L. A. Pinel

Archive for October 12th, 2007

Which Spanish accent is the best?

In Foreign Language Learning, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning on October 12, 2007 at 9:41 am

Throughout my career of teaching Spanish at Tres Culturas and elsewhere, I have often been asked by my students about what accent should be the best for them to use in their spoken Spanish. Without any hesitation I usually reply that they can use any accent they fancy as long as what they’re saying is properly pronounced following the Spanish particular sounds and stress conventions on words, as well as natural speech patterns (i.e. the way that the majority of people normally speak).

The accents people use in their speech respond to a range of linguistic features far too broad to explain briefly. In general terms, accents don’t make any difference to the main role of language, namely to communicate and exchange ideas. A factor contributing to the existence of accents is connected with the intrinsic characteristic of language to differ even within itself, which can happen very often regardless of aspects such as the size of the territory that it’s being considered.

In Spanish, there are a vast amount of accents depending on the country or the particular region a group of its speakers come from. Countries as small as El Salvador, for example, have enough range of accents to keep a linguist studying them, busy for years.

Accents make a language varied and contribute to its ‘charms’ – or ‘detracting’ features – which are very important for the cultural study of the people that use it. However, the aesthetics of the spoken language doesn’t represent a defining factor for its effectiveness; nor does it make the accent used by a group of Spanish speakers better or worse than the accent used by another group in the language. As an accent does not provide any particular objective feature to consider it either good or bad, all accents used by Spanish speakers constitute cultural and mostly natural features that are legitimate by their own nature.

It’s practically impossible for a student to learn or for a teacher to teach all the accents that exist within the Spanish language. So whatever accent the student ends up learning, is always a good accent as long as it’s understood by other native and non-native speakers of the language.

How many varieties of Spanish accents do you know?

Is there a proper type of Spanish?

In Foreign Language Learning, Language learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning on October 12, 2007 at 7:47 am

Now and then I get phone calls or emails from people interested in learning ‘proper Spanish’. When I ask them what do they mean by the word ‘proper’ they give me reasons such as “I’ve heard that the Spanish from Latin America is not the same as the one from Spain” or “They say that the Spanish from Spain is very different from Latin American Spanish”. Trying to explain over the phone or email anything related to the nature of language, especially of complex topics like why language variation happens, it’s not an easy task; however, I do my best to help them with their queries.

The nature of language is to change and vary constantly. Spanish is one of the major world languages, spoken by hundreds of millions of people in many countries, most of them in the American continent. The vast amount of speakers creates a high degree of language variation. These variations are particularly evident in relation to the accents and vernacular regional vocabulary and idiomatic expressions used by people. Such variations are in many cases unique to a region or country where Spanish is the native tongue. The variations give origin to the many language varieties that exist within what is called ‘Spanish language’. Most people are acquainted with two broad varieties of this language: The ‘Latin American Spanish’ or in more proper terms – American Spanish – and the ‘Spanish from Spain’. Thus when people refer to ‘proper Spanish’ they may be referring to ‘Standard Spanish’ – the variety which is normally common to all Spanish speakers including native and non-native users.

Standard Spanish is a fully regulated form of this language. This variety is the language type promoted and accepted by the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language and The Association of Spanish Language Academies and it’s the type of Spanish generally taught and used by the school systems and the media. There is not such thing as ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ Spanish. There are only varieties of Spanish and they are all proper. Then when asking about ‘proper Spanish’ it’s better to ask for ‘Standard Spanish’.

Does proper Spanish mean something else for you?