Trying to understand Argentine, Uruguayan & Chilean accents

[laepelba]

Hello, all!!

I am about 2 and a half years into my pursuit of learning to speak Spanish. I am mostly "self-taught", but that means that I:
- am using lots of workbooks
- am reading many articles online about the Spanish language and Spanish learning
- am VERY GRATEFUL for wonderful help given to me here on Tomisimo
- attended a month-long course in Buenos Aires last summer with 5-hour classes every M-F for four weeks
- have accepted advice and corrections from my Spanish-speaking students and their families and a few colleagues (the colleagues are not those with whom I work closely, so this is a very small piece of my learning)
- have been working with a tutor for about 8 months now for conversation practice ... she is from Durango, Mexico

All that to say that, in my opinion, it isn't really "self-teaching" when one relies on so many other people to help me with my learning!

I have had two opportunities to travel to South America. First, two summers ago, I vacationed in Uruguay for a week and then spent about 3-4 days in Lima, Perú with a friend and her family.

The second, as mentioned above, was for a month-long course in Spanish and then an added week-and-a-half visiting friends in Uruguay.

This summer, again, I have a unique opportunity to visit South America. A friend has business meetings in several capital cities and has agreed to allow me to tag along with her. We will start by visiting her family in Perú (the same friend & family I visited two years ago), and then a few days in Buenos Aires, about a week (or a little more) in Montevideo (Uruguay), where I will probably also break off on my own and spend a few days visiting my friends who live in a rural part of Uruguay, and then from Montevideo to Santiago for a few days before returning to Lima before flying back to New York.

My reason for bringing this up is that, with all of the work that I've done, I am still having GREAT difficulty understanding the Spanish spoken in the Southern Cone countries. When I was in Buenos Aires for a MONTH, I couldn't understand the BsAs accent any better the last day I was there than I did the first. I couldn't even understand the waitress at the restaurant I went to EVERY DAY for a month on the last day when she was saying good-bye to me. I have visited my friends in Uruguay twice, but still don't understand my one friend's husband who does not speak English. When she and he were in DC to visit me last February, we went to dinner at the home of some Uruguayan friends of theirs who live in DC and for several hours I tried VERY hard to understand the conversation and didn't get more than a random word here or there.

I have been working on listening to podcasts posted by Argentines (can't really find anything by Uruguayans), and have found a series of videos with transcripts (I have mentioned these videos before, they are put out by the University of Texas and are brief videos of people from different Spanish-speaking countries talking on random topics, given with transcripts so that you can follow what is being said) and some of the speakers are from Southern Cone countries.

The other day, one of the videos I was watching was a Chilean man. I didn't understand what he was saying, even when I was looking at the transcript. I couldn't make his sounds match what I was reading (IN SPANISH) in the same window. I can't seem to follow the Argentine podcasts. I can't understand my own Uruguayan friends. Bottom line is that I am frustrated with myself........

My Peruvian friend says, "Well, that's why we're going to the Southern Cone ... so that you can practice!!" But I think that after 2 and a half years of learning, I should be able to follow a general conversation in Spanish. I think that, after working with my Mexican tutor, I'd be okay if my destination were Mexico City. But that's not the case.

I'm looking for advice ... how can I spend the next several weeks before I leave preparing for these experiences?

Any advice you can give me would be GREATLY appreciated!! THANK YOU!!!

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Podcasts will help you with general listening comprehension, but they might not help with everyday conversations diction and rhythm.
Try finding movies and TV series, listen to pop music, so you can get used to some local uses of words and expressions (don't try to learn grammar from songs though).
Call your friends on the phone and/or use instant messengers with voice chat options.
And just keep listening without trying to understand each and every word, just general ideas... little by little you'll understand much more.

[laepelba]

Thanks, Malila - I tried watching "El Secreto de Sus Ojos" the other day, and was stumped. I couldn't follow any of it..... It was streaming, though, and I couldn't turn on/off subtitles. I think if I got my hands on a copy of it for DVD and watched it with Spanish subtitles (albeit a given that the subtitles probably won't match the actual words being said....) that would help.... Thanks!!

