Majoring in Spanish
I was skeptical about these links and how valuable they would be, but you are correct; they have markedly different accents in Spanish when they sing.
Wow! That "Cielito Lindo" was MUCH better than I have ever heard anyone do it. I don't know when this was made (I have no idea!), but I was impressed.
Raphael: Sorry, I don't know anything about this artist, but the first time he sang "Hablemos"-it almost sounded like he used an "H"...No, he used an "H" sound at least twice in the song. I don't understand that.
Thanks for sharing.
Huh, you're right... right at the very beginning, there's a very obvious "H" sound.
I actually did learn "¿Qué tal?" in school, and we also learned "guagua" as a regional alternative to "autobús"... we didn't learn the others, though... we learned "Mi nombre es X" as an alternative to "Me llamo X", but not "¿Cuál es tu nombre?" as an alternative to "¿Cómo te llamas?"... but then, we didn't study the use of "cuál" very much. Even in my third and final year of Spanish in high school, we were pretty much stuck on basic material. I'm not even sure if we studied the conditional mood, and we certainly didn't study the subjunctive at all...
Man, no wonder I hated those classes. I'm lucky I had them or I probably never would have taken a serious interest in Spanish, but those classes didn't suit my learning style at all. I never want to be in a class like those again.
- Kef
Brennus, I still think you're shortchanging the amount of colloquial conversational ability that speakers pick up at quality universities with conversation laboratory classes. When you spend a few hours a week speaking with a native speaker who is paid by a university, you can pick up a lot of colloquialisms. I know that if I were living in, say, Japan, and I was teaching English to speakers, I would use all of the colloquialisms that I normally use, and not just talk to the English learners there by saying "Hello, how are you? What is your name? etc." I think it is reasonable that native speakers of languages other than English would do the same when speaking to learners of their languages.
Most spanish teachers proceed from American countries, not Spain.
Castillian isn't more formal. They don't even use Usted.
"All I can say is get out and meet some ordinary Hisipanics in this country who come from farms and barrios and from working class families with five and six kids and I think it will open your eyes."
Brennus, this is your slice of language, isn't it? Not everyone who uses Spanish will work with this population. My SIL (who comes from a middle-class Spanish-speaking family with a housekeeper,etc.) doesn't even acknowledge that she speaks Spanish when she sees a Mexican labourer in the store. At first she did, but then she realized that the cultural and class differences were too great between her country's type of Spanish and the workers here. Remember, this is her take as a native speaker, not mine.
Since I deal with people from different levels of, let's say, society, I'll talk to anyone in Spanish. Noone gives me a hard time about speaking "white man's Spanish" They are glad that I'm able to help them.
"Castillian isn't more formal. They don't even use Usted. "
I speak castillian Spanish and we do use usted.
Then you're a weirdo cuz you should use "Vosotros"
No, we use Ustedes (in formal speech) and Vosotros (informal). This is the way they taught me to speak Spanish.
Hi Guest,
You are mistaking 'Usted', sing., with 'Ustedes (formal) = Vosotros (informal)', pl.
And in Spain 'Usted' and 'Ustedes' are well used when someone is adressing other person(s) in a formal situation, just as in Latinamerica.
Otherwise, they will use 'Tú' and 'Vosotros' whereas we in Latinamerica will use the 'Tú' for singular and keep the 'Ustedes' for plural.
Franco was probably joking, making a comment on how Spaniards tend to use "tú" more often than "usted" in situations like dealing with strangers
- Kef
I enjoyed these videos and the different accents. Thank-you.