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On 10-Mar-2005 06:54, B. Garcia wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:52:43 -0000, Christian Thalmann <cinga@hidden.email> wrote:Spanish accent is mostly characterized by the mispronunciation of exactly those sounds. I'd propose to map � onto a, j onto ch, � onto i, � onto o or a and th onto t, s or f.I've actually heard Non-Mexicans in areas with a heavy Mexicanpopulation here pick up intonation and pronunciation patterns of Mexican Spanish speakers.I even know a few who speak not one word ofSpanish, and were educated totally in the school system here in California retain a Mexican influenced accent I agree that it's probably more likely that the "simpler" vowel system of Spanish would influence those future speakers. But, of course do what you like.
After spending some time with my Latin-American-Spanish-speaking friends and relations, my own accent definitely starts to be unconsciously affected. I can't do it in isolation, since then I just sound like Speedy Gonzales, which isn't really much like the Colombian accent I'm familiar with.
As for consonant mappings, my wife consisently pronounces English "y" as she would a Spanish "y", which I suppose is likely to be /j\/ (or /J\??), though my brain hears it as /dZ/. Also, for reasons that are utterly mysterious to me, she wants to turn English "ch" (/tS/) into what sounds like /S/ to me, though there's a perfectly distinct /tS/ in Spanish; on the other hand, she wants to pronounce English /S/ as /tS/ most of the time. Go figure :) Perhaps there's some possibility for confusion or merger here. Meanwhile, I am utterly lost when it comes to pronouncing Spanish alveolar flaps and trills, which sound like some kind of /dr/ most of the time to me.
Cheers, Carl -- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/