Analyzing Pronunciation: Native Spanish speakers, please contribute!

[@maitesuazo2539]

Chilean girl here! I'm not gonna repeat any of the things you said and the things I read in the comments, but I am going to say that at least in Chile, her accent is good enough to make most people believe she is just a foreigner from another Spanish speaking country that they don't know much about. To the untrained ear that can't distinguish aspirated and unaspirated consonant sounds and other small details, it's hard to know where she is from and if she is not a native. I personally do notice instantly that she is not a native because I am a language nerd lol but when I showed my mom and my grandma the recording without telling them she wasn't a native speaker, they were like "is she Peruvian?" and were like "oh 🤨" when I told them that she was from an English speaking country. Let me clearify that I'M NOT SAYING SHE SOUNDS PERUVIAN OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, I'm just saying that regular people that have never in their life talked to a foreigner speaking their language to this level and are not actively looking for mistakes, it's just not as obvious. In my personal opinion, she is really good and I hope I can reach her level in my target languages someday... I am motivated to improve now ^^.

[@tenminutespanish]

I hope Angie reads this comment. She'll be so flattered.

[@angelt9862]

Wow, way to go Angie! You inspire me to keep trying to improve my pronunciation. Great job.

[@silvestrenet]

I'm from Dominican republic and all I can say is ... KZbin is a good source to listen and practice your skills in a new language, in this case English. I faced Angie's problem's too. I studied English for several years with up and down, but when I tried to speak or listen in English I just got frozen. Speaking: I had to think in Spanish what I want to say, then translate them. A very brain demand task. Listening 🎧: I thought 💭 American English was more consistent through regions in USA, my bad not all Americans from new York to California pronounce consistently. So KZbin helped me a lot Now I can understand almost every native speaker and I don't need to think first in Spanish then translate to English now happens on the fly.

[@TheMaru666]

That slight vowel reduction of unestressed vowels happens in some native accents . I am Galician , and as most Galicians, I do have an accent in Spanish that is mostly noticeable in the " melody " os my speech and in the way we say some vowels ( Galician has seven vowel sounds with an open and a close o and e ) and has some vowel reduction when not stressed and estressed vowels tend to be done longer , not so exagerated as in Portuguesse and more noticeable in some accents than in others and not consistent among different speakers . She has a subtle foreighn accent , but her pronunciarion is really good and the clues of her foreighness are so minor that native speakers probably won' t even be able to put a finger on what she does differently . I kind of get her aim towards perfection , but she is more than good just as she is now .

[@fobosydeimos]

Hola, soy mexicano. Suena muy, muy bien. Muy claro, fácil de entender. ¡simplemente, guau! Parece una nativa que remarca los espacios entre las palabras; suena un poco robótica. Si corrigiera la pronunciación de los espacios, ni me daría cuenta que es su segundo idioma.

[@murakyo79]

Hello, I'm a native Spanish speaker (Argentina). I can tell Angy loves spanish and is very good at it, she even speaks better than me or some people I know haha. This is what I noticed. She has the typical accent every English speaker has when speaking spanish, so any native can tell she isn't a native speaker (This isn't wrong though). She also makes a lot of pauses when speaking, which makes sense since she wants a review of her pronunciation, but it feels unnatural (Specially to me, where the spanish is spoken fast). She speaks much more elegant than the average person, such as saying "sin embargo", since most people say "pero", "aunque" or even "mas". When pronouncing r, c, b, p, j, t, is where I can hear her neutral accent the most. Such as marking them much more than the average person (Saying "haberr, intervvenirr, qquedar"). She also cut some in order to say it fast, such as saying "Aeroperto" or "caté" instead of "aeropuerto" or "capté". Or saying the o as "ou" with the same purpose. This is all for velocity and practicality, and probably the average person won't be able to tell this. There really isn't any serious correction or advice to give her, since every thing I said is simply part of her neutral accent, so I would say she did a great job. Kudos to her.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this insight.

[@thane_snipes]

Hi, I am NOT a native speaker, and Angie's level is way beyond mine, so take everything I say with a massive grain of salt. It sounds great. Envious of that effortless trilled r. Great job! Aside from the diligent analysis in the video, what sticks out to me the most is the pronunciation of r in a vowel-r-consonant cluster. The English approximant sound sneaks in most of the time, but Angie did pronounce it more like a tap/flap in "interioR de la tierra" at 10:50. At 12:10 there is an example of a little bit of diphthongization of final e in "triste" from /ˈtɾiste/ to /ˈtɾiste͜ɪ/ or however one wants to transcribe it. Even native English speakers who are highly proficient in a second language often exhibit this feature to some degree. I suppose this happens commonly with "o" as well, but either it's not as prominent, both on average across English speakers (whom I've heard speak anyway) and in Angie's speech, or I'm just not as apt at picking it up. Excellent stuff as always, keep it up!

