Analyzing Spanish Pronunciation: Native speaker from Chile!

[@candlespotlight]

You’re getting so, so, so good with your analyses! I’m amazed at all of the things you’re able to pinpoint. This is possibly the best accent analysis I’ve seen from you! So many features to pinpoint, but you nailed it- both with picking up on the features as well as with explaining them!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much. I'm very happy you liked the video.

[@Trinitrotoluenador]

Interesting video. I'd like to mention that something we often do is pronouncing words like "carne" as "can-ne" or "carlos" as "cal-los", i.e. we get rid of the r sound and extend the next consonant a bit. I hope it's understood.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[@darthmaul6446]

You mentioned that he has a "staccato rythm" which makes him sound different from more neutral dialects. I feel that argentine spanish also has a different rythm to it. Maybe you could do a video on how southern cone dialects differ in intonation from other dialects.

[@110username]

I was just about to make a comment requesting more on this topic too! In my case, most of the content I listen to happens to be from Spain and Mexico, and I’ve noticed how the rhythm and general articulation style(?) of syllables differs between the two. I’m referring not just to variation of specific phones or or even some of the better-known differences in phonological rules, but more so to the rhythm and contour of syllables and utterances (at least I think…). It’s probably a mix of all those things that give the two their distinct “feel” to me though. In addition to just finding the topic very interesting, I’m also trying to learn how to speak closer to the Mexican Standard (as I live in California), so a video on that would be super helpful! Thanks!

[@videbit]

Hola, creo que él tiene una super buena dicción para ser chileno, jajajaja. Lo dice otro chileno. Él habla clarito, como diríamos aquí. Excelente video!!! Gracias por compartir.

[@orfrisbee2121]

I think that chilean spanish is the most interesting spanish accent and that's why it is my favorite accent Thank you for the video !!!

[@tenminutespanish]

I really like it, too. It's got lots of interesting features. I'm so happy you liked the video.

[@dsp6373]

Just a correction, Chileans aren’t pronouncing ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩ in free variation as [b] and [β] and [v]. It’s actually in free variation as [b] and [β] and [ʋ]. This last consonant is how Hindi and other speakers of Indian languages pronounce ⟨w⟩ and ⟨v⟩ both as [ʋ] which to English-speaking ears sounds like [v]. Thus “cold ʋater” to non-Indian English-speakers sound like “cold vater” (i.e. “cold water”). Chilean is the only Spanish dialect that also has [ʋ], all others Spanish dialects only have [b] and [β]. Presumably, in Chile the [ʋ] evolved out of the [β], which in turn evolved as an allophone of [b] and is present in all Spanish dialects.

[@RafaAkd]

Ahora toca hacer acentos de todos los países jaja. El acento chileno es bastante particular e inconfundible. Como venezolano, a veces cuesta diferenciar un argentigo de un uruguayo por ejemplo, a pesar de que entre ellos se diferencian claramente. De igual manera, para un argentino podría ser difícil distinguir entre un venezolano y un colombiano. Pero el acento chileno es bien particular

[@tenminutespanish]

Sí, esa es mi meta, analizar acentos de todos los países, y eventualmente diferentes regiones dentro de cada país.

[@cocacoffee8560]

No sé cómo alguien podría confundir el acento colombiano con el venezolano, son tan parecidos como lo es el argentino al chileno. Quizas hayan escuchado el acento caribeño que es muy diferente del resto del pais pero que es extremadamente parecido al venezolano.

[@mep6302]

Yo soy argentino y no puedo diferenciar tan fácilmente entre otro argentino y un uruguayo. Creo que se debe a que vivo cerca de Uruguay. Soy de Entre Ríos (vivo prácticamente al lado). Nuestra forma de hablar es muy parecida. Casi idéntica.

[@Maxippouce]

So interesting

[@alberto220]

I love your videos, how you make the comparison between Spanish and English!! :D If you ever need someone to read in Mexican Spanish (Mexico City), don't doubt in asking me! It'll be my pleasure!

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much. I'm so happy you like my videos.

[@kentonstuart6052]

Please do a video on Costa Rican Spanish 🙏

[@hect1909]

In my dialect we also pronounce b d and g with the strong sound after an “s” actually we don’t even pronounce the s’s before those b d g. For example; “ “Le dije” and “les dije” is distinguished only by the difference in pronunciation of the D because the s is not pronounced.

[@Xtianu]

This is an accurate description of how we, Chileans treat the Spanish language.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you.

