ATTENTION Native Spanish speakers

Sergio   Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:41 pm GMT
¡¡Hola Aldvs!!

So would we converge in the idea that these differences do exist, although they are not crucial for understanding each other? As I put it in other thread, Spanish has a very *simple* (poor was not the right word, I agree) phonetics, so that we normally don't have to deal with misunderstandings arosen from nuances, as might be the case in other languages.
Aldvs   Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:30 pm GMT
Que tal Sergio ?

Yes, both sounds are quite clear for me but I think Spanish must be the only laguage which doesn't use that kind of "little" differences among its letters. In other words every letter has only one sound apart of localism. And as I've said before it's quite uniform in the relationship between symbols and sounds.
Aldvs   Sun Sep 17, 2006 4:15 am GMT
Sergio no se si has escuchado la grabacion de una señora de Venezuela que se enoja muchisimo si le roban mangos. Es muy peculiar el acento de ella, yo diria que me recuerda a las señoras españolas de las peliculas. Echale un oido:

http://alberthgutierrez.blogspot.com/2006/02/la-vieja-los-mangos-y-la-cerca.html
Presley.   Sun Sep 17, 2006 4:37 am GMT
I know this is a little bit off the original topic, but what's up with the dialect spoken in Mexico City??

I don't know what to think of it. Are ther any explanations to its peculiarity? Is it just me?? Please ignore me if it is...
Sergio   Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:13 pm GMT
Hi Presley,

Which dialect do you mean exactly? I don't live there, but there are no dialects as such in Latinamerica. There is just a peculiar melody, as in every language.
Lou   Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:43 pm GMT
Which is the most widely spoken variety of spanish spoken in the USA? Mexican spanish or any other?
LAA   Mon Sep 18, 2006 5:57 pm GMT
Definitely Mexican-Spanish. In places like Florida, or New York city, which recieved a lot of Puerto Rican and Cuban immigration, you will hear a lot of Cuban or Puerto Rican accents spoken. But, the main Hispanic immigrant group in the U.S. is by far, the Mexicans, particularly in the western U.S. The Castillian (or from Spain) variety sounds very strange to both trained and untrained ears here in the U.S. Although you can't really call it a dialect, my accent is a northern Mexican one, because that is where my family is from. Northern Mexicans tend to speak slowly, and they enunciate their words better. Other Spanish speakers seem to talk really fast and run their words together.
JR   Mon Sep 18, 2006 9:14 pm GMT
I agree with LAA, the Mexican accent is dominant in the United States. Here in Kansas, you also hear the Salvadorian one (with its usage of Vos) but most Salvadorians just stop using it once they see that mostly everyone doesn't use it.

As for LL, I also pronnounce it like the English Y, I believe the phonetic symbol for it is [j]. I believe the proper pronnounciation for the LL and the Spanish Y is [ʎ], which is sort of a hard [j]. (I don't quite know how to explain this), which is what I most often hear in Mexico. However, in the United States, I hear [j] used for LL and Y instead of [ʎ]. The word "proyecto" sounds almost like if it were "proiecto" than "Projecto" with an English J. The [ʎ] sort of sounds in between the English J and Y.

I am not familiar with the Y/LL in other Latin American countries, although I hear that in Argentina it is strictly [ʎ]/[ʎʎ]