[Rusty]

Native speakers of Spanish speak the same way we speak American English. We all take shortcuts. This is why 'polite' and 'police' become single-syllable words. This is why writers express our spoken language using words like 'wanna', 'hafta', "jeet yet?", "watcha doin'?", "meetin's at one," and "Com'ere."

Spoken Spanish is no different. A trailing Spanish 's' is often omitted. (It gets worse in Nicaragua, where the local accent avoids the 's' sound entirely (lo vejino = los vecinos).) The past participle ending 'ado' is shortened to 'ao'. Writers will even spell Spanish the way it is spoken:
Mijito (mi hijito), pelao (pelado, common slang for child in Panama), pa' naa (para nada), q weno (qué bueno).

I'm sure you've realized by now that, despite being told otherwise in textbooks and phrasebooks, there are probably only a couple of consonants that a Spanish speaker pronounces the same as an American English speaker. Likewise, a Spanish speaker trying to learn how American English is spoken has a great deal of difficulty with our tendency to not pronounce the vowels consistently and distinctly (unstressed vowels are changed to another sound, the schaw sound or elided).

In order to pick up on the accent of a spoken language, you need to really concentrate on how the sounds are spoken. Mimicking those sounds, and steering far away from the idea that Spanish has the same consonant sounds we do, will get you much closer to being able to understand the 'accent'.

[laepelba]

Thanks, Rusty! When I was in Argentina last year, I was easily able to understand the professors - two young men originally from Buenos Aires. I would guess that they spoke just slowly enough, and enunciated just enough for us to understand them. Then I'd go to the cafe near the school and could only really nod and shake my head at the waitress, hoping that she was just affirming my order..... I want to really focus on my understanding while I'm there......

[aleCcowaN]

Oh! I experienced everything becoming [INDISTINCT CHATTERING] -as subtitles for the hearing impaired use to say- when I was in the States many years ago. I have a lot of hearing problems myself so it's little what I can say that may be of use.

I'm now making progress because I mix a lot of accents and language levels in my daily menu of movies, TV shows and series, and web videos. Half of it with English subtitles. Half of it without. I even mask the lower part of the screen to hide Spanish subtitles when I have no other option. The principle is simple: do you wish to understand different accents? then expose yourself to different accents in rotation. It is working for me.

The other piece of advice I can offer is never relying in your ability to understand because you can sort out useful bits from a well known accent. Knowing an enormous bunch of vocabulary, terms and set phrases is unbeatable at the time of understanding any accent.

I think there are thing that you may really teach yourself. To me, paying attention to small bits and isolated sound in English is paramount; I'm discovering that lately but lastly. For instance the thematic consonant -d in English that magically converts nouns, adjectives -and sometimes verbs- in a past tense or past participle. Me writing "I have work and I have written" comes -among other things- from that. What could this be in Spanish that is able to impair your ability to process spoken language? I suppose flexible word order. You may try some phrases and reword them in a different order. Just an idea.

By the way, which Summer were you talking about?

[laepelba]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

By the way, which Summer were you talking about?

Thanks for all of these great ideas, folks!! I will get on it!!

Alec - I am not sure which comment you are referring to ... I was in Uruguay and Perú during the summer of 2009, then in Argentina (BsAs) and Uruguay the summer of 2010, and will be in the four countries named this summer of 2011.....

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Thanks for all of these great ideas, folks!! I will get on it!!

Alec - I am not sure which comment you are referring to ...

This ... that ... Summer, here .... there ... In your suitcase, are you carrying warm clothes or T-shirts?

[laepelba]

"This summer" refers to this year, what is happening right now.

And, yes, I will bring my warm clothes. It's winter down there for y'all..... So I guess that's the confusing part for my use of the word "summer". I will always call my two-month-without-classes "summer", no matter where I go or what the weather!!

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by laepelba

"This summer" refers to this year, what is happening right now.

And, yes, I will bring my warm clothes. It's winter down there for y'all..... So I guess that's the confusing part for my use of the word "summer". I will always call my two-month-without-classes "summer", no matter where I go or what the weather!!

