Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

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piotr
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby piotr » Wed Dec 21, 2022 9:53 pm

Kullman wrote:The narrator of that documentary about the canary islands, which you say sound european spanish, is actually cuban, and he doesn't live in the Canary Islands... LoL.

And I think that concludes this argument, as it seems than your ear isn't as sharp as you think it is...

No, I'm not referring to the narrator but to Julio who is Canarian. There are two guys on this video. :lol:
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby Kullman » Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:44 pm

piotr wrote:
Kullman wrote:The narrator of that documentary about the canary islands, which you say sound european spanish, is actually cuban, and he doesn't live in the Canary Islands... LoL.

And I think that concludes this argument, as it seems than your ear isn't as sharp as you think it is...

No, I'm not referring to the narrator but to Julio who is Canarian. There are two guys on this video. :lol:


If a guy who is cuban, says than the canarian, cuban and venezuela accents sound similar, and than when he landed in the Tenerife airport, he had a hard time identifying who was cuban and who was canarian, I tend to believe him.

But hey, if you think you are better identyfing similiraties between the way cubans and canarians speak than a cuban native, it's up to you.
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby piotr » Thu Dec 22, 2022 4:01 pm

Kullman wrote:
piotr wrote:
Kullman wrote:The narrator of that documentary about the canary islands, which you say sound european spanish, is actually cuban, and he doesn't live in the Canary Islands... LoL.

And I think that concludes this argument, as it seems than your ear isn't as sharp as you think it is...

No, I'm not referring to the narrator but to Julio who is Canarian. There are two guys on this video. :lol:


If a guy who is cuban, says than the canarian, cuban and venezuela accents sound similar, and than when he landed in the Tenerife airport, he had a hard time identifying who was cuban and who was canarian, I tend to believe him.

But hey, if you think you are better identyfing similiraties between the way cubans and canarians speak than a cuban native, it's up to you.
I think these are the effects of studying linguistics watching YouTube. :roll: Sorry, man, this is ridiculous--anyone clicking your link can hear how different these two guys sound... :roll:
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby rdearman » Thu Dec 22, 2022 4:25 pm

Can we please get back to answering the question for the OP?
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby piotr » Fri Dec 23, 2022 1:19 am

The pronunciation of the Canarian guy from the video differs from that of the Cuban guy quite markedly. For example, /a/ is more retracted in all positions, /o/ and /e/ are more open in stressed positions, more open and -with certain exceptions- more centered in unstressed position, /i/ and /u/ are typically more centered but perhaps more close. Differences in consonants are striking... Overall, my first impression is that this particular Canarian speaks more like people living in the continental Spain -which is not surprising-, rather than like Cubans or Venezuelans. I'm affraid that any detailed analysis of the vowels, consonants, and the intonation of these two guys would highlight differences. There are even small grammatical differences--for example, the Canarian guy on this video uses the diminutive "-tito" while Cubans normally say "-tico".

I can't help with learing materials for Mexican Spanish now... BUT, I think it would be very interesting to study in more detail the pronunciation from the southern coastal Mexico in 2023. I hope to find more time for this in mid-2023 (but I really should focus on the Tikuna Language now), so that I could prepare some kind of a pronunciation guide for Veracruz, MX, or something. I hope this will be helpful.
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby elAmericanoTranquilo » Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:35 am

Paul Moechner wrote:3. I'm currently using the specific YouTube Spanish class I'm referencing because it has over 400 lessons, thus giving me the impression that it is very thorough, and because it is free (I can't afford to pay for any classes right now due to personal finances). Is there any reason I shouldn't use this class? If so, is there another one anybody would recommend? For now, it seems like a very good class, but I have never learned a second language before so I don't know any better, lol.
Hi Paul, some good news is there are many free resources for learning Spanish!

The Spanish Proficiency Exercises from UT Austin are very thorough. They include video, audio from speakers with different accents, transcripts, translations to English, vocabulary lists to study, and grammar explanations. Another great free resource that you could pair with this (by studying them both every day) is Language Transfer Complete Spanish

In addition, here are two free books that explain how one can go about learning a language through self study:
What do you need to know to learn a foreign language? by Paul Nation and The Word Brain by Bernd Sebastian Kamps
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby Kullman » Fri Dec 23, 2022 9:00 am

Piotr, didn't you notice than a moderator came to ask us to stop the argument?

I won't convince you, and you won't convince me, so let's end this line of conversation.

