Do you guys look for shows from a certain country to focus on an accent or just watch whatever looks good in your target language?
I usually go by accents, so had been focusing heavily on the Mexican accent b/c I’ve been living in Mexico for 3 years and stuff in Portuguese from Brazil b/c I did a 3 month trip there.
I’m headed to Spain next Winter, so looking forward to catching up on a bunch of shows from Spain. Kinda inexplicable that I haven’t even seen Casa de Papel yet, but looking forward to it. Joder tío.
Never. I always make it clear to my students that your accent is the least important element of speaking. What matters is understanding others and being understood. Accents are purely aesthetic.
I had a lot of English language learners from Asia who were very self-conscious of how their accent sounded. It’s either because it is occasionally mocked by assholes or that they wanted to speak like the actors/actresses they saw in Hollywood movies.
I didn’t mean the accent of the learner, I meant the location of the particular series. In Spanish there is quite a bit of difference between Spanish from Spain, Spanish from Mexico, Spanish from Argentina, etc. So some people will focus only on materials from Spain or materials from Latin America. By Mexican accent I was referring to the set of jargon, verb tenses, way of speaking, which can be quite different from jargon and tenses they use in Spanish.
I agree that for speaking, being understood should be the #1 goal. I still have a fairly thick accent speaking Spanish, but I rarely get asked to repeat myself, so I’m happy with that. I could probably put a lot more work into phonetics and really clean up my Spanish, but meh, I’m kinda lazy.
You’ll run into plenty of Spanish speakers from Central and South America in Spain. So in terms of speaking Spanish, none of it matters. People understand me in the UK despite my use of American English after all.
Anyways, I was chided a grand total of once in my 3 years in Spain for not lisping the letter c. I didn’t then and I refuse to do it now.
Yes, if you learn Spanish to a reasonable level anywhere, you’ll likely be understood in any Spanish speaking country. But if you’re gonna be living awhile in Mexico or Spain or Argentina then it would probably make sense to focus on learning and understanding the specific tenses you’ll be using in those countries. In Spain they use vosotros, the past tenses are constructed differently, and vocab can be wildly different.
Some Mexican series can be super slang heavy (like Club de Cuervos), and I suspect if a person from Spain watched, they would be a little lost at first.
There are other cases like French where in France they subtitle films that come from Quebec b/c the Quebecois accent can be so difficult for standard French speakers. When I lived in Quebec, I learned Quebecois pronunciations and sentence structures, b/c they are very different from standard French, but I would probably advise a regular French learner who only wanted to use it to visit/live in Europe to avoid content from Quebec completely.
Is it fair to say Mexican Spanish is to Spain Spanish like American English is to British English? I know native English speakers can have a tough time with the accents and slang from other English countries (more so Americans having difficulty with others than the other way around since so much American culture gets exported nowadays that I think everyone understands American English) so I’ve always assumed it’s similar in other languages.
Like CS said, it’s probably more like Irish or maybe even Scottish English compared to American English. There are more differences in vocab and there are larger grammatical differences. That being said, I don’t think there’d be any issues with standard speakers from Mexico and Spain being able to easily understand each other. However, occasionally my girlfriend (Mexican) has trouble understanding certain Argentinian speakers or thick accents like the paisa accents from Medellín in a series we’re watching together.
I would say Parisian French compared to Quebecois French is probably the largest chasm among 2 accents in any of the languages I’m familiar with (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese).
So I’ve been trying to learn Spanish 1.5 years now, mostly on my own and I still suck at it (but my reading is fine, and I crush Duolingo lol) so I’m really starting to ramp up the listening, as has been advised here, but I feel like Netflix shows are still just too much for me, as is all Spanish spoken in real time (my time in Mexico this winter was very humbling realizing that I actually can’t understand anyone who doesn’t speak to me like a toddler). So what do you guys listen to bridge the gap? Any podcasts? I tried watching Shrek on Netflix but they do the subtitles different from the dubbing, which was too annoying. Anywhere to get Spanish kids movies?!
