Is there a neutral dialect of Spanish?

[@aksb2482]

15:23 *cries in Equitoreal Guinea*

I agree completely with you. By the way, your videos are fascinating, because I hadn't found before someone who analyze the features of Latin American Spanish the way you do. I love it. I think that the main modifications we do to neutralize or standardize our dialect when we speak it is to speak slower and to try to choose unmarked words. I think the prosody and some prononciation features will remain. That's because in Spanish (and I think that is very useful for foreign learners), differently from other languages like English or French, we can pronounce a letter in different ways and it will still be unmistakable in the most cases. If someone makes the difference between B and V, or pronounces the C and the Z like in Spain, or pronounces the Y and the LL exactly in the same way, for us, the word will be understandable, and we just consider that is a foreign or a non native accent. The people will start to make comparisons or discriminations if those features happen in native people who speak the same dialect or comes from the same country. About that, I remember when I took an initial course to teach Spanish as a Foreign Language at the Instituto Cervantes of Paris. They explained, quickly, the general situation in Spain, the discrimination against Andalusian dialect and how the Castillan dialect became the official norm. Yet, the characteristics of Peninsular Spanish are very complex, there are a lot of varieties, and they couldn't explain all of that. But there were two relevant questions : what dialect should I teach, and how my pronunciation should be, taking into account that in France, they prefer the "traditional" Peninsular Spanish. For teachers from Latin America and to certain point, for Spanish people from Andalusia or Canary Islands, this was relevant, The best criteria was to not modify our way of speaking, for example, by trying to pronounce the Z if it is not natural for us, or saying vosotros instead of ustedes. In other words, standardize as usual for us. Nevertheless, we should explain the relevant features of Castillan Spanish and explain, if possible, the differences with Latin American Spanish or our own dialect.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting! Thank you for this insight.

[@basicdays]

The engineer in me that is just starting to teach myself Spanish really appreciates your approach and detail in discussing these kinds of topics. Very impressive work you're putting into your channel.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you! That is high praise. Now I have to work hard and live up to it.

[@CoronelC]

Mis respetos a este señor capaz de enseñar el español de manera tan profunda y técnica pero a la vez tan práctica. ¡Bravo! Ojalá tu canal crezca, te lo merecés. Saludos desde Uruguay.

[@tenminutespanish]

Muchísimas gracias!

[@jollyjames7170]

This video is an instant classic. Thank you very much for your effort. As a student of Spanish from the United States, I'd like to say that the succinct nuance of each of your videos goes miles to providing educational content on an extremely neglected part of Spanish language teaching. And as an American policy debater (avid rhetoric enthusiast), I'd like to pay particular attention to your precise understanding of the explanation threshold for your audience. You always explain exactly as much as you need to, and I'm glad to be impressed by every next video.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you so much for your kind, kind words. I can't tell you how happy I am that you feel this way about my content. Thank you.

[@shellymartinez3807]

You are a genius. Thank you for such a profound explanation. I speak Spanish all day at work with people from different countries, mostly Puerto Ricans and Cubans. My husband is Colombian and I have a lot of Colombian friends. No matter how fluent I am and grammatically correct I speak, people get the impression that I struggle to speak or it would be better to switch to English. What can I do to change my prosody to sound less gringa? I have been trying to do that since 1974. I do find it helpful to watch shows for children. Is there still hope? People do understand me and I understand them. I am tired of all the comments. Thanks.

[@walterwheeler1035]

Did you ever find an answer? I am curious as well

[@stevediben7900]

If people really are pushing for switching the conversation to English, I doubt prosody is the main issue here. You probably still commit a lot of the mispronunciations common amongst us "gringos", and unfortunately if you speak Spanish all day at work, you've probably "fossilized" a lot of these pronunciation mistakes.

[@AleksKwisatz]

One of the best videos I've seen on the subject.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you! I'm really glad you liked it.

[@EachDayForever]

Seriously incredible job with this

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you!

[@grahamneiman2731]

Fantastic video. I also find it very interesting that u tend to encourage unmarked pronunciation for students learning on their own. I have tried to cultivate a ~caribe accent, with mixed success, so I find it interesting to hear ur opinion

[@LEGIONARIO1970]

Todos tus videos son muy buenos, pero este está entre los mejores, saludos desde México.