[@Androbott]

amazing video, keep up the great content

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

A couple of observations. 1) Is it possible that some varieties with s-reduction have an additional effect of strengthening a voiced plosive when it follows an aspirated s, causing it to use its plosive alophone and not its aproximate one? I'm not sure if this happens in Chile, but note that all the examples of plosive /β/, /ð/ and /ɣ/ being pronounced with their plosive allophones occurred after an s. I'm from Buenos Aires and I pronounce the word like this [dehðe], but I've definitely heard especially Caribbean and Southern Spain Spanish speakers sometimes pronounce it something like [ded:e], is that posible? I'm surprised to hear it in a Chilean, but perhaps it happens there too. 2) I think what you're describing as "je" turning to "jie" is a palatalized pronunciation of /x/, which turns into [ç] before front vowels, which I think is an already observed feature of Chilean Spanish. 3) I've heard that the [v] pronunciation of /b/ was influenced by the Mapudungun language of the Mapuches, which has a /v/ phoneme in many dialects and has no /b/ phoneme. Anyway, I'm a native speaker from Buenos Aires city, so let me know if you ever want me to do something like this.

[@bugsworth6942]

Chilean is the best Spanish

[@maitesuazo2539]

Buen video como siempre! Saludos desde Chile!

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias!!

[@titoluco]

Chilean Spanish is the most unique Spanish variety of them all!

[@angelt9862]

I have to admit, if I weren't familiar with the words and story in this reading, I would have had a hard time following/understanding some of the words. Since I've been learning Spanish, I've often heard from various native Spanish speakers that Chilean Spanish is difficult to understand, even for them. Of course, the more time spent listening to this accent, the better one would get at understanding it. Do you think non-natives would do well to try to mimic one accent or strive for as neutral an accent as possible?

[@tenminutespanish]

I recommend that non-natives strive for as neutral as possible. I have a video on that topic here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4uZl4mBqNiZY7c

[@PanderPanadero]

In " que va a pasar ahora " in #7 sounds like que va'a pasaoa the native chilean speakers use staccato rythm

[@albertomejia925]

Me gustaria colaborar con un acento del centro de México o de costa mexicana ambos los tengo asimilados, y hablar de algun tema cultural. Aquí me pongo a la disposición. Excelentes videos.

[@furiogiunta556]

Can a non-native Spanish speaker achieve native like fluency, or is it simply not possible?

[@tenminutespanish]

Tough question to answer. I think it depends a lot on how strictly you define your terms. In the strictest sense, no, it is not possible for non-natives to speak in a way that is indistinguishable from native speech. On the other hand, it is possible to get really good. It is possible to get good enough that natives mistake you for a native (under certain circumstances). Of course, it depends on many, many things, including your natural talent. I have a video on this subject, actually. It's called ""How good can your pronunciation get?", but what I say there applies to grammar and vocabulary, too. You should check it out. Here is a link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hoTMZ4KlgLtjrLs

[@furiogiunta556]

@@tenminutespanish Thank you for the feedback!

[@Androbott]

depends of the country

[@robertoguerra5375]

native like: only if you were a good actor. But you could be good enough to be a competent communicator for everyday life, get hired, be a salesperson, spokesman, leader, or even politician, even if you keep your accent.

[@elcamaleon7126]

Hi, I'm a native English speaker and an adult beginner Spanish student. I get confused because it sometimes sounds to my ears like native speakers do not trill their R's. An example in this video is at 7:35 in the word "terriblemente". I replayed it dozens of times and I do not hear even the slightest hint of a trill here. I want to say up front that in no way do I mean to criticize the pronunciation. I'm sure it's correct: it's native, and my ears are very new to Spanish. But I have heard what I perceive as this same quality of pronunciation from other native speakers from Mexico whom I've listened to. It seems like when I am trying to speak, and my trill fails to come out the way I intend it to despite my best effort, I often get stopped and corrected unless the trill is extremely and obviously present. Can anyone shed some light on what exactly this noise is, and in which circumstances it is allowed to be so soft to the point that my ears don't even perceive it as a trill? I would love to learn how to do a "so soft that it's imperceptible (to me)" trill that sounds natural to native speakers, so that I don't consistently sound like I'm straining to emphatically exaggerate my trills every time I encounter "rr".

[@tenminutespanish]

Great questions. First of all, I do hear a trill here. It's not a prolonged one, but I hear it. So, one question may be why do I hear it while you don't? I think the answer may have more to do with tongue position of the speaker than whether his tongue obviously vibrates multiple times. The tongue positions of tapped /r/ and trilled /r/ are different. So, even when you don't clearly hear a prolonged trill with multiple vibrations, the quality of the sound is still different, and natives are able to hear and recognize the different tongue position. So they still know which /r/ it is supposed to be. It may be that when you fail to produce a trill (for whatever reason), native listeners perceive your tongue position to be more like that for tapped /r/, so it sounds like tapped /r/ to them.