I’ve just picked up coffee break Spanish podcast which I’m enjoying, although I’d prefer Latin American Spanish, if anyone knows any :)
Overall I’m kind of annoyed with myself because I still don’t enjoy talking, it takes me forever to spit out what I want to say, my mind just goes blank when I forget something that I absolutely know I should know, and everyone IRL sounds like all their words are just mashed together into some unintelligible mush. So it’s just hard to motivate myself to get out there and speak when I feel like I’m continually failing. 1.5 years in and not being conversational yet is very disappointing, sigh. But I’m still gonna keep trucking along. I also hate zoom/video calls, but I guess I’m just going to have to get over it for lessons now that I’m back in the US…
Don’t worry about it, it’s a pretty common situation.
I still only comprehend 80-90% of Netflix shows and YT videos I watch in Spanish without subs even after 3 years of intense study and having a gf for 2 years (speaking 90% Spanish with her).
I had a similar path with my first language, French. I drilled and drilled grammar and could read/write well, but didn’t practice a whole lot of listening/talking, then realized I could barely even communicate when I visited a French speaking area.
The easiest way to find a bunch of resources is just Google “intermediate Spanish resources” on Duolingo or Reddit and you’ll get tons of ideas.
For me, I tend to look for stuff that I already enjoy doing in English. For example, I love watching soccer, so I’ve adopted a French and Mexican team and will watch matches in those languages as well as read articles and listen to football podcasts. Even if I don’t understand the announcers at first, it’ll still be 90 minutes where I’m having fun and training my brain.
I also like yoga and stoic philosophy so I’ve been looking for podcasts in French, Spanish, Portuguese in those topics. My Portuguese is still pretty basic, but I can get by fairly well just via familiarity w/other Romance languages and with the topics being discussed.
Finally, I’d say you’re probably ready for face to face classes on italki. My girlfriend gives Spanish lessons at times to people who barely even know 5 words of Spanish and you’re well beyond that level. At first, you’ll be going slowly, covering speaking/listening to basic sentences, and you’ll slowly gain confidence, but at least you’ll be getting focused practice.
Thanks, I’ll def try this with something I’m already very familiar with. I was watching a Spanish show on Netflix (La Casa de las Flores) but the gulf between 3 and 4 just feel like an ocean - well depending on who’s talking.
My only problem is finding movies where the dubbing matches the subtitles, English movies on Netflix seem to never match up.
Thanks, yea, just learning vocab, grammar, and reading just doesn’t train your brain in the right way. Like I know all these verb tenses/conjugations instantly when I see them, but it takes me a while to form them in my head whenever I have to speak. I’ll try and digging around for some Spanish podcasts and see what I come up with. And I know I know I know I should be doing face to face stuff on italki or whatever, I just have to do it.
I recently had a small(ish) motorcycle accident by myself in the middle of nowhere in Chiapas and the whole experience was definitely more stressful with my Spanish level, so good motivation to improve I guess! But I was able to successfully stash my bike at a local’s house, get to the townie hospital, talk to the Dr, get back, and negotiate a price to have someone put my bike on a pickup and drive me 7 hours back to San Cristobal de las Casas, heh. So my functional travel spanish is alright I suppose.
Are you referring to English lang/English subs matching? I just watched an episode with English subs and I see what you mean. I guess they cut out a bit here and there to make subs easier to read. Wasn’t aware of that.
When I try to watch English movies in Spanish with Spanish subtitles on Netflix, the speaking doesn’t match the subtitles. But it’s not like they’re just shortening stuff, there’s totally different phrasing.
That’s standard in all languages. Subtitles aren’t designed to be a perfect translation. Their main function is so that the reader understands what is going on. Sometimes different wording makes it easier than perfect translation would.
If you watched a movie in English with Spanish subs I get that they’re not translating directly, they’re going with the best fitting translation. But if you watched an English movie with English subs they normally match up, right? Or at least really close. But watching the Spanish dubbing with Spanish subs is like two totally different things, it’s like Netflix contracted a company from Spain for the dubbing and then had a Colombian company do the subtitles. Seems weird to me.
FWIW I watch French films or TV with French subtitles and that’s not true. Sentences are often different with the same sense, or with stuff just left out for brevity.