You treat the word "summer" like I used to tread the words "good morning/good night" back when I worked the overnight shift as a telephone operator at an answering service. When I arrived for work at 11pm, I always said "good morning", and when my shift ended at 8am and I was walking out the door, I always said "good night".

[Caballero]

Try listening to these podcasts: http://tangocitytour.com.ar/

I find them ridiculously easy to understand, and I've taken Spanish for less than a year, so you should be able to understand them. They speak slowly and clearly. If you are puzzled by a word, it's probably because it had an s in it that they pronounce as breathiness, so when you hear a word with breathiness just mentally restore the s. So if you hear what sounds like vocalita, restore the s and you get vocalista. Other than that they are very intelligible, and the people doing the show have gorgeous, musical, refined sounding accents.

Anyway, so far, the most beautiful sounding accents IMO are found in the Southern Cone countries, parts of Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico.

[laepelba]

Okay, no joke ... I am in a hotel in Toronto, typing this while sitting in the lobby. A group of Uruguayans is sitting across the table from me, talking about some professional things that I wonder if they'd be talking about if they knew I understood some of what they're saying. "Sha, sha ... shegué...." etc., etc. I'm listening as carefully as I can without looking like I'm trying to listen to them...... What are the chances that I'm going to be answering this thread about understanding Uruguayan Spanish while sitting in TORONTO across from a group of unknown Uruguayans...... in TORONTO.....

[Caballero]

Originally Posted by laepelba

Okay, no joke ... I am in a hotel in Toronto, typing this while sitting in the lobby. A group of Uruguayans is sitting across the table from me, talking about some professional things that I wonder if they'd be talking about if they knew I understood some of what they're saying. "Sha, sha ... shegué...." etc., etc. I'm listening as carefully as I can without looking like I'm trying to listen to them...... What are the chances that I'm going to be answering this thread about understanding Uruguayan Spanish while sitting in TORONTO across from a group of unknown Uruguayans...... in TORONTO.....

GO AND TALK TO THEM!! This will probably be the first and last time you meet a Uruguayan in North America.

[laepelba]

They're gone now. But they were having an intense conversation that combined some family things and some professional things, and I didn't want to be like, "Um, excuse me, I understand you and can tell that you're from Uruguay and I want to talk with you...." They happen to know my friend who is here with me, but she's downstairs. At some point, she may introduce me to them ... but they're all super busy. I'm just the tag-along.

By the way - I'm checking out your Tango site. Thanks! I'll try getting some of those podcasts to listen to. I look forward to it!

[Caballero]

Yes, you'll really enjoy it. It's really great.

[aleCcowaN]

When I was in the States, it happened twice that I heard an Argentinian accent and said "¡Argentinos!" and the answer was "No, uruguayos". The moral is: you do find Uruguayans everywhere in North America. And also, I can't spot the difference, how could you now they were Uruguayans?

[laepelba]

Well, my ear picked up on the rioplatenese accent (the one woman walked up and says "sha, sha, shegué...". Then they were talking and the word "uruguasho" kept coming up. THEN, I looked more closely at them, and I realized that my friend who I'm traveling with showed me a photo this afternoon of the group of the Uruguayan participants in the conference we're at. I recognized a couple of the faces from the photo. I am really wanting to learn more and more to be able to communicate...........................

[aleCcowaN]

Oh, that explains it!

By the way, as you are in Toronto so you might send them my congratulations on their national day. I was all the day humming "O Canada! Terre de nos aïeux ...." (maybe I was thinking in Montreal)

Oh! Having Youtube who needs something else

[chileno]

With all the help you have been provided, I think Rusty's is the one I'd choose.

I would add, that you'd probably be better by not reading subtitles, instead like Rusty wrote concentrate on the sounds, so you can imitate them. Very soon, you'll start understanding, and since you know a lot about writing in Spanish, you'll find no problem in pairing this "sounds" with the correct spelling.

[laepelba]

Yes, heard that in both English & French many times yesterday.

Thanks, again, everyone for your suggestions!! My Peruvian friend that I will be traveling with told me that I'm getting anxious enough that it might be better just to stop thinking about it so much.....