Comments on: How to get rid of your gringo accent

By: Ramses

Ramses — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:31:35 +0000

Jay, maybe this helps:
http://www.spanish-only.com/2008/03/how-to-roll-your-r/

By: Ramses

Ramses — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:31:01 +0000

Really? The rolling R?

Ik dacht dat vlamingen de rollende R hadden?

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:41:36 +0000

Good post! I feel learning the basics is a fast process, but it definately takes a lot of work to completely master the language.

I’m a native dutch speaker myself (flemmish), and the one thing i keep struggling with is the “r”. Especially the heavy rolling “r” at the start of a word.

But i just keep practising and my tongue is slowly but surely getting used to it. One thing i do is i try to read aloud when reading a text. That way i’m kind of practising my pronounciation at the same time.

By: Erik R.

Erik R. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:13:40 +0000

@eleena
Strangely, I have no trouble [mis]pronouncing internet or casting or parking or tuning into Spanish.

And then there’s everyone’s favorite compromise, beicon.

By: eleena

eleena — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:31:29 +0000

@Erik,
I have the same problem, especially when it is an English word that is used in Spanish, like “Internet.” The automatic default is to revert to the English pronunciation.

@Jo D,
I had a similar experience like that once with a Spaniard. He had this almost perfect posh English accent, but there was a little something about it that was off, that give him away as not being British. But still, it was very, very good.

By: Ramses

Ramses — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:23:27 +0000

@Erk
That’s a common pitfall, indeed. I know it’s a problem, but didn’t know it was especially a problem with words that look the same. Now that I think about it, you’re right.

@Jo
That’s really interesting. Shows that it works .

Thanks for the comments guys!

By: Jo D.

Jo D. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:51:36 +0000

I once met a man in my hometown who had an accent that sounded somewhat Australian (at least, to me and my brothers). His English was perfectly fluent; he just sounded like a native English speaker from a country other than the US. Eventually we couldn’t bear guessing any longer, and asked him where he grew up.

Turns out, he grew up in the same heavily hispanic, American city that we did, having lived there his entire life. As a teen interested in acting, he was told he’d never get anywhere on account of his strong chicano accent. So he began recording his voice, practicing and correcting himself in order to get rid of the accent. You would never guess it!

By: Erik R.

Erik R. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:53:16 +0000

Good job on emphasizing the vowel sounds. The most common error I catch myself making is letting English vowel sounds slip into my Spanish. It’s a particular problem on words that are similar in both languages. For example, when you say “apartamento“, it’s easy for the first “a” to come out like an “uh”, like it does in the English word “apartment”. It’s never a problem for words that aren’t related at all to English words, like “ajo” or “castaña“.