Returning to the topic, I suppose than most of you know than most international movies and TV shows are dubbed in Latinamerica and Spain, and they use only two variants of spanish for all the world... One is called the neutral spanish, which is basically mexican spanish with little to no local words, and it's used in most of the latinamerican countries, while the other is called spaniard spanish, and is what we usually watch in Spain.

Obviously, not all the audiovisual content is available in spaniard spanish, so some neutral spanish content comes to Spain, mainly in cartoons and asian movies (I remember watching shaolin Soccer in neutral spanish), and even kids can understand it perfectly.

And that's the definitive proof than any native spanish speaker can understand mexican (including spaniards), and than the local words would be the only issue if you decide to learn with that uruguayan teacher.
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby piotr » Fri Dec 23, 2022 4:19 pm

Kullman wrote:Piotr, didn't you notice than a moderator came to ask us to stop the argument?

I won't convince you, and you won't convince me, so let's end this line of conversation.
I've added you to foes, @Kullman, so you can be sure this is my last response to your posts in this and other threads. ;)

Kullman wrote:Returning to the topic, I suppose than most of you know than most international movies and TV shows are dubbed in Latinamerica and Spain, and they use only two variants of spanish for all the world... One is called the neutral spanish, which is basically mexican spanish with little to no local words, and it's used in most of the latinamerican countries, while the other is called spaniard spanish, and is what we usually watch in Spain.

This is generally true.

Kullman wrote:Obviously, not all the audiovisual content is available in spaniard spanish, so some neutral spanish content comes to Spain, mainly in cartoons and asian movies (I remember watching shaolin Soccer in neutral spanish), and even kids can understand it perfectly.

This is also true.

Kullman wrote:And that's the definitive proof than any native spanish speaker can understand mexican (including spaniards), and than the local words would be the only issue if you decide to learn with that uruguayan teacher.

(1) As you well said two paragraphs above "basically mexican spanish with little to no local words"--i.e. "Mexican" devoid of Mexican words... Still Mexican?

(2) As I've repeated multiple times in this thread, the speech of TV presenters is much clearer and much more easily understood than that of an average person (not only in Spanish but also in English and other languages). But what really matters here is that, as I've said several post above "But, what is "difficult" for a native speaker, may be impossible for you if your level of Spanish is not native-alike..."

What you call a "definitive proof" only supports what I've been saying since the beginning.
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby piotr » Fri Dec 23, 2022 11:07 pm

I've just remembered there is a dictionary of Mexican Spanish I used a little bit in the past in pdf. It's not large but definitions are excellently written. But it's monolingual... Looking for a download site, instead of the pdf I found an online version:

https://dem.colmex.mx/
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Re: Moved to Mexico and started learning Spanish. Need advice.

Postby Paul_Moechner2022 » Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:50 am

Kullman wrote:Living in a spanish country, the only things you need to learn spanish are:

1 - Some knowledge about the general language grammar, and some vocabulary. It really doesn't matter if it's uruguayan, mexican, or spaniard variants, as we generally understand each other just fine.

2 - Going in the wild and trying to use your basics in stores, bars and cafes... You will find than we, spanish natives, really love when people try to learn our language, and most mexicans will correct your mistakes gladly when you speak with them, sometimes with a giggle (there are some really funny mistakes), but always with the utmost respect for your interest of learning spanish.

3 - Keep trying to improve your knowledge with books, TV shows, and courses. Don't stop when you can understand and be understood... Or you will be the "gringo" all your life...

If the uruguayan course works for you, keep going... the professor have a mild accent, for a uruguayan, so It would be fine.

Let me stress this. There are uruguayans working in every spanish country, and we all understand them perfectly.


I'm starting to see what you are talking about! especially point#2! For example, I walk nearly two kilometers a day for exercise, so naturally, I end up interacting with people in the community as we pass each other every day while I walk for exercise, when I go to local stores to buy food, etc.

When folks notice my spanish vocabulary growing they get excited and cheer me on as my vocabulary grows. Since this is the first time I ever lived outside of my native country, I was worried I might annoy locals with my presence as an outsider but Mexicans don't seem to care that I'm a foreigner and are super nice to me!

In the US where I used to live, I can't so much as sit in my car in the parking lot of a grocery store and talk to a friend of mine on the phone without having what we Americans call a "Karen" walking up to me and threatening to call the police on me because that is somehow suspicious lol. That actually happened to me my last week in the US.
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