ASK A QUESTION Qué, que, mas, más, bonbon, chocolate, understanding what one hears
0
Vote
"¡Qué chocolate más sorprendente!" is what I think I am hearing. Transcribing the sentence to paper, (well, electronic paper
I feel confident that I have the accents right, but I have another question: "Más" is used to make comparisons between or among objects. Can I translate it here to "most" even though there is no "el", "la", or "lo" ? In English I might hear a British person exclaim: "What a most surprising chocolate!" Is that the intent of "más" here? as another way to express "very"?
I have attached an eight and a half second snippet in which a saleswoman gives the name of this chocolate. I have not been able to catch the name...only the "Enrique" part. Perhaps someone is familiar with this "bon bon".
21 Answers
1
Vote
Janice, it is a relief to me, too, that other North American native English speakers besides me have trouble hearing native Spanish speakers. I've been spending quite a bit of time trying to decipher what sounds I'm listening for in English that don't exist in Spanish, and vice versa. This is proving one of the hardest things for me to get.
That said, and although I can't make out most of the words in the audio snippet, I think the sentence you're asking about is, "¡Qué sabor más sorprendente!" What a surprising taste!
That translation is based on this one: ¡Qué día más bonito! -> what a lovely day!
[url=http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/m%C3%A1s]http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/m%C3%A1s[/url]
0
Vote
bon-bon: a small coated candy, typically with a filling. Also a small bite size chocolate coated ice cream.
0
Vote
This "más" cannot be translated as "more" in English. The following structure is used for exclamations:
¡Qué [noun] más [adjective]! = What a [adjective] [noun]!
¡Qué niño más bueno! = What a nice kid!
The name of the guy doesn't sound Spanish, and it is the only word I miss in the whole recording, which, otherwise, is very clear. My guess is that it is a Catalan name. Probably Eric Rubira, but I don't speak Catalan.
0
Vote
MJ said:
...trying to decipher what sounds I'm listening for in English that don't exist in Spanish, and vice versa.
I don't think you should be focusing on what sounds in English don't exist in Spanish, firstly, because there are too many, and secondly, because I don't think it will help you to speak Spanish. Just focus on getting the right sounds in Spanish correctly.
If you don't have a natural talent for foreign sounds, learning a little bit of phonetics will probably pay off, as you'll learn where to put your tongue, lips, how to expel the air,... By reading the International Phonetic Alphabet, I can read fairly acceptably most sounds from lots of languages I've never heard in my life, but if you give me a recording of a word in any of those languages, and ask me to repeat what they just said, I don't do nearly as well, unless it has sounds I already know, of course. Still, in English, I sometimes need to check how to pronounce a word using these symbols, because even though I can recognize when I hear it (e.g. I had problems saying "lieutenant"), I cannot reproduce it exactly the same (and English spelling, instead of helping, makes things worse). Once I see its proper phonetic transcription, I can pronounce it no problem.
0
Vote
Thank you, Daniel, MJ, Lazarus. I understand.
In fact, the British use "most" in a somewhat (wish I could key these letters in a smaller font) similar way. ¨"Most" can be an understated way to say "very" and now I understand the Spanish use and that the accent is required. (I posted in another thread this morning asking about this "más/mas" problem too -> [url=http://my.spanishdict.com/forum/topic/show'id=1710195%3ATopic%3A1105614]http://my.spanishdict.com/forum/topic/show'id=1710195%3ATopic%3A110...[/url]
By the way, I have been looking via the Internet to find out who "Enrique" is since posting early this morning and have finally determined his name. He is the Catalan chocolatier, Enric Rovira! You may get a kick out of how I finally found him, spelling his name as I was -- incorrectly! Frustrated and only finding dentists, sculptors and musicians at "google.es", I turned to "google.de" (German) and keyed in the argument "Schokoladenmeister"! Voila! I wish I could send you all some of his chocolates out of gratitude.
Como (no accent) no puedo, les envio en vez la gracia!
0
Vote
As I said, as soon as the sounds gets "blurry" to my ears, chances are it is Catalan.
0
Vote
But does the speaker, my "Jordie" (I have not figured out his name yet, either, have a Catalan accent in the Spanish he speaks? Listening to prior clip I posted, [url=http://my.spanishdict.com/forum/attachment/download'id=1710195%3AUploadedFi58%3A1099527]http://my.spanishdict.com/forum/attachment/download'id=1710195%3AUploadedFi58%3A1099527[/url], samdie was able to tell me that a "c" I was hearing was the "c" as prounounced in Madrid.
lazarus1907 said:
As I said, as soon as the sounds gets "blurry" to my ears, chances are it is Catalan.
>
0
Vote
LOL, Lazarus, for the first few months I heard native Spanish speakers it sounded to me like everyone was talking with mashed potatoes in their mouths. I've been spending quite a bit of time learning Spanish since last August, and just now am starting to decipher more words than not when I see a Spanish TV program, and can see people's lips. And I even spent some time living in Tijuana, Mexico, last year.
I should have an ear for languages, as I have a pretty good ear for music. But it still is amazingly difficult to hear words I don't know the English for--and sometimes it's tough even then. Part of the trouble may be different phrasing in Spanish and English. For instance, in Spanish, many people tend to slur over their de's, a's, and ese's, don't pronounce lots of their letter s's, and string certain vowel sounds and even words together as though they were one. "Quién es...'" sounds to me like, "quines", stuff like that.
lazarus1907 said:
As I said, as soon as the sounds gets "blurry" to my ears, chances are it is Catalan.
>
0
Vote
MJ said:
LOL, Lazarus, for the first few months I heard native Spanish speakers it sounded to me like everyone was talking with mashed potatoes in their mouths.
Years ago, after having studied and used English for God knows how many years (over 11 years), being able write pretty much like I do now, and reading as fast and easily as in my mother tongue, I watched a movie in English for the first time. I understood less than 5%. For all I know, they were speaking Russian. One year after that, and after a lot of practice, I could understand virtually 100% of everything I watched.
MJ said:
For instance, in Spanish, many people tend to slur over their de's, a's, and ese's, don't pronounce lots of their letter s's, and string certain vowel sounds and even words together as though they were one. "Quién es...'" sounds to me like, "quines", stuff like that.
To me, it is English spearks who slur over all their consonants and vowels, but that's because our brains are tuned to our respective languages. I can tell you that, objectively, Spanish is a much clearer language than English: it is a lot easier for a computer or for someone analysing sonographs to decode Spanish than English, but of course, different accents and people sound more or less clear. Our "d" is not your "d" (actually, we have two and you have one), so your brain doesn't feel it is a "d", but something else. The sentence "Quién es" is indeed pronounced as "quienés", because in Spanish, final vowels are always attached to the initial vowels of the next word.
Try this: Get "Don Quijote de la Mancha" (online, if you want), and go here: [url=http://www.educaragon.org/arboles/arbol.asp'guiaeducativa=41&strseccion=A1A68]http://www.educaragon.org/arboles/arbol.asp'guiaeducativa=41&st...[/url]
Even though you don't understand everything, read the words as they are read in the recording, and get used to the sounds, which are fairly clear and distinct in this page (they pronounce the z the Castillian way, but that doesn't matter). See if that helps.
http://mgarci.aas.duke.edu/cibertextos/EDICIONES-BILINGUES/INGLES/D... (with translations, but mistakes)
http://mirror.pacific.net.au/gutenberg/etext99/2donq10h.htm
0
Vote
This is such an exciting discussion! Thank you Lazarus, thank you MJ.
I have always wondered why people -- starting at about the age of puberty -- have such a hard time learning to speak another language without an accent . Then I read somewhere that maybe our brains -- able to hear all sounds and make sense of all grammar when we are born -- start to selectively throw away the sounds that we never hear. I have tried a few little experiments of my own with friends who do not speak English natively but do speak it very well. I wanted to see if they would really notice/hear some different sounds that I have read about which exist in my but not their respective language.
And do we not have the experience that it is often easier to understand someone of our mother tongue when that someone speaks another language that we too speak(I refer to someone who speaks the other language well, it must be understood) . I figure that such a person probably can't make a sound I can't hear.
It is just amazing! which is why I wrote to you once some time ago, Lazaus, that you would perhaps be surprised at what we actually hear when listening to audio in Spanish. And this is also why I try not to read except as a last resort.
Certainly our alphabet does not do the many sounds of our languages any justice!
MJ, we will just have to learn everything But isn't it fun. And you have only been at this since last August! Shame on you for complaining that you don't yet hear it all clearly!! Me! I am going to have to pay a visit to a speech pathologist Even when I have to read, I hear my own awful accent in my head! We should all be so lucky as to have your musical ear.
0
Vote
Well I am encouraged about learning Spanish all over again! Lazarus, you understood only about 5% of the spoken English watching your first movie--after being fluent in reading and writing English. En serio! Thank you for sharing that. And for giving a link to an English translation of "Don Quijote de la Mancha" (even with errors), as well as to the Spanish audio. I was worried the Spanish would be too archaic, and it does have that certain flavor, but what a fun text!
On another topic:
Lazarus said: "The sentence "Quién es" is indeed pronounced as "quienés", because in Spanish, final [consonants] are always attached to the initial vowels of the next word."
How very many pathways each of these little reglas opens up for me! (And I have a great grammar book. But you sometimes share stuff not in it.)
And finally, Janice said: "Even when I ... read, I hear my own awful accent in my head!"
I hear myself, too, lady, unless I pretend someone else is reading to me. Then it is not hard for me to hear someone else's voice. If you have tried and can't do that then I really haven't been appreciating how much easier it is for me to pick up sounds than it might otherwise be! But if you can hear a song sung by a favorite artist in your head, then I think you'll be able with a bit of practice to translate that skill into "being read to," once you decide on a voice or few you eventually want to sound like.
0
Vote
To reinforce what Lazarus said about IPA, it can be very helpful. Granted, you will not find a lot of Spanish transcribed into IPA but you can find some. The basic problem with the Latin/Roman alphabet is that it's used for many languages that assign different values to the letters.The 'd' of English is not the 'd' of Spanish. If you were looking at a phonetic transcription (in IPA) they would use a different symbol (two, actually) which would help to alert you to the fact that they are different sounds. It's not really necessary to become adept at reading IPA transcriptions but, in the early stages of learning a language (when you are concentrating on its sounds) it is helpful to have a "language-neutral" system for indicating pronunciation.
0
Vote
Yes, the name is catalan:
Muy famoso ese chocolate
0
Vote
I can't get font size tags to work here, but if you had to use different font sizes the headings tags do work here.
This sentence is written between h3 tags
This sentence is written between h2 tags
This sentence was written between h1 tags
This is a sample of a sentence containing
a smaller font
somewhere within the sentence text
Janice said:
Thank you, Daniel, MJ, Lazarus. I understand.(wish I could key these letters in a smaller font) .
>
0
Vote
Answer this Question
Vote
Unvote
Comentarios
Add Comment