|
 |
Focus Spanish learning on one region? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 9 of 22 03 April 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Veracruzanos are famous for their uncensored speech. I haven't been there yet but my neighbour is from there and she speaks in a very 'direct' way. Nice people though. I learnt all my Spanish in a different part of Mexico. I haven't worked a lot on my accent. I did work more on pronunciation though, so I don't have a heavy English accent when I speak Spanish. I find the accent here a little coarse to be honest so I haven't gone out of my way to sound like a native. I'd recommend Mexican TV over Mexican movies at this stage of your learning as Mexican movies are usually very slang based and somewhat hard to follow when you're starting out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| buhrahyun Newbie United States Joined 5354 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 22 05 April 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||
That's right. My main goal is to be able to speak with my wife's family. Most of them speak English too, but not everyone, and it would be nice if they don't have to keep switching to English for my sake at family gatherings. I won't discard any Spanish material. I can learn vocabulary from anywhere. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6472 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 11 of 22 12 April 2010 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
I'm not so sure. If you look up a word in a dictionary you'll likely be assaulted with many synonyms and only a vague idea of which are used in which region. Sure, some say "(Mexico)", "(Spain)", or whatever, but that doesn't mean the unmarked ones are used in all regions. People might still recognize them, but if you want to sound like a native Mexican (or whatever), you need to avoid the ones that don't match the region, and that's hard. In other words, it's not knowing what words to use, it's knowing what words not to! That said, I think it's really not worth the effort. I mean, if it's that important to sound Mexican, you should move to Mexico (or at least near the border). If you're not willing to do that, then it's probably not a terribly big deal if you don't sound 100% Mexican anyway. Don't get me wrong, I'm the same way and I too would rather sound like a native Mexican, but the choice of available materials just makes it too difficult for it to be worth the bother -- as others have said, you shouldn't pass up materials just because they aren't Mexican. BTW, it's worth noting that even anglophones who move to another anglophone country don't necessarily find this easy... no matter if they try to blend in, there's always going to be some sort of giveaway, some linguistic difference that they hadn't yet learned. How is an American supposed to know that a bullhorn is called a loud-hailer in England (or vice versa) until you hear somebody call it that? - Kef Edited by furrykef on 13 April 2010 at 2:57am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5881 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 22 12 April 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
For some people, speaking comes easier than for others. Being able to think and speak with more of a natural rythm and speed.
On the other hand, for some this is never going to happen, just the way it is. And for some Gringos who have learned Spanish to a high degree and can communicate about almost anything, they're always going to have that nasty gringo accent, that terrible sounding Spanish that just grates on your ears. Watch enough Spanish news and you'll know what I'm talking about, plenty can speak it, but sound really bad. Maybe they just couldn't get the accent down, maybe they just didn't care, who knows. Now if you're one of the people that can learn fast and start speaking, it's going to come down to who you're hanging out with. It will rub off. In your case, your wife and her family. If you can start speaking only Spanish with them, you'll start to pick up on their way of speaking...esteeee, oseaaaa, no manches..etc. However it is that they speak, you'll start speaking that way too. I had the good fortune to work with many Mexicans for about 3 years during my studies. They taught me a ton and I spoke just like them, slang and all. Once I was talking with a Mexican in the gym and he asked me if I was American. I was like, what?? I'm as American looking as they come. But he was like, yeah, but the way you talk, so then he asked me if I lived in Mexico for a time, etc. Point is the stuff will rub off once you start speaking only in Spanish with your family like it did on me. The truth is, there's still a little gringo in my accent, but not much. Just enough to give it away that I learned Spanish, and didn't grow up with it. I asked the question recently to two of my Mexican friends that I talk with all the time. One's a guy, the other a girl. I asked them how my accent sounded to them. They both said the same thing, that there's just a tiny bit of the American sound in my voice, but that they've never heard any Gringo speak Spanish like I do, almost like they do. So for me that's good enough. The fact is I spoke only English for almost 40 years and have only been speaking Spanish for about 4 so I gotta be realistic too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| L1539 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5358 days ago 27 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 13 of 22 12 April 2010 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
|
When learning a foreign language, I don't think one should worry too much about "sounding like a native," at least not until you reach a very advanced level. Instead, the goal should be to be able to express yourself fully, using correct grammar (when I say "correct" I don't necessarily mean in an academic sense, but "correct" in the sense that most natives use it that way), and being able to say things in a way that native speakers will easily understand what you mean. Also, one should be familiar enough with the language so that even if they don't understand a specific word or idiom natives say, they can either figure it out from context or ask what it means.
Most people who have learned English as a second language don't completely sound like a native speaker, even after living in an English-speaking country for years and being for all practical purposes fluent. For example, they usually use some sentence constructions that, while not technically wrong, aren't what a native speaker would ever say. If you're particularly interested in the language as spoken in a particular country or region (for example, Mexican Spanish), then when you learn slang, concentrate on the slang of that specific place. But otherwise, I don't see why it's so important to sound totally "native-like" unless one is doing espionage work or something of that sort. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6075 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 14 of 22 12 April 2010 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
True. There are many nuances in vocabulary, and also, possibly more fundamentally, in verbal conjugations. I am not sure about some other regions of the Spanish speaking world, but Rioplatense, spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, conjugates the second-person familiar form of verbs in the present tense, and the past-perfect tense is less used. Although it is usually understood by students of Spanish from elsewhere, one would have to learn it in order to speak correctly the Spanish of this region. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| furrykef Senior Member United States furrykef.com/ Joined 6472 days ago 681 posts - 862 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Italian | Message 15 of 22 13 April 2010 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||
I don't want to derail this topic too much, but I'm not sure what you mean about the second-person familiar form, unless you're referring to voseo. I don't think voseo is hard to adapt to, though, especially since it's very similar to vosotros in conjugation, which almost any Spanish speaker will know how to conjugate even if they don't use it themselves. - Kef 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Smart Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5339 days ago 352 posts - 398 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Latin, French Studies: German | Message 16 of 22 13 April 2010 at 8:05am | IP Logged | ||
|
Try to focus on Mexico and Latin America. South America and Spain will follow afterward.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
