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The Rhythm of the Romance Languages.

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15 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
culebrilla
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3756 days ago

246 posts - 436 votes 
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 15
11 January 2014 at 1:12am | IP Logged 
My Mexican friend (Who as an aside is one of the very few extremely, extremely advanced English speakers I've met who hasn't lived abroad) and I had a discussion about the "rhythm" of the romance languages. He told me that more than accent, word choice, and grammar, the "rhythm" of the romance languages is what I had to work on. Nobody has ever complained to me that they ever had trouble understanding me so this was new to me. I didn't translate EVERYTHING because my fingers are tired of typing and I would have had to open up two word documents, etc, etc.

1. What is this rhythm? Below are some parts of our conversation with some translations.

2. Is this really true? Any input you native French, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, etc speakers?

We natives are used to a certain rhythm, more than the correction pronunciation. Upon speaking and reading in Spanish and French we use something that linguists call "rhythmic groups."
If you break this rhythm, you sound weird and it is harder for native speakers to understand you.
These rhythmic groups are detected easily when reading because everybody, regardless of the accent or dialect that they speak, will use them upon reading and also when speaking.
I learned this in my phonetics and phonology French class
We have a book called French phonetics and it describes everything. It really made my life much easier. Our teacher explained it all to us and compared the rhythm in French with that of our own language. It made me realize many things that I myself had ignored in my own language.
For example, in Spanish and in French, upon speaking, we pause and these pauses indicate that a rhythmic group is ending or starting.
For example,
“The dog is barking because he is hungry and his owner hasn’t arrived home yet.”
I can divide this sentence in rhymic groups.

El perro está ladrando/ porque tiene hambre/ y su dueño no ha llegado a su casa

The bars indicate the rhythm with which the native speaker will generally say or read this.
If the rhythm is broken it is generally sound bad or weird and it might not be understood.
So the bars indicate the pauses, right?

Llevamos un libro que se llama "Phonetique Française"
Y ahí lo dice todo. La verdad me hizo la vida mucho más fácil
Y mi maestro nos lo explicó todo, haciendo las comparaciones con nuestro propio idioma, lo que me hizo darme cuenta de muchas cosas que yo mismo ignoraba, acerca de mi propio idioma
Por ejemplo, en español y en francés, al hablar, hacemos pausas, y esas pausas indican que un grupo ritmico termina o empieza
Por ejemplo:
EL PERRO ESTÁ LADRANDO PORQUE TIENE HAMBRE Y SU DUEÑO NO HA LLEGADO A SU CASA
Puedo dividir ese enunciado en grupos rítmicos
El perro está ladrando/ porque tiene hambre/ y su dueño no ha llegado a su casa
Esas diagonales indican el ritmo con el que un nativo en general dirí o leería eso
Si se rompe, generalmente se oye mal o extraño y puede no entenderse
Entonces las diagonales indican las pausas, verdad?
Los nativos estamos acostumbrados a cierto ritmo, más que a la correcta pronunciación
Pues, al hablar y leer en español y francés
Usamos algo que los lingüistas llaman "grupos rítmicos"
Si rompes ese ritmo, te oyes raro para los nativos es un poco más difícil entenderte
Es fácil de hecho
Los grupos rítmicos se detectan más fácil al leer
Porque TODOS sin importar el acento o dialecto de un idioma que hablen, los usan
Al leer
Y también al hablar

Esto lo aprendí en mi clase de francés con mi maestro de fonética y fonología
Pero cómo sabes cuándo deberías hacer una pausa?
Hay una regla o es algo que se imita?

Pues generalmente, son ideas simples o enunciados simples
No hay una regla como tal
Solo se aprende escuchando
Otra cosa: siempre alargamos la ULTIMA palabra de cada grupo ritmico
No las que están en medio o al principio
Si hablas así, es probable que la mayoría de los nativos te entiendan
No es un acento en específico. Solo son generalidades del idioma
De hecho, los grupos rítimicos, al hablar rápido, se hacen más largos. Por ejemplo

Pero hasta ahora creo que no he tenido problemas en hacerme entender?!!
EL PERRO ESTÁ LADRANDO PORQUE TIENE HAMBRE/ Y SU DUEÑO NO HA LLEGADO A SU CASA
Es solo un decir, no digo que tú
Sino a los que aprendemos una segunda lengua en general

Bueno, notas que mi ritmo es muy malo cuando te hablo en castellano?

