This is making me crazy

[toronto416]

Okay, I clearly don't speak Spanish, but I am learning. Sometimes when I hear Spanish speakers speaking, I feel like they are joining words together and that's when they lose me.

I heard a song by Daddy Yankee (see below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdnLYmVboJc

In his lyrics, he says:

A donde voy
Siempre me la encuentro
Esa nena me dejó loco
La miro directo a los ojos
Me descontrolo y yo no sé qué hacer
Baby girl

When he gets to "a los ojos" I don't hear him saying any such thing. Can someone tell me how he is pronouncing these words - is he joining them together? Or am I simply deaf?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by toronto416

OWhen he gets to "a los ojos" I don't hear him saying any such thing. Can someone tell me how he is pronouncing these words - is he joining them together? Or am I simply deaf?

I agree he says nothing like that, but I've no idea what.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by toronto416

When he gets to "a los ojos" I don't hear him saying any such thing. Can someone tell me how he is pronouncing these words - is he joining them together? Or am I simply deaf?

Amazing! Because he is speaking exactly as each and every English speaker does it all the time. You know, with shortened words, tens of midway sounds, both vocals and consonants, changing sounds depending on the syllable is stressed or not, and all those niceties that are the nightmare of those who like me are weak in that part of our brains that organizes sounds into syllables.

What that supposedly Spanish speaker says is:

"a loh'ohs"

and even that "hs" is almost imperceptible, more like a nuanced s.

There's a phenomenon there I tend to associate with French liason, when in fact is quite the opposite: Two words get joined when the first one ends in consonant and the second one starts with a vowel. Even more: the consonant "denatures" in the process. That's how "los-o-jos" becomes "lo-ho-jos", with h pronounce in the English style, even milder. But it doesn't end there: as one s is transformed, the next s is so closed that it follows (I forgot the name of that) and "lo-ho-jos" becomes "lo-ho-joh". Then English intervenes and provides its rule of non stressed vowels being played down or dismissed plus other forms of "liason" that are un-Spanish. So "lo-ho-joh" becomes "lo-ho-j.h" and finally "lo-ho-hs". This happens with people in the United States or trying to sell in that market. Porto Ricans have one foot in each speaking area, so it sounded to me a bit like them.

A practical example of what Spanish speakers have to deal with daily to learn English. Whowudv'thunk?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Amazing! Because he is speaking exactly as each and every English speaker does it all the time.

A practical example of what Spanish speakers have to deal with daily to learn English. Whowudv'thunk?

Hey - that is an unfair generalisation because I never speak like that.

I have listened to that song several times and can detect no trace of those particular words even when I know they should be there. Nada. I suspect that part of the problem is as with all modern music they are incapable of writing lyrics which actually match the rhythm of the music, so the singer is forced to miss something out anyway. Total crap.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Hey - that is an unfair generalisation because I never speak like that.

Really!? Do you always pronounce "I am" and never "I'm" (or "they're", or whatever)? Do you watch a program pronounced "Britain has got Talent"? Do you always say "/eɪ/ car" and never "/e/ car" and not in the least "/ə/ car" no matter what speed you talk? If your answer to those question -and a thousand more, very similar- is a 100% yes, then you're right, it's an unfair generalization on my part.

Are you an RP native speaker, like less than 2% of Britain's population?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Really!? Do you always pronounce "I am" and never "I'm" (or "they're", or whatever)?

These are not examples of bad pronunciation. These elisions have been part of the English language for centuries, and are perfectly correct English. (But I would never use "whatever" in that context )

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Do you watch a program pronounced "Britain has got Talent"?

Only when I have to. The level of English on that program is deplorable.

By the way - the program is called "Britain's got Talent" which is correct English.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Do you always say "/eɪ/ car" and never "/e/ car" and not in the least "/ə/ car" no matter what speed you talk?

This is a red herring. OED gives the schwa as standard for the indefinite article a, and /eɪ/ for a stressed form. e.g. can I have a biscuit? (schwa). Here are two biscuits! But I asked for a biscuit (/eɪ/). This is exactly how I pronounce it.

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Are you an RP native speaker, like less than 2% of Britain's population?

Yes, I am

(Note the stressed form "I am". In a sentence I would always say "I'm")

[toronto416]

Well,

Thank you to all of those who have responded to my question.

I certainly was not expecting such a lively discussion but I am glad that it has highlighted the complexities of English as well. As a native speaker of English, it's hard to recognize the quirks of your language until those who speak English as a second language point it out.

In spite of the clarification offered that the artist is saying "a loh'os," I cannot hear this either. But I will have to put my OCD aside and accept that the official lyrics don't precisely match what he is saying.

Thanks again!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by toronto416

Well,

Thank you to all of those who have responded to my question.

I certainly was not expecting such a lively discussion but I am glad that it has highlighted the complexities of English as well. As a native speaker of English, it's hard to recognize the quirks of your language until those who speak English as a second language point it out.