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias por el comentario. Me alegro mucho de que te haya gustado el video.

[@joshadams8761]

Strong analysis in this video.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

[@kingjimmycraftofcalderonia2017]

Although I am not good at telling which Spanish dialect is from which-maybe Puerto Ricans, but not sure-I always noticed on how weird an English movie sounds when dubbed in Spanish. I also note the same thing but with a Spanish movie dubbed in English.

[@davepazz580]

Funny thing is for native Spanish speakers, the English language movies dubbed in Spanish doesn't' sound "weird" to them at all... they simply appreciate a very clear and precise pronunciation just to understand the movie much better than they otherwise would have with very limited English skills.

[@cabarete2003]

I lived in an area where people from different regions were brought together. It is interesting because they do tend to tone down their regional accents and not use vocabulary from that region (i.e. "un chin" from the DR that means "a little) for more traditional terms and they actually discuss differences when they come up. For example, in Peru they say "de reprente," which is suddenly in general Spanish, to mean "maybe" and Dominicans say "guapo," which is handsome in most areas, to say mad/angry (w/ estar--pq tu esta guapo conmigo?). Obviously this isn't going to make sense to others...so they sort of fade, are dropped or an alternative is used. OR friends just learn that's what is meant. I find the accent smooths out quite a bit to become a more general non-distinct Spanish. Not completely, but noticeably. And as a side note, I really tire of people getting offended about the use of accent or dialect. Really?

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting comment! Thank you.

[@ijafklasdf]

Can you list out the few phonological things that Bogota and Mexico City do that are distinct from neutral Spanish? I've heard Spanish from Lima is neutral as well but this video didn't mention them. Does Juan Villoro speak "correctly" (albeit with a clear Mexico City prosody) As I've heard he does, but it was from a Mexican person. Is there anyone that you know of that speaks all the sounds "neutrally" and has a prosody between Bogota (Medellin better) and Mexico City?

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

I would love to see how all those marked/unmarked cards look like! Fascinating! Mil gracias, hermano, por un video tan chingón! (Guess where I'm from, hehe.) abrazo.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thanks for your kind words! I'm very happy you liked the video. Mexico!

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

@@tenminutespanish A huevo. Lookin forward to your awesome videos every time. Any idea where I can find those marked/unmarked cards?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc Sorry, there are no marked/unmarked cards. I invented them for this video as a visual aid.

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

@@tenminutespanish I thought there were matrices covering all features for various regional variations. Maybe something someone could actually develop in the future. The concept is really great. Wonderful teaser!

[@tenminutespanish]

@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc It is entirely possible to create such a thing, and it would be extremely cool, right? But dialectology isn't as well-developed a field as you'd think. It stirred a lot of interest 70-50 years ago, but it has largely been replaced by sociolinguistics today. Linguists generally see dialectologists as the butterfly collectors of linguistics. Dialectology isn't taken very seriously, and there haven't been many developments in the field in decades.

[@driksarkar6675]

Considering the entire Spanish-speaking world, is seseo or distinción more marked? I think distinción doesn't exist in Latin America, but in Spain seseo is marked, so they seem to be in (mostly) complementary distribution (excluding Ecuatorial New Guinea.)

[@tenminutespanish]

I don't think you can make the marked/unmarked distinction for certain features considering both European and Latin American pronunciation. The marked/unmarked distinction implies that there is a neutral form that is not recognized as distinctive of a particular regional accent. As you say, seseo/distinción is close to complementary distribution.

