Starting this week, the newsletter will be synced. That means that the day I’m sending out the e-mail, it will also appear on the blog. I’ve noticed that the newsletter is a good way to start discussions, so I want to have feedback as fast as possible after sending it out.
Here are both newsletter number 6 and 7.
Newsletter #6
Newsletter #7
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Okay. Newsletter 7 kind of stresses me out, what with you saying not to mix the input (I listen to primarily Castillian music, but watch Colombian shows). But can't the result of a mixed input be likened to an Australian English speaker who has been living in the US for a couple decades? Maybe it's primarily one accent or the other, but it's still a mix. Even if it's primarily Americanized, people wouldn't be put off when they pick up on the Australian accent…they'd just figure he'd spent time in Australia. When I hear this kind of accent, it doesn't sound ugly at all. The accent is just telling of where the person has been. (I understand that English-speakers are more accustomed to hearing English spoken with different accents, but still…)
Thoughts/opinions/cold hard facts? Let them come…
Ross, an Australian English speaker already has a basis, as (Australian English) is his mother tongue. Mixing this later with American English isn't a problem, as the basis still stands and helps him.
On the other hand, a beginner that mixes dialects isn't acquiring Spanish in a smart way. Not only does the grammar differ in some countries, also the accent, intonation and expressions differ a lot. You don't want to mix those.
After the initial phase in which you only get input in one major dialect, you can get input from several sources. I watch some movies dubbed in Mexican Spanish from time to time. However, my main focus is Spain so I mostly get Castillian input.
If I were you I'd make up my mind and stick to one dialect for the moment. This will ensure that you accent will be natural. Mixing accents doesn't create something that's acceptable in most cases, it creates something that most native speakers consider unnatural and foreign.
You're the boss, Ramses.
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm a beginning learner and I subsist mostly on pirated dubbed movies and TV shows (~200 hours so far). I honestly don't know what accent is what and I download my stuff from all corners of the net so as long as it's in Spanish. How can I rectify this?
I've found the best place for dubbed movies and TV shows to be at:
http://vagos.es
They differentiate their movies and TV shows between Castellano (Spain) and Latino (Latin America) which I am guessing will help you a lot depending on what type of accent you're wanting to achieve.
If you hear the /θ/ sound quite often, it's castellano, otherwise it's probably Latin-American.
Like Ben said: try vagos.es, they have different sections which helped me a lot.
Ramses,
You said we should have native speakers check over what we write down to make sure it's correct, but where do we find these people?
I used to ask my friends to correct things for me, and I still do from time to time. Where to meet Spanish speakers? Moving to Spain? Going to a Spanish bar? Going to an Instituto Cervantes?
You can always try a language exchange site, or a site designed to get other people correct your writing, like Lang-8.com.
Okay, something just hit me. So I'm dropping the Castillian input, but what about the purity of my Latin American influences. Can I mix them at all? Can I watch Colombian shows and Mexican cartoons? Sure, they're both Latin American, but the accents still differ.
So one of my favorite accents is Colombian, but even Colombian Spanish has several different dialects (paisa, rolo, andean, valley, et cetera), and I don't even really know which one I like. Do I have to pick one of the sub-dialectal variants of Colombian Spanish, or can I just take in all things Colombian?
That's a tough one. I know even dialects in Spain differ quite a bit, and that it was difficult to stick to "Standard Spanish" while I was living in Hellín and went out with people from Murcia. However, most expressions are the same within the main dialect, even intonation is often. So that leaves the pronunciation that differs, and even that has a relation with the "standard pronunciation".
Take murciano for example. According to some it's the worst sounding dialect out there, and still it contains several features of the "Standard Spanish" pronunciation like /θ/, the intonation and the expressions.
I'm not an expert regarding pronunciation, but I do know that mixing two totally different dialects is a scenario for disaster (am I sounding dramatic here?
). I don't know Mexican and Colombian Spanish that well, but I think on television both are pretty much the same, apart from certain expressions. However, most stuff dubbed in audio latino is from Mexico anyway…
If you're watching novelas from the major Latin American studios, your problem will be mitigated somewhat in that they try to maintain "neutral" Latin American accent, which tends to be defined as something that approximates educated, and I stress educated, Mexico City accent. If you're watching input that's designed wholly for the respective domestic audience, that's a different story.