In spite of the clarification offered that the artist is saying "a loh'os," I cannot hear this either. But I will have to put my OCD aside and accept that the official lyrics don't precisely match what he is saying.

Thanks again!

I listened to it several times, and there is one time when I can actually hear the words (I think it's the third time). Several English friends who speak fluent Spanish have said they can hear it without a problem, but I can't. I posted the question on a local forum to get responses.

[aleCcowaN]

I was hearing the "song" -not my cup of tea- a couple of times, and I understand it clearer every time. It's what happen with foreign accents. The person who sings has an Americanized accent, and sings like Spanish is not his first language -I'm not saying it isn't-. There are parts of it that reminds me of the way Black Cubans talk (and the way thousands and thousands of immigrants from Nigeria, Liberia, Gambia and Guinea here talk)

Originally Posted by Perikles

These are not examples of bad pronunciation. These elisions have been part of the English language for centuries, and are perfectly correct English. (But I would never use "whatever" in that context )

Only when I have to. The level of English on that program is deplorable.

By the way - the program is called "Britain's got Talent" which is correct English.




This is a red herring. OED gives the schwa as standard for the indefinite article a, and /eɪ/ for a stressed form. e.g. can I have a biscuit? (schwa). Here are two biscuits! But I asked for a biscuit (/eɪ/). This is exactly how I pronounce it.





Yes, I am

(Note the stressed form "I am". In a sentence I would always say "I'm")

What you're calling standard English, and the whole RP, were what I was talking about . English, by its own nature, has built-in all those quirks I mentioned. You seem to think that what consider "bad pronunciation" makes English a different language.

Let's revise:

El castellano sigue un ritmo silábico. El inglés sigue el ritmo dictado por el acento tónico. Como consecuencia, las vocales castellanas casi no cambian al comparar sílabas acentuadas con las que no son. Todo lo contrario de lo que ocurre en inglés.

I suffices to look to the pronunciation of produce/produce, contract/contract, project/project, present/present, etc.

When my parents lived in the States -before my birth, my father got a specialization scholarship- my mother had lots of problems to make herself understood, once she decided to start pronouncing "cualquier, pero cualquier cosa" in the non stressed syllables, and surprisingly she could communicate much effectively. I imagined her saying "The capital of Canada is Ottawa" and not being understood, and changing to "d CAptl of CAnide is Otewe" and succeeding.

To round this up, there's not a good scientific experiment to hear many times a song with transcribed lyrics until you finally "hear it". The right experiment is hear a song which lyrics aren't published on the Internet nor available in the video. I want to test what your pals understand . If its any consolation I have heard a record of a conversations that I couldn't understand in the very least, until a few strangely familiar words started to emerge: it was Spanish. Argentine Spanish. Buenos Aires' Spanish. My native language.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

El castellano sigue un ritmo silábico. El inglés sigue el ritmo dictado por el acento tónico. Como consecuencia, las vocales castellanas casi no cambian al comparar sílabas acentuadas con las que no son. Todo lo contrario de lo que ocurre en inglés.

I suffices to look to the pronunciation of produce/produce, contract/contract, project/project, present/present, etc.

I don't really understand the thrust of this statement. Generally, in English, an unstressed vowel is usually weaker than when stressed, and is often reduced to a schwa. But it doesn't change to another vowel. Is this what you mean?

A good example is the word "arithmetic", stressed on the second syllable when a noun, but on the first and third when an adjective. It is a useful shibboleth when speaking to a German who thinks his English is perfect.

Getting back to the issue of running words together, friends and I have often speculated on how children manage to learn a first language when their parents are just unable to articulate properly. A friend recounted this anecdote when he was in London on holiday with his 4-year old son (who lived in Germany and had not been subjected to terrible London accents). They were standing in front of a toy-shop window, and another man was also standing there with his 4-year old. The unknown child pointed at something in the window:

Child: What's that, daddy?
Man: snors innit
Friend's son (loudly): What did that man say, daddy?
Friend: I think he said "It is a horse, is it not?"

The odd thing was that the unknown child seemed to understand what the father had said, and we are left wondering how on earth a child can learn like that.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

I don't really understand the thrust of this statement. Generally, in English, an unstressed vowel is usually weaker than when stressed, and is often reduced to a schwa. But it doesn't change to another vowel. Is this what you mean?

Exactly, that's what I'm talking about from the very beginning. Schwa is a different vowel. A weaker unstressed vowel is also a different vowel (/i:/ is not the same as /ɪ/ and certainly different than /ə/).

Every standard in English has built-in rules about that. Spanish doesn't. Only marginal ways of speaking have such fluent changes and twists in pronunciation, generally related to poverty, or in contact with native languages, foreign languages or inherited characteristics from the original languages of slaves. That song falls into that category, as well as many people from Canary Islands have some nuanced speaking that, like Andalusian, reminds of caló and Arabic.

Educated speakers in Spanish use lots of vocalic sounds only when we speak with our mouths full.