Analyzing Spanish student pronunciation: Language-Learning Genius!

On this channel I make videos on topics in Spanish language and linguistics. Mostly phonetics and phonology, but also dialectology, sociolinguistics, and historical linguistics. Many of my videos come from questions asked by viewers in the comment section.
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[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

This may be a bit nitpicky, but there are two things I notice about him that kind of clue me into the fact that he's not a native speaker. One is the hesitation to diphthongize unstressed hiatuses. I think most native Spanish speakers have an innate understanding of when saying something like "de algo" more like "dialgo" is considered too much and when it isn't, and because of that we do it a lot without it sounding wrong, whereas many non-natives tend to err on the side of caution, which is definitely a good instinct, but it kind of gives him away. The other is that his "o"s are very rounded and closed. I don't know if this is a very Mexican thing or not, but on top of the prolonged, diphthongized final "o"s you mentioned, I just had this sense that his "o" may be foreign. May not have noticed if I didn't know though. What I WOULD have noticed even if you didn't mention it has to do with the intonation, which for the most part is indistinguishable from a native's, but every once in a while has that certain _je ne sais quoi_ that's so typical of good foreign speakers. It's hard to describe. Also he made some grammatical mistakes that really jump out at you, like when he said "yo sabía lo enojado que iba a ser mi amigo si se escapara por mi culpa". It should be "yo sabía lo enojado que iba a *estar* mi amigo si se *escapaba* por mi culpa", and no native speaker would get that wrong speaking at that speed and without pauses or reasons to stop to think.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting comments. Thank you.

[@Betadesk]

por qué 'escapaba' y no 'escapara'?

[@teynaranjas788]

@@Betadesk I wondered that too.

[@Betadesk]

@@teynaranjas788 still not 100% sure on this but I think the idea is that the past imperfect is used for hypothetical, now-impossible situations, like *si yo fuera millonario ...*, and it's not really a past tense describing past events. In the case of his friend escaping, that A) is a past event and B) is very possible, not a hypothetical thing so I guess that makes it indicative. In the present tense maybe it'd be like "Yo sé lo enojado que va a estar si se está escapando por mi culpa". The fact that this error is one that "really jumps out" at natives still has me scratching my head and kinda bothers me lol since usage of the subjunctive between natives doesn't even seem consistent across dialects, and I probably wouldn't have noticed. Idk man what do I know about Spanish

[@orfrisbee2121]

Muy buen video como siempre !!

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias!

[@krist7275]

I've been watching these videos and they are super interesting. My native language is a phonetic language and therefore I don't have as many problems pronouncing Spanish as native English speakers do. However, I have a hard time hearing the differences in the pronunciations discussed. It seems to me rather that the difference is in the stress of each syllable and the rhythm of the entire word and not so much in the incorrect pronunciation of a single letter. What do you think of that? It's possible?

[@tenminutespanish]

Certainly. What is your native language?

[@krist7275]

@@tenminutespanish Finnish. Each letter is always pronounced the same way, there are no exceptions. There are no silent letters and the stress of the word is always on the first syllable. I really had a hard time with the saying that b and v in Spanish are pronounced exactly the same way since I could hear that it wasn't like that: sometimes b was [b] or [β] and v was [β] or [ b]. Now I understand the misunderstanding because those sources didn't mention that there are these limited phonetic contexts when b is [b]. But I still can't hear the difference in the pronunciation of v in these examples as the word "maravilloso". To my ear, both v sounds are [ β] but the rhythm of the world pronunciation changes slightly.

[@thane_snipes]

That's a wonderful accent. Great job!

[@michipichu]

He definitely has the Mexican accent down!

[@tenminutespanish]

Hey, Meagan! Long time no chat. Ya, he's outstanding. I'm sorta jealous to be honest.

[@michipichu]

@@tenminutespanish Heyy! yes i know its been a while since i've been in the spanish language sphere. Alas my life is a series of hyperfixations and my obsession with spanish lasted a good few years. I felt that i had reached the level i wanted to and started to look for the next challenge. I did think of sending in something for this series you're doing though, it's pretty interesting :)

[@tenminutespanish]

@@michipichu Haha! I can relate. My life is the same. My friends and family tease me about all the weird hobbies I've picked up over the years. Spanish is the only one that has never waned for me. I feel an inexplicable daily sense of urgency about Spanish as if I were always preparing for something important. Can't explain it.

[@James-ow3qt]

If you’re supposed to vocalize s before voiced consonants, does that also include w and y? When we say’ “Tres huevos.” Should we pronounce it, “Trez.we.bos”? (I used “b” because the english keyboard doesn’t contain the bilabial approximant.)

[@tenminutespanish]

Great question! The answer is no, because phonetically those sounds aren't consonants, but glides. A glide is a vocalic sound that initiates a diphthong. I can't say with 100% certainty that natives never voice that s, but I know it's not typical.

[@James-ow3qt]

@@tenminutespanish Thank you, very helpful!

[@hexiangwu4571]

Excessive aspirated ptk, from what I’ve noticed from native speakers, could be possible when you stress on certain words that contains these sounds or if people just are just being lazy articulating, which is often the case in normal speech.

[@asheekss]

Can you make a video on how to improve the reduction of unstressed vowels?

[@tenminutespanish]

I could, but I'm not sure what to say, other than don't reduce unstressed vowels. English does reduce unstressed vowels, by shortening their duration and by reducing their pronunciation to schwa, or something similar. Spanish does not. Spanish pronounces unstressed vowels with more ordinary duration, and does not pronounce them as schwa. Is that what you'd like a video on? I think I could made a decent video on that topic.

[@asheekss]

Yes, I’m a native speaker but since I’ve lived in the US my whole life and with the influence of English I feel like this factor contributes to my “foreign accent” I can’t really find another reason besides this, it would be super helpful to understand it more

[@tenminutespanish]

@@asheekss ok, I'll make that a priority. I've got two videos in the works, but after those two I'll do a video on how to avoid vowel reduction.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@asheekss I just posted two videos on this subject. I hope they're what you wanted.

[@HK-cq6yf]

Can you comment on the prosody and rhythm here?

[@tenminutespanish]

I don't feel like there's a lot to say about that. Did you have thoughts about prosody and rhythm?

[@HK-cq6yf]

@@tenminutespanish Like how the last stressed syllable before a natural pause in speech is sometimes lengthened, both here and in native speakers. And also about the difference in intonation patterns used in English vs Spanish. For example, the intonation at 10:13 and at 10:33 seem like it comes from English, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[@Sandalwoodrk]

@@HK-cq6yf Sounds like you're describing the difference between Stress-timed vs syllable-timed speech. English is Stress-timed and Spanish is Syllable-timed. And the examples you time stamped sound more english because of the stress pattern. I'm assuming the two words that stood out to you are Cámara and murciélago. altho if someone didn't totally understand Spanish, then they probably heard "mur" and "ciélago" as two words. so in both cases, the stress falls right at the beginning of the word. and that is the most common stress pattern in English, but less common in Spanish.

[@HK-cq6yf]

@@Sandalwoodrk I got the differences between stress timing and syllable timing, but I think I was asking about something more subtle. It's more about the pitch difference and tone variation patterns in stressed syllables in English vs Spanish. It's the pitch going higher and then falling, as opposed to just a higher tone, as well as the higher peak in pitch.

[@Androbott]

mexican native