Quote:
Originally Posted by poli
Yes, by all means try to imitate accents. I can only imagine what a Chilean/Southern accent sounds like  . I do it in Spanish (for fun--Argentina, Puerto Rico, and Spain, but I can't get beyond sí claro in Mexican). I can't sustain the three accents I attempt to imitate, because my Spanish isn't good enough.  |
The good thing about practicing accents, is it helps you to pass yourself off (intentionally or unintentionally) as a native Spanish speaker. One of the greatest compliments I have received concerning Spanish was when an Argentine thought I was Mexican.
But the thing is, when I'm speaking with a Mexican, I can only hold up for so long, and then some tiny detail slips and they can tell I'm not a native speaker.
If they think you're from another Spanish-speaking country, you can get away with lots of things--- botched metaphors, idioms, vocabulary, intonation etc, because you have plausible denial. They have no way of knowing if that is a legit way of saying it "where you are from".
