Learning a Spanish Accent - Page 2

:)

Well, is your friend a Mexican or an American. :)

No. Cowan is my surname. And Alec what my family use to call me.

That never happened and it's unlikely for it to happen. I don't have the lookings nor the habits of a "tano".

What would have to do "having a citizenship" with "being" something. I can be as Italian as you can be 'American(USian)'. Nor more, nor less.


I understand but those still look as explanations after the fact, not a real causation, and very far from being justified. It just looks as "we chose a horrible name for our country; let's enslave a demonym"

Don't worry. It wasn't you. One both advantage and demand of learning a foreign language is that you must be aware of the prejudices hardcoded in your language and change them by the prejudices within the new one. This debate is just for that sake and it's a positive one as it fosters personal growth that is one of the more important side effects of leaning languages.

It's not the economy. Economy goes well everywhere. It's the increasingly authoritarian ambience together with the social disorder and disruption that is sold as "democracy" and "tolerance". Just to start, government confiscated my retirement funds by law, retirement funds that I was forced by law to finance. I'm not good at the Continental China model -political and economical- that is developing here, specially when they may kill you in the streets and public transportation is a nightmare -what I don't think it's happening in China-. I'm not selling my rights and freedom for money, as many seem to do here.

I see, so the ASSume and woulds are not enough.

No problem. :)

I understood that as you were really asking those questions to me. If they were just rhetorical ones or you were trying to pull out some specific answer on my part, I wouldn't have replied at all :).

As I said, no problem. :)

Yes :D. LOL. Technically, she would be American (US citizen), but going along with the discussion, why does she refer to herself as Mexican if she was born and raised in the States? I completely understand what Alec is saying and it does make sense, but this seems contradictory. Does that make sense :thinking:?

Angelica: Thanks for the info on the generational citizenship for Mexico. That is a very interesting fact. I had no idea. Thanks,

Because she is American! :):D:lol::lol::lol:

:thumbsup:

You might be interested in this article about an exodus of Europeans to countries such as Argentina. This is the result of the dire economic situation in Europe at the moment. :)

Well, though it's not the topic, a lot of pretty informal people who doesn't stand work order and efficiency become here "the ideal German worker" just by contrast. Additionally, any woodyalenesque person may find Buenos Aires his or her place in the world. Like it's said in the movie "Cuento chino" when looking at a Chinese man stranded in Buenos Aires: "Mirá qué lindo pelo que tiene ¡Y claro! ¡Son 5000 años de cultura!", any old-world fellow will do great here, a place not exotic at all but allowing you to live as exotically as you need in order to call you and adventurer or a free spirit.

In fact the growing lack of freedom of press in Argentina is an international current event both in US and European newspapers. Argentina has had a very dark political past, and if the past is any indication of the future, maybe even messed-up Italy would be a better place to live.

As a foreigner, it appears to me that Argentina can have a bright future. It has a huge middle class where education ia prized. It has vast unpopulated space and natural resources--both of which are the envy of the world.
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A proposito, existe un substituto inglés para la palabra American cuando American significa estadounidense. La palabra de que escribo es un poquito antiguo pero valido hasta un punto. Es Yanks. El problema es que adentro del
mismo pais Yanks o Yankees pertenence a la gente del noreste del pais nada más. Un sudeño no es un Yank.

Getting Italian citizenship doesn't imply leaving to Italy, not even moving out here. It's just that a doppia citadinanza may be a very useful thing. I can't apply for a French or a British one because generations have passed and -even if legally possible- part of the 19th-century documentation was destroyed when a Presbyterian church in 'Pampa's Podunk' inexplicably burnt down to the ground around 1940, about the times my family most needed it to prove the link with a great great grand uncle of mine who moved to the States and died alone, having an oil company taken his farm in Oklahoma and extracted oil during years.

[A mí tampoco me gustaría que me dijeran que parezco yank cuando me pongo mi quepi sureño -mucho más cómodo que los gorros pochito o golfista que se usan acá- después de haber comido grits o tarta de batata]

Estoy completamente de acuerdo con esto: Vivo en una ciudad en el norte de España de 250000 habitantes y puedo distinguir a los que han nacido y vivido en un barrio determinado por el acento. Conozco a una Alemana que ha vivido en Madrid por mas de 30 años y sigue teniendo tremendo acento alemán, y esto se puede aplicar a los andaluces cuando salen de Andalucía: nunca pierden todo el acento. Los gallegos cantamos al hablar español y eso es muy dificil de eliminar.
Sé también que locutores y politicos hacen cursos de técnicas de dicción para eliminar los acentos locales, y que lo consiguen.

Los cursos de dicción a actores extranjeros para que adquirieran el acento mexicano solían ser la norma (de unos quince o veinte años para acá, ya no)... a algunos de nosotros nos sorprendió saber, hasta hace muy poco, la nacionalidad de gente como Amparo Rivelles, por ejemplo. :D

I think that is almost impossible, already you don't catch the accept of other country in your life, you will can speak it clearly but perfectly, I don't think so.