Help with/evaluation of Spanish accent (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Help with/evaluation of Spanish accent
Tags: Accent \| Spanish
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12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

Cainntear
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Message 9 of 12

13 July 2009 at 10:24pm | IP Logged

As has already been said, your pronouncing the various sounds very well -- your weak spot is timing.

In English, the time between stressed syllables is constant, regardless of the number of unstressed syllables in between. In Spanish, every syllable gets the same amount of time -- this is why people think it has a sort of "rat-a-tat-a-tat" quality.

You seem to be starting to notice this, but what you've done so far is slow down the English pattern to try to approximate the Spanish one, and it just leaves you sounding as though you're quite tired.

So just "rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat" a bit more.
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anamsc
Triglot
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Andorra
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Message 10 of 12

14 July 2009 at 2:02am | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

As has already been said, your pronouncing the various sounds very well -- your weak spot
is timing.

In English, the time between stressed syllables is constant, regardless of the number of unstressed syllables in
between. In Spanish, every syllable gets the same amount of time -- this is why people think it has a sort of
"rat-a-tat-a-tat" quality.

You seem to be starting to notice this, but what you've done so far is slow down the English pattern to try to
approximate the Spanish one, and it just leaves you sounding as though you're quite tired.

So just "rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat" a bit more.

Thank you Cainntear, I actually am quite aware of this; I know the difference between a stress-timed and a
syllable-timed language lol. I think actually I talked slowly because I'm reading something and trying to get all
of
the sounds right, not because I'm trying to approximate the syllable timing. Later I'll try to record something
where I'm not reading and see if that makes me sound better :).

Edited by anamsc on 14 July 2009 at 2:13am
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tapachula111
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United States
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Studies: Italian, French

Message 11 of 12

14 July 2009 at 3:23am | IP Logged

Anna----I think that you have an authentic Mexican accent---Regards, Pablito
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anamsc
Triglot
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Andorra
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan
Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French

Message 12 of 12

16 July 2009 at 5:56am | IP Logged

tapachula111 wrote:

Anna----I think that you have an authentic Mexican accent---Regards, Pablito

Hi Pablito, thanks for the compliment! I'm still not convinced though :)

Anyways, everybody, thanks for your help, and I hope to post another clip soon.

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