[@austino5069]

I think "neutral" phonology should be taught, but not learned, in the sense that it is better to not impose any phonology on students, marked or unmarked. I'm happy speaking with markedly regional phonology (Central Castilian, to be specific, though I'm guilty of aspirating my S's like crazy, which is definitely not part of the typical phonology). You've mentioned that having a very marked accent won't make you sound more authentic - to a point, I agree, but some people take neutrality to an extreme. It's hard to find word choices with a punch that aren't regional. A well-placed ¡Joder! is simply conveys something that ¡Rayos! can't. Formal vocabulary is usually understood well by all, but it lacks emotional charge. I can neutralize my word choices if necessary in a conversation, but I won't unless I need to. Not being a native, dubbed Spanish (more so American, although there are some truly atrocious Spanish dubs) sounds unbearably sterile to me. A good part of language is emotion, which is why I'm hesitant to endorse neutral Spanish as a goal. It's more useful as a teaching tool, allowing students to branch out and develop flair as they see fit. Intriguingly, there's no parallel concept of "neutral English", at least if we discount "mid-Atlantic" as an anachronism. Usually, either British or American English will be taught, and dubbing seems to prefer. General American is preferred, of course, but General American is still very distinctive and has a national identity, unlike neutral Spanish.

[@tenminutespanish]

Very interesting thoughts. Thanks for contributing to the discussion. I don't necessarily agree with everything you've said, but none of this is worth arguing about. I just appreciate your participation in the discussion.

[@jefffarris1288]

Spanish teacher here. I have always advised my students to shy away from using swear words until they are much farther along in their language development. A novice or even intermediate-level student who frequently uses swear words will likely come across sounding silly to a native speaker.

[@danielshalev50]

Hi ten minutes spanish😊 , I want to ask a question I forgot to ask before a week 😅 : What is characteristic sing song ?

[@tenminutespanish]

It is the unique rhythm and intonation each dialect has. In linguistics we call this prosody.

[@elmarsana]

Un placer, como siempre, la escucha. (Su voz...)

[@tenminutespanish]

Gracias! Pero... ¿qué pasa con mi voz?

[@elmarsana]

@@tenminutespanish Me encanta.

[@tenminutespanish]

@@elmarsana Ay, gracias. No sé qué decir.

[@elmarsana]

@@tenminutespanish su nombre?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@elmarsana Me llamo Daniel. Y supongo que ud. se llama Laura?

[@InternetLaser]

as somebody who learned Castellano with a lot of very evidently Castilian marked forms, I´m looking forward to hearing from Spaniards in the comments. I recognize the utility of learning and teaching the neutral form, but sometimes people are learning Spanish for a reason (or: for the purpose of moving to a certain country) and at the very least, they shouldn't be penalized in class for speaking with a non neutral dialect. So far all of my professors have given their students great liberty to learn and form their own dialect of Spanish, and so all of my classmates speak sightly differently.

[@jefffarris1288]

Spanish teacher here. It would be a shame if a teacher "penalized" a student for choosing to speak with a more marked phonology. You say none of your professors have done this, so I am curious if you have heard stories of students who HAVE been penalized by their teachers for this. I can't imagine a teacher would do anything but encourage this, but I suppose there are rigid teachers just like there are rigid people in all professions. Also, while I agree that some people might be attempting to learn the particular features of a dialect because they plan to move to that country, or only interact with people who use that dialect, this would probably be a small minority of students, and as a teacher, it is our job to make the experience as useful and meaningful to all students who are learning the language for a whole variety of reasons.

[@InternetLaser]

@@jefffarris1288 I have heard of students getting penalized for speaking in a marked dialect. It seems like it's mostly high school Spanish teachers and not university Spanish professors who do so, and it seems like it's mostly students trying to speak in honduran, nicaraguan, and other central american dialects who are penalized for doing so.

[@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc]

Reese, everyone outside of Spain speaks some form of castellano, castilian. If you are referring to the Spanish spoken in Spain, better to say peninsular Spanish, unless you are distinguishing from other related languages of Spain like Asturian, Leonese or Aragonese.

[@InternetLaser]

@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc Yes, I'm distinguishing between Castillian and other Spanish languages, like Catalan. That's why I said "castellano with marked Castillian forms", to differentiate it from other dialects of castellano, like Andalusian, Panamanian, etc.

[@tenminutespanish]

It is probably true that there is no unmarked middle ground between Peninsular Spanish and Latin American Spanish. You probably have to decide which one suits your needs best and choose. There probably is an unmarked (or at least standardized) Peninsular system, just as there is an unmarked LA system. I've had this same thought about British English and American English. What would be the unmarked middle ground between them? I don't think there is one.