[@elcamaleon7126]

@@tenminutespanish Thanks so much for the reply! Yes, I do hear that the sound is different than the tapped /r/, even if I don't hear multiple vibrations. Thank you for the helpful clarification. I can only hope that with more practice I will also acquire the ability to trill my /r/ in a way that feels effortless. I'm committed to putting in the work. Thanks for your great content.

[@veandve]

Hey, native speaker from Chile here, I think there's two factors on why is harder for you to hear it. First, what you have been taught about on how trilled Rs "should" sound, mostly by exposure to Mexican and Spanish dialacts taught in spanish as second language, and second, in Chile our trilled R's are definitely softer than spanish dialects from northern countries, they are present, I mean I can hear it in the timestamp you posted, but it is softer.

[@mep6302]

We Spanish speakers do pronounce the trilled r every time. The thing is that we do it so fast that for you, a non native, it isn't noticeable enough. If you pronounced a taped r instead of a trilled r, we'll notice it right away. There are some dialects who pronounce the trilled r as something like zh. But that's a minority.

[@someonerandom704]

Por el punto #12, hay muchos hablantes nativos que dicen "dijieron" en lugar de "dijeron". Usualmente es atribuido a una falta gramatical, pero este punto debería poner otra razón.

[@tenminutespanish]

Interesante. Desde la perspectiva de la lingüística articulatoria, tiene sentido. La [j] se pronuncia muy atrás en la boca, y a [i] es la vocal que se pronuncia más atrás. Así que, convertir la [e] en [ie] sería natural como transición entre la [j] y la [e].

[@robertoguerra5375]

We keep the language and culture differences because we can’t migrate, live and work as we wish between countries, as it happens in United States.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting observation. I'm sure that's true. It's unfortunate people don't have more freedom and financial means to travel.

[@elcamaleon7126]

I'm trying to ask a question and my comment keeps getting removed. Let's see if this one gets removed.

[@tenminutespanish]

I see this comment. Go ahead and ask. I'm not sure why it's getting deleted. I promise I'm not doing it.

[@elcamaleon7126]

@@tenminutespanish Thank you for the confirmation. I didn't mean to imply that you had deleted anything. In fact, the comment is not "deleted" so much as not visible to the public when I am logged out of my account. I suspect that something is causing it to incorrectly be marked as spam. I will try pasting its content as a reply to this thread. Maybe that will be visible. EDIT: No luck. I checked on my other browser (which is logged out) and my reply with the content of the original comment appeared for a few seconds after posting it from the logged-in browser, and then promptly disappeared when I refreshed the page a moment later. I don't know what about the comment's content is causing KZbin to hide it. Is it possible that if my comment has been automatically flagged, that it is awaiting your approval in some dashboard that only you have access to as the video creator?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@elcamaleon7126 I changed some settings on my channel, and your comments seem to have appeared. Hopefully that solves the problem. Also, I answered the question in your original post.

[@elcamaleon7126]

@@tenminutespanish Thank you for getting that figured out, and responding to my original question!

[@tenminutespanish]

@@elcamaleon7126 You're welcome!

[@PinkPulpito]

Dos se fueron paencho = dos se fueron para adentro

[@intermixhector2902]

How do other laughing if you're Spanish is like.. cuando hablo español nodien me entiende vivo en Australia 35 anos no buelto a chile ok otherwise my saying i don't understand your writing ok

[@ep2346]

I wouldn't say that b, d, and g are over-articulated in those examples, it's just that /s/ assimilates to the next consonant, but voicelessly (though some speakers assimilate them completely creating a long consonant sound). - Resbaló [reh.vaˈlo] > [ref.vaˈlo] (> [ref.faˈlo] or [rev.vaˈlo]) 7:59 - Desvió [dehˈvjo] > [defˈvjo] (> [defˈfjo] or [devˈvjo]) 7:49 - Buscar [buhˈkar] > [bu(h)kˈkar] 8:12 - Mismo [ˈmih.mo] > [ˈmim̥.mo] (> [ˈmim.mo]) 8:35 This creates that staccato rhythm. You can really hear this if you search for "Carlos cuando lleguí vamo a peliar terrile brigido maldito ctm" (which is a phone argument between a couple).