Pronunciación

[ookami]

Thanks
Angelica, the volume is on it's maximum, it's a problem of hardware; I have to buy a new "placa de sonido". So to make it listenable I had to shout and fix the microphone on my mouth
Thanks for the advice, when I clear this problem I'll use it

[explorator]

All you wrote is correct, but in general the main differences between european and american spanish are the pronunciantion of c/z + i,e. and the entonation or accent. In my opinion the spanish-american is too sweet, sometimes too musical,( I find it very paradoxical for a place were life is usually presented as so violent). In adition to this the meaning of some words is so different that makes the comunication almost impossible, and in many occasions the expresions follow the gramatical pattern of the english language, what produces on us the feeling of being hearing an english speaker who has learned spanish at school.

[poli]

Latin American Spanish should never be grouped together as one accent.
The sound varies greatly from Italian-accented Buenos Aires, to ironic-sounding Puerto Rico with r's that are pronounced like the French pronoun r's , careful steccato Peru, sweet Mexican countryside accents, African-accented Santo Domingo, gruff urban Havana -maybe even more gruff than Madrid (and less sing-song), gentler but urban-sounding Cartagena. There is a big variety, and some of it doesn't sound very sweet at all. It's much too big to be categorized as one accent. It's also too big to be categorized as a place of violence and crime.

[explorator]

I remember that my grandparents used to pay attention on the differences between Ll and Y, but nowadays, we don't. As I have already said, in my opinion the most salient difference between European Spanish and American Spanish is on entonations, and on the pronunciation of the sound (th). I'd like to tell you a story about Joaqin Prats (the senior one, his son is a famous tv news presenter too, and is called as him), a famous radio and tv speaker. He was andalusian and "seseista", and at the nineteen fortys, when he started to work, a perfect castillan pronunciation was required to be a speaker. How did he solve the problem? Every time he has to pronounce the sound (th) he pronounced the sound (f). Nobody realiced of this trick and he became into the most important speaker of his time. So if you wanto to sound like a Spaniard and you are not able to pronounce the sound (th) you can try this little trick.

Originally Posted by valleymist

Tratar de aprender las diferencias en la pronunciación entre español latinoamericano y europeo. (I need help correcting this sentence too)

I bought a computer program to learn Spanish then realized it was European Spanish but I originally wanted to start with Latin American. I decided to stick with the program I have and also bought a book with exercises. I would like to know the differences in pronunciation.

So far I noticed in the book;

Latin America - in c + e, i; the "c" is pronounced as "s" instead of "th"
"ll" is pronounced as "y"
z is pronounced as "s"

Are those the major differences? What about jeuogo (the book pronounces it with the phonetics khweh-go) or gigante (khee-gahn-teh)? Are these correct?

This is a response about the very last part of your question( I supose you mean "juego" instead of "jeuogo"). As you has noticed, there is also a subbtle difference between the pronunciation of letter J in Spain and in America. The Spaniards use to prononuce as you wrote (Kh), which is stronger than the Americans way: (h) as the english speakers do with letter h.

[chileno]

Originally Posted by explorator

I remember that my grandparents used to pay attention on the differences between Ll and Y, but nowadays, we don't. As I have already said, in my opinion the most salient difference between European Spanish and American Spanish is on entonations, and on the pronunciation of the sound (th). I'd like to tell you a story about Joaqin Prats (the senior one, his son is a famous tv news presenter too, and is called as him), a famous radio and tv speaker. He was andalusian and "seseista", and at the nineteen fortys, when he started to work, a perfect castillan pronunciation was required to be a speaker. How did he solve the problem? Every time he has to pronounce the sound (th) he pronounced the sound (f). Nobody realiced of this trick and he became into the most important speaker of his time. So if you wanto to sound like a Spaniard and you are not able to pronounce the sound (th) you can try this little trick.

Una amiga francesa, hace lo mismo. When she has to say "I think" she pronounces "I fink".

[laepelba]

I find that there are certain sub-groups of students that I teach (and even some of my colleagues) who often use an "f" sound where I would use a "th" sound when it happens in the middle of a word. I notice it specifically when a student asks to use the "bathroom".

[CrOtALiTo]

I've a question for you.

I don't understand about the use of the bathroom in your post.
When you tell them that they should to use the bathroom when they want to say a words in the classroom.

What has to see the bathroom out there?

[laepelba]

No, I mean that some students say "baffroom" instead of "bathroom". It's how their families say the word, as well as other words that have a "th" in the middle of the word. The conversation (see the previous posts) talked about the use of the sound "ff" in place of "th".

[Caballero]

Originally Posted by chileno

/meh/ shahmo/

A little correction on your pronunciation.

Actually, because he is Canadian, "a" might be a better fauxnetic transcription than "ah". The reason is that in Canada (as well as parts of the US), there is a vowel shift that was triggered by the merger of the vowel in the words:
Bother - Father - Cot - Caught

Since the vowels merged, there is no longer a distinction between "ah" and "aw"--they are exactly identical. * Over the last hundred years or so, the vowel (which was originally closer to the "ah" vowel in Cot) is now approaching the original "aw" vowel in Caught. It is also pronounced very back in the mouth. So it is quite different from the vowel /a/ found in Spanish. Because of this merger, for the last 20 or so years, the "a" vowel /æ/ in IPA found in words such as Cat, is now approaching /a/, especially for younger, middle-class speakers. So, because of that "shamo" might in some ways be a better fauxnetic transcription than "shahmo", which would be pronounced with a very back and rounded "aw" sound by a person with the Canadian vowel shift and Cot/Caught merger.

See the Wikipedia article on the Canadian shift for more information.

*some people from the US still retain the distinction, particularily in much of the Midwest, South, and parts of the East coast, and actually pronounce as well as perceive a different between "ah" and "aw", which can be very diffult for merged speakers to even hear any difference at all, especially when pronounced by Midwesterners. Southerners and East coasters often have a much less subtle distinction in those vowels.

Nobody realiced of pronounce the sound (th) he pronounced the sound (f). Nobody realiced of this trick and he became into the most important speaker of his time.

Very interesting. Is that really true? Nobody could tell the difference?

[chileno]

Correct. It was typo...