Ok, in Puerto Rico, people don’t say the s at the end of the words. This is accepted(formal) as long as the next word does not start with a vowel. The sound is called h aspirada and is a slight Spanish J sound. Examples:
One can say la-h mujere-h instead of las mujeres, but not the first s of lo-h amigo-h. In that case, the first s in los should be pronounced, resulting in los amigo-h.
The J sound sometimes pronounced in words like El Morro is a more strong j with r type of sound, not the slight sound of h aspirada. Again, I do not know if this is considered formal or not (as in the case of h aspirada).
I don’t roll my rr’s in Spanish. Nobody seems to mind much, though I have been told it’s the feature of my accent that most marks me out as a furriner. (Mind you, Panama has a pretty weird accent of its own, almost as bizarre as Puerto Rico’s ;))
Recall that English accents vary a great deal in the pronunciation of ‘r’. Many Brits, Bostonians, and New Yawkuhs of course virtually drop the r in some word positions. (In New Zealand, I was once told that my accent sounded Irish, because I rolled my r’s, even though as a New Yorker I don’t think I stress them much as all!)
I don’t want to sound rude Gaspode, but I’d ease off on the “inferiority complex” thing. I’m thinking of a place in which you can put phrases like that but I can’t print it (hint: the sun doesn’t get there very often)
We Spanish speakers don’t mind when foreigners can’t roll their r’s; we just expect the same courtesy when we mess up their languages.
You can say what you want about our tenses, but if you see a word in Spanish there is only one way to pronounce it…you can’t say the same about English.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but when I learned Spanish and had to learn the Spanish r and rr, I first learned to produce the sounds out of context, “trilling” continuously for a second or two. Only later did I manage to insert this sound into a word.
This is similar to saying words that contain a click sound - most anyone can click the tip or side of their tongue, but incorporating these sounds into a word takes practice.
The rr or initial r is a trill, the medial or final r is a tap. Both are different from the retroflex r (or whatever variety you use in your dialect of English).
An American in a Scottish inn told a waitress, “You certainly do rrroll your arrrrs.”
She blushed and said, “Thank you, sirr. You should see me when I’m wearrrin’ high heels.”
I don’t roll my r’s because it takes a lot of attention, and I’m not a good enough Spanish speaker to have a lot of attention to spare. But if you want to roll yours, hibernicus’s advice is good. Hold your mouth partly open, lightly rest your tongue against the inner gums of your top teeth, and blow out, letting your tongue vibrate with the air.
No, it’s all relative. She definitely meant Irish. Scots roll their r’s most of all, but compared to a Brit or Kiwi the Irish (and most Americans) do too. Actually, I think what she meant was “pronounce your r’s”, rather than roll them.
Sorry for being late, zia_nova. I’m mexican, native spanish-speaker (that’s why I wrote english so bad). You wouldn’t be the only one as a foreigner to sound like a foreigner. Many spanish-speakers had a problem in the tongue called “frenillo” in spanish. They can’t roll their tongue to pronounce the “r” and other letters and combinations. Ok, they don’t sound like foreigners but they are very funny.
Btw, Gaspode, you said:
What’s up with that “collective inferiority complex”? I don’t feel offended but please notice there are mexicans and spanish-speakers who are (we are) as proud as you as human beings of any country. I’m not counting into that collectivity, but you should be proud, too (no hard feelings, ok? )
Firstly: I’m in my fifth year of Spanish and am just beginning to be able to roll my R’s properly.
Secondly: In order to do it, your tongue has to be completely relaxed. Just enough muscle tension to keep it from drooping out of your mouth should be used. I find it easier to put the tip of my tongue more on the roof of my mouth (towards the front) than the back of my upper gum. Play around with that. Once you think you’ve got it, just exhale strongly through your mouth. Keep doing it and you’ll eventually get some sort of vibration. Once you’ve felt it, it’ll be easier to do again. (Wow. I just realized that, if out of context, the preceding paragraph could sound rather naughty.)
Thirdly: I second the ‘do it out of context’ thing first. Spanish is a fast language, and I tried for years (literally) to do it just while speaking. DIdn’t happen. Finally broke down and went around making wierd breathey noises til I got it.
Fourth: Languages are a lot easier to learn if you at least hear native speakers. Dialogue and learning from/studying with them is best, but if I were you, I’d try and hunt up some Spanish speakers, solicit their help. If you can’t/don’t want to, watch some Spanish soap operas on TV. they’re actually somewhat easy to follow, because they’re incredibly over-acted. Listening to the language spoken fluently can be a huge help in getting the sounds right.
I had missed this gem. Many comments come to mind but none of them belong in GQ. Since were are in GQ I will ask you to support this claim or to withdraw it.
And here’s a fact for you: Some people in Sweden are idiots. I am willing to provide sufficient proof if you would consider it necessary. Just let me know.
I would drop the collective, but yes, there are people who believe Spanish is inferior to English, thus are surprised when English natives want to learn Spanish.
Thanks for all your help folks. Certainly given me a lot to think about. Thanks particularly for the hints on learning to roll my Rs.
I’ve been trying to just roll them outside of a word for ages. I spent almost a whole day trying but it always came out as: dddd-d-d-d-ddd-d-d-d-d-dddd-d-d-d-d-d-d-ddd-d-dd-d-dd-ddd-d
I just can’t roll them! My brother eventually begged me to take a break, hehe.
I believe that actually hearing a language will teach you better than any books. Unfortunatly I can’t get any spanish programmes on my tv or radio. But most of my DVDs have a spanish soundtrack and subtitles as well as English. So that’s better than nothing. I feel like I’m learning much more and am able to follow the dialog better too. And learning lots of new words and phrases and things.
Who’d have thought Stargate SG-1 in Spanish could teach you so much
Well, for some reason my wife and family laugh at me when I try to say todo. They insist I’m pronouncing toro. So watch your r’s in other respects, too!
To some extent I still think this – any language where a double-negative is still a negative just seems wrong to my logically-oriented brain. Of course I mean this half in gest, but the other half… Pues, in any case I’m proud of the Spanish I do know so let that stand for itself.
Inferiority complex? Feh! If anything in my case it is a bit of a superiority complex. Spanish is harder to learn than English. Those verbs are bastards, and you must get them right, you can’t get away with using the pronoun and just use the infinitive as is the case in English. Actually using the pronoun is frown upon in most cases.
I am glad I learnt Spanish as my first language, and since I am long out of school I can’t tell a subjunctive from a cheese burger. Same in English.
We use the R to test your proficiency, if you don’t get it right we make fun of you when you are not watching. Just kidding, don’t sweat it. Just PLEASE, for whatever is dear to you, for the love of whatever god you worship DO NOT write “ano” when you mean “año”.
Mighty_Girl, LOL. I think a lot of us have a tendency to do just that when we’re on Windows computers.
KarlGrenze, yeah, I know that. It’s one of the charms of Spanish. But it still strikes me as peculiar. Actually in the mucho anos that I’ve spent learning Spanish, there are a lot of things that strike me as peculiar, but they’re easy to deal with. It’s simpler than English in many respects.
Oh, and Mighty_Girl again – the verbs aren’t really hard if you consider how Spanish parallels English. But did you mean Spanish as your native language or first non-English language? You don’t really have to know all of the designations of the tenses; they come habitually after a while.
It may not really matter anymore anyway. My wife tells me Spanish is decaying like English. We hear a lot of “if I was sick” instead of “if I were sick,” and “si estaba/estuve enfermo” instead of “si estuviera enfermo.”
I’ll also add that I’m by no means any type of expert in Spanish – I get by, and luckily I don’t have to write it ever. This gives me the opportunity to not really know what I’m saying but say it anyway. Things like “quiero que comas tu pasta” versus “quiero que comes tu pasta.” I’m not sure which is perfectly correct, but if I’m indistinct enough in pronouncing them, I guess it doesn’t matter so much – I’m understood.
honestly, it’s kind of easy to learn how to roll an R. it just takes time. this is how my spanish teacher helped some of the trilling-impaired in my class: start by saying “la la la la” because the up and down motion your tongue makes when you roll the R. increase the speed (you dont really have to make the “lala” sound at this point). At some point, after doing this a while, you’ll want to start blowing air out of your mouth. When rattling your tongue, it makes a sort of motor-boat noise. You basically then have the motion down, all you need to do is add your voice behind it and go “rrrrrrr”
heh. i make it sound so easy, i know, but it’s a good way to start. the reason most people can’t roll their Rs is because their tongue isn’t used to making such a rapid motion. its almost as though you’re giving your tongue a workout. Point is, that’s how i learned to roll my Rs when i was really little (my mom taught me) and then years later, i find my AP spanish teacher is teaching kids the same thing.
Two things come to mind: Verbs and “ser” Vs “estar”. I grant you that pronounciation is fairly simple in Spanish. Learning how to read is easy as once you learn how to pronounce some syllables you always know how to pronounce them. But grammar? Hehe.
Spanish is my mother’s tongue.
So you think verbs are easy? Let’s see:
I am ------- Yo soy / estoy
You are — Tu eres / estás
He/she is - Ella/el es / está
We are ---- Nosotros somos / estamos
You are ---- Vosotros sois / estais (Ustedes son/están)
They are — Ellos son /están
Not two repeat in Spanish, and those are simple verbs. How about “haber”? Try that for a sleepless night
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