Para mí, tu problema es que a veces cortas las palabras
Cuando no las debes cortar
O haces pausas cuando no deberías
O prolongas una palabra que no deberías prolongar

No alargo las palabras?
Me das un ejemplo?

Es que ese el problema que no me acuerdo bien aborita de uno en específico
Me doy cuenta en el momento
Pero nunca te lo digo porque pensé que eso no era importante para ti
Nunca pensé que me dirías que te apena tu acento
Porque para mí no es ningún problema
Siempre te entiendo

Bueno, me importa hablar bien...o hablar lo suficientemente bien para que la gente no se burle de mí!

Pero es que no entiendo por qué se burlan!
Yo no encuentro chistoso para nada tu acento

El objetivo que tenemos los dos es de acercarnos al nivel de un hablante nativo, aunque sea MUY difícil hacerlo.

Ahhhh bueno! Eso cambia las cosas
Eso es lo que estaba esperando que me dijeras!
Pero depende mucho de la persona
Y de tus motivos
Y de tu oído


5 persons have voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4648 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 2 of 15
11 January 2014 at 1:46am | IP Logged 
The FSI Spanish Basic places a heavy emphasis on getting the right stress, rhythm, and
intonation (the rise and fall of the pitch). I don't recall seeing this in other
courses I've looked at.

My rough synopsis is:

Stress - English speakers unconsciously use four stress levels, while Spanish
only has two (strong and weak stress).

The English stress system is complex and flexible. It is not flexible in Spanish.

Unstressed vowels - There are Spanish vowels that take a weak stress that
wouldn't in English. Per the non-nonsense writers at FSI: While it is normal to make
these mistakes at first, they constitute a very serious error which must be
corrected early in your efforts.
 English speakers need to learn how to form vowels
under weak stress.

(side: the emphasis is theirs. I love how totally non-cuddly the old FSI courses were)


Intonation - Per FSI: The third problem which occurs from the very beginning
and will be with you to mar your Spanish for a very long time is INTONATION: the rise
and fall of the pitch of the voice.
Spanish has three levels of pitch, and in
addition the final syllable can have a flat, rising, or falling pitch.

-------------------------

The course gives tons of examples of the wrong "English-style" pronunciation and the
proper Spanish pronunciation, and has a whole system for marking it in the dialogues.
It's worth checking out.

I wish I could tell you that I have internalized all this, but I'm still trying to get
it right myself.

FSI Spanish



Edited by kanewai on 11 January 2014 at 1:47am

3 persons have voted this message useful



culebrilla
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3756 days ago

246 posts - 436 votes 
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 15
11 January 2014 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:
The FSI Spanish Basic places a heavy emphasis on getting the right stress, rhythm, and
intonation (the rise and fall of the pitch). I don't recall seeing this in other
courses I've looked at.

My rough synopsis is:

Stress - English speakers unconsciously use four stress levels, while Spanish
only has two (strong and weak stress).

The English stress system is complex and flexible. It is not flexible in Spanish.

Unstressed vowels - There are Spanish vowels that take a weak stress that
wouldn't in English. Per the non-nonsense writers at FSI: While it is normal to make
these mistakes at first, they constitute a very serious error which must be
corrected early in your efforts.
 English speakers need to learn how to form vowels
under weak stress.

(side: the emphasis is theirs. I love how totally non-cuddly the old FSI courses were)


Intonation - Per FSI: The third problem which occurs from the very beginning
and will be with you to mar your Spanish for a very long time is INTONATION: the rise
and fall of the pitch of the voice.
Spanish has three levels of pitch, and in
addition the final syllable can have a flat, rising, or falling pitch.

-------------------------

The course gives tons of examples of the wrong "English-style" pronunciation and the
proper Spanish pronunciation, and has a whole system for marking it in the dialogues.
It's worth checking out.

I wish I could tell you that I have internalized all this, but I'm still trying to get
it right myself.

FSI Spanish



The Mexican guy was talking more about more "nebuluos" rhythm units where you say chunks of sentences at once and then pause; not about the endings of words or the rising and falling pitch of sentences. But thanks for your information; didn't hear about it. I'm content with my intonation and rhythm so I was like, "I don't know what the heck you are talking about man."

