A language learners’ forum

My teacher is Valencian, hah...

tarvos wrote:My teacher is Valencian, hah...

Sorry, I was being very unclear. I meant that they wouldn't like my Spanish/ Spanish from that place either.

Regional accents have always been, by far, at the bottom of my list of priorities. You could say it is the one part in language learning that I have not bothered with at all. Two reasons.

As a foreign speaker, I will get full leeway in regards of my accent (much more than pronunciation itself). Of course accent and pronunciation intersect at some point, but they certainly don't share all points in space. That even goes for words: I may use a combination of words that native speakers would not, like using "derb" (northern German), with "halt" (southern German, though I have actually never tried to do this particular one, I am sure at some point I have unknowingly done something like this). Or use southern Chinese 不晓得 (don't know, "no idea"), and northern (Beijing) 各色 (to be quirky, to be weird but not in a threatening way.. this word is hard to translate for me). Same in French, and Brazilian Portuguese. I have never been told not to use two words from different regions, even if a native speaker would not have both in their active vocabulary.

The second reason is accents are actually quite easy to pick up, at least for me. In high school after having spent a few years in one Spanish accent environment, I was in an American high school where everyone who spoke Spanish was Venezuelan and Colombian. Having hung out with them for a while, their accent took hold with me (though not completely because I fought it). But the point is, if one day I end up living in a country that speaks an L2 I have learned, I think the local accent would be fairly easy to emulate in a year or so.

tarvos wrote:Oh my god, you would HATE it whenever I speak Spanish then, because my Spanish is full of those words, especially because I learned Spanish in Cantabria... The other day I said "'asta logo" which is VERY typical of the north of Spain and Madrid, and my teacher corrected by saying it is "luego", and I said "where I learned Spanish everybody says logo when speaking quickly..."

In the Basque Country they say "logo" too. You know, I think part of my irritation is just that they speak with such force and also swear so much. A flood of words that starts with "hombre" which isn't shouted and doesn't contain some kind of swear word would be totally fine for me. That's not very common though, here swearing and "hombre" seem to go together. There are some expressions that seem to invite others. Just like "che" and "loco" usually appear in close proximity in Argentina. But then, people get annoyed about people speaking badly everywhere. Reminds me of this Capusotto joke about badly spoken Argentinians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjxU1PWE1d8

I actually doubt I'd hate to hear your Spanish, simply because foreigners rarely swear as much as the locals! I might prefer the softer sound of Argentinian, but a well-spoken Iberian Spanish accent can be quite nice too! I suppose I hear it more rarely here because people learn Basque as their first language in school and folks end up speaking a relatively vulgar street Spanish in the cities. The little kids all speak Basque on the street and all the local events are completely in Basque, same goes for the countryside. I doubt Spanish will hold on indefinitely around here in the cities. Their attempts at reviving Basque were definitely very successful, so maybe that's why folks around here usually don't care much about how they speak Spanish.

But well, that's all fairly off topic. Coming back to accents and how they are taught: What one learns in school abroad is some "standardised" form that is usually only spoken in certain regions and social spheres. High German is spoken only in the Hannover region or in academic circles and in certain other regions people will think you're arrogant if you speak like that outside of a university context. A thick Saxony accent is usually considered as vulgar in the rest of Germany - I spent most of my youth trying to get rid of that damn accent so that people take me seriously elsewhere. On the other hand, in the UK I frequently got teased for the Oxford English pronunciation I was taught in school ... according to my old flatmate from up north I apparently pronounce the word "bath" like the queen herself, her exact words Even in educated circles Oxford English is apparently "too much". The Iberian Spanish accent will get you some eye rolling in Latin America already for the vosotros. And apparently Spanish women for some reason love the Argentinian accent, which is the exact same reason why Spanish men actually seem to hate it In the end, learning any kind of accent is pretty pointless until you know where exactly you will need the language - in which country, in which social context and so on. For me it was surprisingly difficult to get rid of that Oxford pronunciation, even after years of living down south. On the other hand the last few years while not living in England and mainly watching American TV I somehow picked up some weird American speaking habits that make my husband chuckle. As soon as I start reading out loud I invariably fall back into Oxford English though, which I find somewhat weird, but given the context of reading I actually like it. And I will probably never manage to get rid of my East German vowels in my German unless I go to a speech therapist. I tried desperately when I still lived in West Germany, but the closest I could get to High German was to be taken for someone from Berlin *trying* to speak High German.

I curse quite a bit, hombre... I heard people curse in my therapy sessions, the teachers outside of the classroom, everyone... it's normal. It's just how people talk. I add joder for dramatic effect all the time too.

tarvos wrote:Oh my god, you would HATE it whenever I speak Spanish then, because my Spanish is full of those words, especially because I learned Spanish in Cantabria... The other day I said "'asta logo" which is VERY typical of the north of Spain and Madrid, and my teacher corrected by saying it is "luego", and I said "where I learned Spanish everybody says logo when speaking quickly..."

I think it's more "luogo" than "logo", which in fast speech sounds almost like "logo". The question is, did you really say it fast enough?