[@antoniofraguadols4195]

Thank you very much. It is a very interesting topic, I agree pretty much with all you say in the video. Someone people get offended by thinking their speaking is not good, or others think that their speaking is the best one in a language. Those prejudices are nonsense! These topic is connected with another one that is also very controversial: which is the role of the RAE, the spanish academy? What do you think? It unifies all spanish dialects and registrates something like a standard spanish, but, for example, why dont they accept ortographically the "seseo", when the vast majority uses it? Which language developments should they register and which not? How do they determine what is correct? By the number of people using a certain form?

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for your comments! I'm glad you liked the video. With regard to the RAE, I have neither a positive nor negative opinion of them. I subscribe to a philosophy that is known as "descriptive linguistics". I study how people DO speak. The RAE is a "prescriptive" organization. They make pronouncements about how people SHOULD speak. How people DO speak and how people SHOULD speak are two different things. For this reason, I don't have much interest in the work of the RAE.

[@dereknoble6796]

This is going to be great. I already know it

[@tenminutespanish]

I hope I don't let you down!

[@dereknoble6796]

@@tenminutespanish not at all. I did have a couple questions for you though. I know you’ve said that you lived in Ecuador when you were younger, have you had any trouble maintaining your level, particularly accent/pronunciation and vocabulary? Do you regularly practice with friends? Do you think your Spanish was at its best(pronunciation, vocab etc) then or now?

[@tenminutespanish]

@@dereknoble6796 Thanks for the questions. I'm happy to answer them. I have had no trouble maintaining my Spanish here in the States. I got undergraduate and graduate degrees in Spanish after I returned. My wife and I then spoke Spanish in the home with our children and taught it to them as a first language. We read libraries of books to them in Spanish, watched every Disney video in Spanish a million times, and traveled with them to Spanish speaking countries throughout their childhood. And today we continue to speak Spanish together as a family and to travel to Spanish speaking countries. And I read in Spanish whenever I get the chance. In many ways my Spanish is better now than it has ever been. And if there's any way in which I'm slower now than I used to be, after a couple days in a Spanish-speaking country I warm right back up. What is your background in Spanish? Where are you in your progress? What are your interests in learning? Any future plans?

[@dereknoble6796]

@@tenminutespanish wow that’s awesome to hear. Thank you for sharing! I had always been curious about your journey. I’m a Brazilian-American that’s been in the US since I was 7, and around the time I was in high school, I just got really interested in learning Spanish, I took as many classes as I could, but still didn’t speak well. So I decided to do a semester abroad program in Madrid in college and that helped me fall in love with the language. I try my best to do it justice and speak well, your channel was been fundamental in that, especially with learning pronunciation and an authentic accent from Latin America. I’ve been practicing with several friends that are native speakers for some time now. And while I’m certainly fluent and rather advanced, I still have a ways to go before a near-native level, so that’s what I’m shooting for now!

[@tenminutespanish]

@@dereknoble6796 What an awesome personal journey! How's your Portuguese? Pretty good? What part of Brazil is your family from?

[@misssilencedogood5968]

Love the video however there is no such thing as "Mexican Spanish" it is just Spanish. Mexico does not consider their official language "Mexican Spanish". Most people from Mexico would object to hearing the Spanish they speak being referred to as a dialect. Instead it is just an accent like you were saying under the umbrella of the parent language which no one even speaks anymore not even the Spanish because ALL languages evolve over time. History is so very important to understanding even the evolution of a language as is the Anthropological morphology of the language. Your video however is pretty amazing together as a whole.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for the kind words. Respectfully, there is such a thing as "Mexican Spanish" (or rather, several varieties of it). Spanish as spoken in Mexico is recognizable to native speakers elsewhere as coming from Mexico. That makes it "Mexican Spanish". And I know that lots of people object to the word "dialect". I have a whole video on the meaning of the words "dialect" and "accent", and how they're used by linguists. I recommend you check it out. Here is a link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bofGhp2so7yjo5Y

[@sortingoutmyclothes8131]

