina and Uruguay, vos is used without the I: vos sos, vos hacés ;)
I don't know why, I find vos very nice, it reminds me of the informal pronoun você in Brazilian Portuguese. VOS ESTÁS VIVO as prononounced by an Argentinian [vosetavivo] souunds like VOCÊ TÁ VIVO [yes, many people pronounce V as V in Argentina, and not as B, I guess it has to due with Italian immigration]. Choose one accent/variant, and be consistent. Learn it actively, and after that, gain the passive knowledge of other variants. Edited by Medulin on 21 July 2012 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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