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Spanish Accents - So confused. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| zashikibuta Newbie United States Joined 5483 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian, Uyghur | Message 1 of 20 16 August 2011 at 3:36am | IP Logged |
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I've been tested a couple of times and have been rated as High Beginner/Low Intermediate. Thanks to the forum - I have found ways to further my learning but I am in a wierd predicament:
I seem to comprehend the Spanish spoken by most of latin america (except for argentina and colombia - lol), and I understand americans who speak Spanish as a 2nd language - if that makes sense, hahhahah BUT for the life of me cannot even splice apart Castillian Spanish or castellano. I can maybe pick out 1 or 2 words. This is very frustrating and I'm not sure what to do. I listen to BBC mundo and Spanish radio an hour a day. Any tips, please? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Logie100 Diglot Newbie New Zealand Joined 5317 days ago 35 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 2 of 20 16 August 2011 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
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Spanish in spain is spoken very fast and with alot of round-a-bout idioms.. the only way to understand it is learn Spanish idioms and immerse yourself in it I think.
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| amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5649 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French | Message 3 of 20 16 August 2011 at 12:05pm | IP Logged |
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Hi zashikibuta,
I'm trying to get myself used to European Spanish too, and as far as I'm concerned www.rtve.es is the best resource for radio, podcasts and TV shows. I listen to Rueda de Corresponsales to train my ear, but if that's too fast you could try the News in Slow Spanish. The only thing I'll add is that I think it's much easier to diversify your Spanish when your level is a bit higher. I can only base my opinion on my own experience, but I think that through the beginning and lower intermediate stages unless there's some pressing reason why you need to learn a particular variety, you're better off sticking with Spanish from whichever country or region suits you best just for the sake of getting the language under your belt. After that, diversifying it should be as easy as pie. Good luck. :) Edited by amethyst32 on 16 August 2011 at 12:18pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 20 16 August 2011 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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To practice Iberian Spanish check out Practica Español which is from Spain and a cooperative venture with the Spanish press agency EFE and the FLE- Fundación de la Lengua Española. There are press reports with transcripts and exercises to test your listening comprehension.
Colombian Spanish and Argentine (Rio Platense) Spanish don't have such help available but you can check out Caracol which is a Colombian broadcaster and Telefe is an Argentine TV network. Also, Colombia is big in the telenovela business and Argentina has a lively film industry. I agree with amethyst32. In order to become better at understanding the diversity of accents in the Spanish-speaking world try getting your Spanish to a higher level. If you can advance from low-intermediate to high-intermediate or advanced this will come more naturally. Devote more time to learning Spanish to a higher level and your problems with listening comprehension will become fewer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| drp9341 Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 4912 days ago 115 posts - 217 votes Speaks: Italian, English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 20 16 August 2011 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
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This year I went to spain and was conversationally fluent. I watched telenovelas and would understand about 95% of
it, and could chat to mexicans forever. And when I went to Spain I thought I was going to have a hugeeee issue with the accent, but I found to my surprise that the whole He ido vs. Fui He comido vs. Comi difference was actually MUCH easier to understand. And also, they pronounce their vowels easier. Overall, I can comprehend latin americans with less effort than spaniards, but it wasn't that hard. Although this may be because I spoke Italian haha 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5375 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 6 of 20 17 August 2011 at 2:46am | IP Logged |
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I would suggest doing an Assimil course. At your level Spanish With Ease would be quite fun and you would probably still learn a lot. I bought my With Ease course (book and CDs) on Amazon for about $34. Or, you could do Using Spanish which is their advanced course.
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| zsieri Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4848 days ago 16 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Catalan, Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 7 of 20 18 August 2011 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
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As a Spaniard, I've been a bit surprised to read this statement at first, I wouldn't have thought it's more difficult to understand us than Latin Americans. However, guess you're right about our speed when speaking (faster than most of them probably) and the big amount of idioms we normally use (although I'm not sure if it's any different in other Spanish dialects different to Castilian).
On the other hand, your problem could be the accent of the person speaking: You probably know it can change pretty much from an area in Spain to a different one, i.e. there are certain areas in Andalusia where the accent is really strong and peculiar, and I'm sure it's pretty hard to understand for a non trained foreign speaker. In some other areas in Spain the accent is highly influenced by another co-official language (Catalan or Galician). RTVE news are a good resource to start getting used to our way of speaking I reckon, since the accent is non affected and totally neutral. If I think a bit longer I could think of any movie that could be useful if you're interested :) By the way, the difference between the use of 'he ido' and 'fui' in Castilian Spanish is quite similar to English 'have gone' and 'went' as far as I know, although I'm not really sure if American and British use both tenses exactly the same way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Superking Diglot Groupie United States polyglutwastaken.blo Joined 6643 days ago 87 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 20 20 August 2011 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
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Where do you live? Do you WANT, do you have a PREFERENCE for European Spanish? Do you need to be able to understand it?
I consider myself at a very advanced level of Spanish after 10 years of study, workplace immersion with hundreds of native speakers, and a 2 year relationship with a Colombian woman (and her family, etc.) After all this, I still very often struggle to understand what European Spanish speakers are saying. It's not something I've been trained in, it's not a dialect I need to understand in my life, so I pretty much don't care to get better at understanding them. It's blunt, but it's the truth. I don't need to understand Spaniards anymore than I need to understand heavy cockney accents in my native language, considering I'm in the US and may never travel to the UK. Think about what your needs and wants are, and if you have no particular interest in it, don't waste your time. On the other hand, if your dream is to live one day in Spain, then it wouldn't be a waste at all -- that's up to your judgment. Edited by Superking on 20 August 2011 at 11:29pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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