Question about spanish

[Philosophos]

So I try to learn some spanish, not very seriously and stuff just to understand a couple of stuff I'm not quite sure yet we will see how's that going to work and I couldn't help but notice that in several spanish songs they cut out some letters.

For example instead of saying las mujeres it sounds more like la mujeres. I want to know if this is for the sake of making the song sound good as in many languages or if the "s" and some other letters don't sound in the end, like french for example.

ps I try to learn the spaniard spanish not the latin american, just saying because if I'm correct there are some differences like the ce/ci pronounciation etc

[Philosophos]

Oh and if you have found any good pc programme or site (free) feel free to post it

[Guardia Rossa]

I'm going to jump in by asking what is a "Paraestatal" and if it is a normal nationalized industry. thx

[DDR]

To the OP:

Probably that's porbably accent. In southern, western and in the canary islands people pronunce less letters than the ones are written. That's whay the andalusian and canarian variations of the spanish language are considered american spanish rather than peninsular spanish.

The letters that tend most to drop are final "s" and "d", like in rapado, rapa'o

To GR:

Paraestatal means that a company that works for the state but doesn't form part of the public administration.

[Philosophos]

gracias :laugh:

[Quail]

I'm also doing a bit of Spanish at the moment. I'm using duolingo for the basics and also have a dictionary with a grammar guide so I can study the grammar rules. Duolingo says it's more like Latin American Spanish, so the pronunciation will be slightly different.(Ideally I'd like to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Spain since I'm most likely to go there, but I'm not sure it will really matter that much.)

[Philosophos]

I'm also doing a bit of Spanish at the moment. I'm using duolingo for the basics and also have a dictionary with a grammar guide so I can study the grammar rules. Duolingo says it's more like Latin American Spanish, so the pronunciation will be slightly different.(Ideally I'd like to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Spain since I'm most likely to go there, but I'm not sure it will really matter that much.)

That's mainly the reason that I don't learn the latin american spanish, alongside with the freakin awesome "th" sound they make in spain.

Also I don't think that it will be much of a problem when it comes down to making a basic understanding of each other with american spanish to a european spanish user. I mean from what I know, they don't have huge differences even though they are very far away

[The Intransigent Faction]

I'm also doing a bit of Spanish at the moment. I'm using duolingo for the basics and also have a dictionary with a grammar guide so I can study the grammar rules. Duolingo says it's more like Latin American Spanish, so the pronunciation will be slightly different.(Ideally I'd like to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Spain since I'm most likely to go there, but I'm not sure it will really matter that much.)

That's awesome! :)

Reading this thread makes me want to borrow my sister's Spanish textbooks. From what she's told me, DDR's right. She spent most of her time there on the southern coast, and she found it difficult to understand people at first. I'd be interested in Catalan, too, if I go back to Valencia.

If I go back there someday myself, I'd like to have a solid grasp of at least enough Spanish for a basic conversation...It'd be nice to feel less like an obnoxious anglophone tourist.

[Alan OldStudent]

The sound of "c" and "z" in Spain is not exactly the same as "th" in English, but it's close. S in most varieties of Latin American Spanish is considerably softer than it is in English, although it's stronger in northern Mexico and Texas. I don't know much about consonants in the Slavic languages or Greek, but consonants tend to be softer in Spanish than they are in English, to my ears at least.

I've spoken Mexican Spanish since I was quite young, and that probably affects my observation. To my ear, the "s" in Spanish tends to disappear before the "rr" sound, so something like "los reyes" sounds more like "lo reyes." In the phrase "buenas noches" (good evening), the "s" before "noches" sounds like a cross between a soft American English "s" and a soft American English "h".

My wife used to accuse me of dropping the "s" in "buenas noches" altogether, although I never thought I did. I think her ear just could not pick up that sound. She also never heard me say the "g" sound in words like "agua."

She learned her Spanish as an adult in Spain, and to my ear, her Spanish sounded beautiful. But her Spanish sounded different from mine. She was from the UK and had a standard British accent in her English.

[Philosophos]

The sound of "c" and "z" in Spain is not exactly the same as "th" in English, but it's close. S in most varieties of Latin American Spanish is considerably softer than it is in English, although it's stronger in northern Mexico and Texas. I don't know much about consonants in the Slavic languages or Greek, but consonants tend to be softer in Spanish than they are in English, to my ears at least.

I've spoken Mexican Spanish since I was quite young, and that probably affects my observation. To my ear, the "s" in Spanish tends to disappear before the "rr" sound, so something like "los reyes" sounds more like "lo reyes." In the phrase "buenas noches" (good evening), the "s" before "noches" sounds like a cross between a soft American English "s" and a soft American English "h".

My wife used to accuse me of dropping the "s" in "buenas noches" altogether, although I never thought I did. I think her ear just could not pick up that sound. She also never heard me say the "g" sound in words like "agua."

She learned her Spanish as an adult in Spain, and to my ear, her Spanish sounded beautiful. But her Spanish sounded different from mine. She was from the UK and had a standard British accent in her English.

Well I said that there is a "th" sound because I'm not sure how many people would recognise "θ" as a letter/symbol of pronounciation. Even though there is no strict rule of pronounciation in greek, we tend to have similar pronounciation with spanish, a little "heavier" if I may say and that's one of the reasons that I really like this language.

As for the part where you don't know about the slavic and greek consonants, in slavic languages most of the times they are EXTREMELY heavy, but there are exceptions with accents etc. In greek it depends on the region and the part where the consonant is in the word. For example the "h" sound is rather soft, but if it comes before a t I have heard people stress it out very closely to the jewish heavy HH :grin:

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's a dialect thing. Some Spanish speaking countries, for example Costa Rica, are known for speaking beautitful and clean Spanish with clear pronunciation. Other countries, for example Cuba and Chile, are known for less intelligible Spanish. In the case of Cuba they speak muy rapido todo el tiempo, and in the case of Chile you indeed have the missing 's' syndrome.

Try where you can to speak slowly and practice your pronunciation - in the long run you will be able to speak with more fluency and quicker, but you need to master the pronunciation of letters and the accent first.

[DDR]

Here's a funny song about spanish and how diferent it is from place to place, in spanish but with english subtitles.

4LjDe4sLER0

[Antiochus]

Spanish is fairly easy to learn because the language is actually written the way it sounds; there are very few 'exceptions' to the phonetic/written speech. In English however, identically written words have totally different pronunciations and meaning, something that is very difficult for the non-native speaker to pick up. Not to mention words spelled differently that sound the same.

to/too/two

[Philosophos]

Here's a funny song about spanish and how diferent it is from place to place, in spanish but with english subtitles.

4LjDe4sLER0

Oh my god I'm so annoyed by this weird round "rrr" they make :grin: