URLLesson Introduction
In this latest edition, Esti and Leo lock horns on the wa-/gua- and we/gue- issues. JP tries to talk about conditional sentences in the hypothetical path, and every body gets mad at the guy who hit Esti with his car.
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jpvillanueva says
June 27, 2008
To summarize pronunciation:
Lili and Esti often add a [g] sound to syllables [wa] and [we], regardless of how they are spelled.
Leo tends to follow the spelling: if it's "gua-" he says [gua], if it's "güe-" he says [gwe].
Me, I sometimes have a costeño pronunciation (sometimes), so I never pronounce a [g]. I pronounce "guacamole" and "Guatemala" as [wakamole] and [watemala].
As I said in the podcast, [gwa] and [wa] are variations of the same phoneme in Spanish... we hear the difference because in English, they are different sounds.
In English the /t/ in "top" is very different than the /t/ in "stop." The /t/ in "top" is aspirated; it will make enough wind to move a piece of paper if you're holding it in front of your lips. We don't hear it; to us, they are both the same sound. However, Thai people and others whose langauges distinguish between those two sounds hear it as clearly as English speakers hear the difference between [we] and [gue]
roborob says
June 27, 2008
Me gusta mucho la comunicación entre los cuatro....!guau!.....☺☺☺
dtang says
June 27, 2008
Good cultural insight... Uau!
bonitalynn14 says
June 27, 2008
Dtang, it sounds like Chinese? I'm not good at spanish but i know alot about cultures and languages, i'm trying to learn Chinese and spanish. they r nothing alike though they both have indents.
shangzhe says
June 27, 2008
Mil gracias Esti, JP y Leo.
I didn't realize this single question could lead to a huge fight between you people.haha
Estoy totalmente sin querer, en verdad! Jajaja
PS:JP, thanks a lot for pronouncing my name right.
I really appreciate that!
Un buen fin de semana!
shangzhe says
June 27, 2008
It's so amzing that nearly 500 million people share the spanish language, but definitely they share it in different ways.
¡ Un español, muchos españoles!
bonitalynn14 says
June 28, 2008
yea they say in america the number one language is almost spanish, more spanish people are growing all over U.S.A and if you know spanish then you can get around alot more easier.
docmolly says
June 29, 2008
Si hubiera estado con Esti cuando ese tipo la chocó, la habria llevado a tomar un helado.
Thanks for the great Q&A session and I think I have both an easy and a hard question for a future "Par' que sepas"
1. Could you please explain the use of escuchar en Mexico compared to Spain? I get the impression used differently. And how about ver/mirar. I've heard in Spain you should say "Veo la tele," instead of "Miro la tele."
2. Now for the hard one. Could you explain the use of the passive voice in the statement like:
"... intervención quirúrgica en la que se le detectó un cáncer de útero..." (de la lección de Evita)
Gracias y hasta pronto!
fabrizio says
June 29, 2008
Buon giorno chavales, muchas gracias por la respuesta. El podcast salió muy divertido, como siempre.
Esti, espero que te pongas bien muy pronto.
donperigo says
July 31, 2008
speaking of phantom letters what about the extra t that creeps in to the θ so that cinco gets pronounced as
sTeenko (not theenko),
eksTelente not ecthelente,
fosforesTente not fosforethente etc.
listening to native speakers i presume this is the correct way to pronounce things but I've never read or been told as much.
ping8888 says
September 3, 2008
nice