The marked/unmarked framework is really interesting. It makes me come up with some follow-up observations, though. Some features really do have different features that are considered unmarked in their sociolinguistic context. I can't think of any Latin American Spanish speaker who would start distinguishing the z/c and the s in order to sound more neutral, but I can also not imagine a Spaniard who would pronounce the z/c like an s in order to sound more neutral. A Latin American person in Spain may start doing it sometimes, and a Spaniard in Latin America, but that would be due to influence from the place they're in, not to sound more neutral. I feel like z/c-s distinction represents a variation that exists outside of the marked/unmarked framework for the Spanish language, and creates a very clear dichotomy. Another thing I realized is that even when trying to sound more neutral, it may be harder or more awkward for certain speakers to choose the unmarked version of their native feature depending on where they come from. I'm from Buenos Aires, and in order to sound more neutral, I may avoid aspirating as many "s," especially if speaking carefully, I may try to use "usted" instead of "vos," or try to avoid conjugating the second person, and I may use [ʒ] instead of [ʃ] for the /ʝ/ phoneme. But it would feel a bit awkward for me to go full "tuteo," to use the [ʝ] version of the phoneme and to not aspirate any "s." Mostly because it gets to a point where I would struggle to speak, and I may even make mistakes. I may start including "s" where it doesn't belong. I may conjugate the "tú" forms incorrectly, because I'm not used to using them. I may mispronounce the [ʝ], because my mouth is not used to making it. Honestly I would start sounding like I'm failing at doing a foreign accent. So I could only "neutralize" my Spanish as much as possible, but I couldn't go all the way. Some other Argentinians may be able to do it more than me and some less, but it's unlikely they will do it fully. I also feel like there are linguistic pockets where the marked/unmarked framework changes. Within Argentina, there exist other types of "voseo" to the standard one, and there are even some tuteante populations. There are also varying pronunciations of the /ʝ/ phoneme, sometimes closer to a [j]. There are also areas with greater or lesser aspiration. However, the "unmarked" version of Spanish WITHIN Argentina is the Rioplatense one, which has standard voseo, a specific amount of aspiration and the [ʒ] allophone of /ʝ/. It is very likely that speakers in Argentina with accents differing from that "Argentinian standard" listen to Rioplatense Spanish on TV and other media a lot more than they do Spanish from other countries, and that they encounter other Argentinian speakers who are either from Rioplatense regions of Argentina or who neutralize or standardize their Spanish by making it more Rioplatense, more so than they do people from outside Argentina, so that the Rioplatense features become more unmarked within an Argentinian context. However, every single Argentinian knows that our varieties have extremely marked features outside of Argentina, and may even reverse their Argentinian neutralization when in contact with Spanish speakers from outside Argentina.

[@tenminutespanish]

Thank you for this extremely thoughtful comment. One line of discussion I didn't get into in this video is this: There are dialectal features that are more-or-less mutually exclusive. The example of s-reduction that I gave in the video is not mutually exclusive, because it exists in a continuum, even in dialects that are very s-reducing. But there are other features, like the ones you mentioned (c/z vs. s; voseo, etc.) that don't exist in a continuum. Some dialects do it one way and other dialects to it the other way, and there is no intermediate middle ground, and native speakers don't generally switch from one to the other depending on the circumstances. Another line of discussion I avoided was that markedness doesn't just apply at the level of the whole language, but at every branch point in a dialect family. In other words, there are marked/unmarked contrasts at the level of the idiolect (the way individual people speak), the sociolect (variations within a community), dialect (recognizable regional variations), and the language. So, an individual may speak in a more neutral fashion simply by avoiding personal idiosyncrasies and sounding more like his peers. Someone may try to sound more neutral by speaking like what is standard for his community. Depending on the circumstances someone may try to sound more neutral by sounding more like the average for his culture, society, or country, etc. "Neutral" or "standard" doesn't isn't just a language-wide phenomenon, but has many possible interpretations.

[@BobelSilencioso-g2i]

There's no neutral dialect or accent in any language.

[@tenminutespanish]

Did you watch the video? I ask, because it's a nuanced and complex topic.