I just asked a Spanish friend about this and he was also like, "wtf, mate?"
1 person has voted this message useful



culebrilla
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3756 days ago

246 posts - 436 votes 
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 15
11 January 2014 at 3:17am | IP Logged 
EL PERRO ESTÁ LADRANDO PORQUE TIENE HAMBRE Y SU DUEÑO NO HA LLEGADO A SU CASA

For example, I could imagine a native Spanish speaker saying

EL PERRO ESTÁ LADRANDO PORQUE TIENE HAMBRE//// Y SU DUEÑO NO HA LLEGADO A SU CASA

instead of

EL PERRO ESTÁ LADRANDO// PORQUE TIENE HAMBRE //Y SU DUEÑO NO HA LLEGADO A SU CASA

My friend was speaking in generalities but maybe if enough Spanish speaking natives look at the sentence we could get a big enough sample size to see how they would break it up into pieces. Unfortunately, there are previous few latino native speakers here.
1 person has voted this message useful



nicozerpa
Triglot
Senior Member
Argentina
Joined 4085 days ago

182 posts - 315 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English
Studies: Italian, German

 
 Message 5 of 15
11 January 2014 at 3:45am | IP Logged 
I agree with your Mexican friend about it, rythm is a very important aspect of you want to
improve your pronunciation.

I'd would say "El perro está ladrando porque tiene hambre// y su dueño no ha llegado a su
casa". However, I find it possible to say it adding a little pause after "dueño" and even
with no pauses at all. Also, I'd probably change the intonation according to the number of
pauses I use.

Edited by nicozerpa on 11 January 2014 at 3:46am

1 person has voted this message useful



jpmtl
Diglot
Groupie
Canada
Joined 3761 days ago

44 posts - 115 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Spanish, Russian

 
 Message 6 of 15
11 January 2014 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
I can't see how rhythm would be an issue if you're fully fluent, unless you have the tendency to stop randomly between words.

If for example an angry person would speak very fast without pausing at all, a fluent person should be able to understand everything without problem if the prononciation is fine.

IMO it's not something you should work on. It should come naturally with practice.

Edited by jpmtl on 11 January 2014 at 4:19am

1 person has voted this message useful



viedums
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Thailand
Joined 4425 days ago

327 posts - 528 votes 
Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French
Studies: Vietnamese

 
 Message 7 of 15
11 January 2014 at 4:33am | IP Logged 
It’s been said that some languages are stress-timed, meaning that there’s a roughly equal length of time between stressed syllables, and other languages are syllable-timed, meaning that the duration of each syllable is more or less equal.  English and German are stress-timed, and Romance languages like French and Spanish are syllable-timed, in this view. Look up the Wikipedia page on ‘Isochrony’ to learn more about this.

There’s also a third type, the mora-timed languages. Japanese is the best-known of these, and if you listen to Japanese pop music (I am thinking of Pizzicato 5) you can hear this phenomenon clearly.

Now, some linguists have debunked the idea of classifying languages in this way. It’s problematic to apply it to whole languages. Personally I don’t think it’s helpful to say, for instance, that Chinese is syllable-timed but Thai is stress-timed. There are many other factors, like syllable shape, tone etc. Still, the most likely reason people keep coming back to this idea is that they are trying to explain the difference in rhythm between English and the Romance languages. In your case, it may be that you are stress-timing your Spanish when you should be giving each syllable its own beat.

3 persons have voted this message useful



culebrilla
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3756 days ago

246 posts - 436 votes 
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 8 of 15
11 January 2014 at 4:38am | IP Logged 
jpmtl wrote:
I can't see how rhythm would be an issue if you're fully fluent, unless you have the tendency to stop randomly between words.

If for example an angry person would speak very fast without pausing at all, a fluent person should be able to understand everything without problem if the prononciation is fine.

IMO it's not something you should work on. It should come naturally with practice.


Oh, it definitely something I am NOT going to work on because I'm happy with where I am with rhythm. I've got a lot of practice so I'm straight man.

The ONE thing I really have to do is finally trill my R's. It's pretty embarrassing since I have so many thousands of hours under my belt of practice but never learned how to do it. I met up with a South American speech pathologist that is a specialist in accent reduction. He actually works with newscasters and famous people in his country so I think he's legitimate. Anyways, I have the exercises to approximate the sound but lack the desire to actually do it. He estimated about 30 minutes of daily work over three months to do it properly.

The frustrating thing is when I talk with native speakers who are like, "You'll get the rr sound, you just need practice."

Me: I've got almost 7,000 hours of practice, dog. Improper "practice" won't help you do it. I just have to get off my lazy keister and do the specific drills.


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