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Easiest & Most Difficult Spanish Accents | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Bruno87 Diglot Groupie Argentina Joined 4383 days ago 49 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese | Message 41 of 48 11 July 2013 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I'm a Spanish native speaker and I find very difficult to understand the Bolivian accent... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 42 of 48 12 July 2013 at 2:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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To specify, I think the Peninsular accent by politicians, journalists, and those who do
frequent public speaking, if I had to be most specific, have the easiest accents. For example, José Luis Zapatero: http://youtu.be/K_aLB-osUf0 and RTVE presenter: http://youtu.be/vn3kXZO_cSU For some reason the accent seems crisp and clear, without the omission of syllables, or muffled speech. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4593 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 43 of 48 12 July 2013 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the "easiest" accent is always the one you're used to hearing most often. If you hear a certain accent more often than the others, your ears become accustomed to that one and it becomes the "norm" that you compare everything else to, even if such comparisons might be made subconsciously.
For example, the majority of the Spanish I hear is by native speakers from Uruguay or Argentina, so for me these are the easiest to understand. However, there's also the fact that certain people are easier to understand than others, so the level of comprehension is not always linked only to the accent. As for the most difficult... for me that's some variants of peninsular Spanish. I'm not even sure if it's the accent that is my main problem, or if it's just the fact that I feel like many Spaniards speak EXTREMELY FAST, and I don't usually have that problem with for example Argentines. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| anime Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6361 days ago 161 posts - 207 votes Speaks: Spanish, Swedish*, English Studies: German, Portuguese, French, Russian | Message 44 of 48 12 July 2013 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You also have to differ between actual lack of comprehension and not WANTING to comprehend. For
example some argentinians are racist toward bolivian, peruvian and other immigrants, so in their head they might actually make their accents harder than they actually are to understand. Also if you're a native Spanish speaker and are having trouble even understanding some common (not like extremly strange and uncommon rural dialects) variants of your own language you probably need to expose yourself more to languages and dialects. Edited by anime on 12 July 2013 at 6:58pm 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 45 of 48 13 July 2013 at 1:22am | IP Logged | |||||
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Contemporary colloquial Madrileño (as used in Spanish sitcoms like El Barco) does not sound like Newscasters Peninsular Spanish. It's as ''clear'' as colloquial Chilean Spanish. Young Spanish male actors in particular have bad diction (and are light years away from voice actors/dubbers on TVE that have impeccable diction ).
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| avseahawks Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5241 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Portuguese Studies: Greek | Message 46 of 48 14 July 2013 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A few thoughts here
1. The one to which you have the highest exposure is usually the easiest. I live in Los Angeles, am of Mexican descent, and speak primarily with Mexicanos, Guatameltecos, and Salvadoreños. Its pretty logical then that I understand these accents most clearly. 2. Once you understand the vos, Rioplantense Spanish is quite clear and is on par with Mexican in terms of clarity 3. Colloquial usage and journalistic accents can vary widely no matter what variety of Spanish you're using. The average person talks a lot faster than the newscaster and its much harder to keep up with fast speech. This becomes doubly tricky when you're dealing with the Carribean and South American accents that swallow sounds. Colloquial speech also features much more slang which throws me off a lot. 4. Standard Peninsular Spanish is pretty easy to understand and speak as you just have to get used to substituting "th" for "s" and having a more guttural g an j . Local dialectical variants like Anadaluz or elsewhere in the country are more difficult because they are older and have undergone less change over the years than the academic language of the capital (not colloqiual madrileño) and retain archaic pronunciations and forms. This phenomenon is apparent in the English language as well. The Received Pronounciation of London and the major cities is far more intelligble than Geordie or Yorkshire 5. Don't expect to hear any "S" sounds in the middle or end of words in the Carribean accents, especially Puerto Rican and Dominican. Pretend it doesnt exist. Expect the end of the word to be chopped off. Its a little harder for your brain to fill in the gaps but I find it easier to grasp by knowing where the gaps always occur. Again, the complicating factor is usually the speed of the speaker. 6.. Chilean is probably the most difficult accent I've encountered and I've been exposed almost all varieties of Spanish in some form. I was helping a Chilean tourist on the metro the other day and I really felt like we were speaking two different languages. My comprehension is 100% when someone talks slowly and maybe 70-80% when someone is speaking rapid fire. With this Chilean it was maybe 50%. He wasn't even speaking that fast but everything sounded swallowed and it appeared to be indiscriminate (not having that pattern I hear in Carribbean varieties) when I could make out words there were several verb forms I'd never heard before (but could tenuously link to an infinitive). Like an earlier poster wrote, Chilean is quite muffled. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zimena Tetraglot Groupie Norway Joined 4593 days ago 75 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish Studies: Czech, Mandarin | Message 47 of 48 14 July 2013 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
This makes me think of a friend who went to Cuba on a combined language course/working holiday some years ago. She was still a beginner in Spanish at that time, but even today she still laughs at the explanation they gave her about forming plural forms of nouns: "Plurals are easy, you just add -s. Like this: El coco, lo coco!" Because of their accent, she couldn't hear any of the two final -s that were supposed to be there. Edited by Zimena on 14 July 2013 at 2:40pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 48 of 48 22 July 2013 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think certain accents in any language, even for a native speaker, are difficult to understand for some, depending on region. For example, I have relatives (native English-speakers) who moved from the British West Indies to the UK, US or Canada in 1960s, and they still say that the American and Canadian accents are extremely difficult for them to understand. Some even say that the American and Canadian accents are almost unintelligble for them due to the swallowing of words and high amount of hard 'r' sounds and schwas, that they either cannot understand still some speakers there, or need to frequently ask them to repeat two or even three times what they said, whilst the UK accents were much easier, due to more enunciation. So I imagine the same for Spanish, even living in a different hispanohablante country will still not solve the problem of understanding a foreign accent. My grandmother who moved to California in 1969 still tells me that she has big problems understanding Americans speak since it sounds muffled, similar to how a person from Spain hears the Chilean "muffled" accent. She also tells me that she often needs to ask for people to repeat what they said, or at a slower pace so that she can understand properly. So I suppose likewise, a Spanish person who moves to Chile and lives there for 50 years still might have problems. Perhaps the problem is not growing up accustomed to hearign such accents. I think some could accustom themselves more easier than others. When I was in Spain, I could understand the accents (except for the very colloquial ones) well, but I think I need to spend months in Chile to completely accustom myself to the accent, as it is one of the most difficult for me. Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 July 2013 at 12:28am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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