[@tenminutespanish]

Good analysis! Thank you for your thoughtful input.

[@thane_snipes]

@@tenminutespanish Thank you for reading it. I know how much time it takes, not only to produce the content you do, but to interact with the audience as well, so it's highly appreciated.

[@bdwon]

The range of /ll/ would, in fact, be perfectly natural for a native speaker like me influenced by Mexican heritage, but also by years and years of happily dating and being influenced by the spoken Spanish of Caribbean girlfriends: one from Puerto Rico, another from the DR. What you described as the average pronunciation of native Spanish speakers does not take into account that internationalization of the language is widespread. As for what made Angie sound like a non-native speaker . . . I picked up mostly on the stilted and labored rhythms of her recitation. By contrast her speaking in her words was wonderful. ¿Have you done a video on suprasegmentals and related prosodic characteristics?

[@allenellsworth5799]

I actually hope to have a mix of dialects. I think it is cool.

[@dgoins6]

It would interesting if you invited a native Spanish speaker to read and you analyze their Spanish.

[@tenminutespanish]

I agree. I analyzed a couple natives last round, and I'll do it a couple more times this round.

[@dgoins6]

@@tenminutespanish you did! I missed it

[@tenminutespanish]

@@dgoins6 Yup! We reviewed one native of the Dominican Republic and one extremely fluent bilingual from Mexico. In this round we already have a couple recordings from natives.

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

I'd say what you call a sibilant r sounds more like an English r to me. She sounds like she makes it before consonants and before s especially quite often. I found her "las raíces" very natural, as well as her y/ll sounds, but I'm Argentinian so I'm not sure what would be natural in her accent. The thing that stuck out the most to me was how she used the hard version of the "b, d and g" very often at the beginning of words. Especially when you have an article or a preposition and then the beginning of a word, it would even be hard for me to make it as hard as she does. She speaks very carefully and slowly, so what you mentioned about the gaps between words ending and beginning with vowels, I'd need to listen to her speak quickly to tell if it's unnatural or not. But her Spanish is exceptional. Honestly, if you asked me, I wouldn't say she really needs to improve. At this point, it would just be showing off.

[@RUT812]

I hear a lot of separation between words that native speakers wouldn’t do. Perhaps she speaks this way to be better understood by non-native speakers. It doesn’t flow quite as well. 🤷‍♀️ She speaks well, but not exactly like a native speaker. If I were her, I would try to connect the words that need to be connected in Spanish. I would also pay more attention to the voice inflections of native speakers. I have had a lot of exposure to Spanish on top of the 4 years of Spanish in high school. My husband & his family are Nicaraguan, we lived in Costa Rica for years, and now live in Mexico.

[@huzayfaamin189]

Hey there! I'm currently learning Spanish and I have a few questions if that's okay with you. 1- Is there a difference in pronunciation between 'ña/ño/ñe' and 'nia/nio/nie' or are they both pronounced the same? 2- And how do you pronounce 'tr-/dr-'? I can pronounce '-rt' and '-rd' just fine, but when I try to pronounce 'tr-' or 'dr-', it comes out as if there's another short schwa inbetween the letters, do you have any tips on how to pronounce it? Also, I'm fine with Latin American pronunciations but Spanish pronunciation would be ideal Thanks in advance!

[@tenminutespanish]

1- there is a difference. I have a whole video on ñ. 2 - i have a whole video on how to pronounce tapped r, between vowels and in combination with other consonants. I also have a video on the dr combination.

[@huzayfaamin189]

@@tenminutespanish Ah, muchas gracias!

[@justinmartell1573]

Hey man thanks for all the videos you make, I really enjoy them for helping me improve my Spanish! I wanted to know if you have a video on how linking vowels into diptongos between words. For example a phrase I heard the other day the person said brillará igual. But it sounded like brillar aigual where they connect the a to igual as if it is one word, also. In a phrase like corre y hacé lo que te mande. How would you combine the e and y and ha together. I ask this because it seems like in English we don’t really change the beginning of words that start with a vowel based on the endings of word before it. Let me know I would like help on this. Thanks

[@tenminutespanish]

Yes. I have a video on linking. It discusses that topic. The thumbnail for the video has the word "linking" on it.

[@LisandroLorea]

She sounds not that different from many native Spanish speakers who live in the US.

[@vooides]

No digas su edad, hombre 😂