Why do Spanish natives speak so fast? Do you get this impression?
This came up on my listening comprehension exercises:
Hideaway said:
I don't think it was too fast. I am curious to know at what percent of your normal reading speed that you read this.
I answered this:
Spanish as a language , is spoken much too fast. It is actually true, so this was slow, read for beginners or upper beginners.
Have a look at the listening killer audio, that was much faster, but not normal speed either, we speak faster than that
Do we sound fast to you? I think we do speak fast.
Hablamos demasidado deprisa...
19 Answers
Do we sound fast to you? I think we do speak fast.
I'm not sure that looking at it from the perspective of "we Spanish speakers speak too fast" really addresses the issue.
We speak faster or slower depending on a number of factors: region, level of education, peer group, level of excitement and so forth. I know older people from Ecuador and Chile, for example, who speak in a very slow, deliberate way. Their great grandkids, speaking excitedly among themselves, use a much faster mode.
There are regions in Venezuela and Colombia where I had a lot of trouble following the speech because it was so fast!
When I speak with someone who is not a native Spanish speaker, I slow way down, and make sure to enunciate a lot more clearly than I would if I'm just chatting with my buddies.
But then again, I have found a similar situation in English. There are countries, regions and ethnic groups where I have a real hard time following their speech. Sometimes because of the accent, sometimes because of the slang, and sometimes because of the speed at which they carry on their conversations. I find that in some places in the US, groups of African American speaking among themselves do so at a much faster rhythm than if they are addressing a mixed or academic audience, for example.
I think that we speak at the speed that we do, according to our custom and location - and that is what is normal for us. Knowing that, we probably need to be sensitive to the fact that learners and non-native speakers, who are not used to our native speech pattern, may not be able to follow. In those cases, we should slow down a bit for the benefit of our listeners.
I think everyone speaks their native language "fast". And yes, Nicole, I've heard learners complain about how fast we natives speak English!
But what I think is even more confusing at first is that everyone leaves out things and squeezes things together in their native language and everyone understands anyway. What takes a while is to get the hang of where the spaces between the words go.
For example, native english speakers say "gonna' more often than "going to" and "wanna" (or sometimes even "wan") instead of want to. I wonder how long it takes English learners to figure out "didja" ? Spanish speakers say " ta bien" and " tonces" and you can't hear two seperate words when they say "he aprendido".
The good news is that it gets easier with practice! 
I'm a Spanish student currently half way through my Spanish GCSE. (A GCSE is a examination that all 14-16 year olds do in England. It determines what we can do at A levels and if we can go you university. So it's very important!)
My class was originally was told to watch Pepper Pig in Spanish.
I found that watching the cartoon helped me learn simple and basic Spanish words and more interestingly how they communicate with other characters in the show.
Then in the next GCSE year we were told to watch a popular T.V show called La Sagrada Família. (The holy family.)
In this show they spoke SO much faster I nearly pissed myself trying to understand what they were saying!
But after about 4 episodes it became slightly easier.
I still don't fully understand what they are saying, however, using what I've learned in my lessons I can pick out certain words, and then with the facial expressions and actions I can just about make out what the conversation is about.
For example... In one episode they went to the doctors, I believe. At the doctors the speed of the conversation was slowed greatly. Showing in more serious convocations they speak slower.
Also, in general conversation between friends they spoke faster in a joking tone.
So I agree with the person above who wrote something along the lines of: "The speed of their conversations all depends on their moods, formal/informal chat, the subject matter and what they have been brought up learning."
Also, being from England you would expect me to understand English people speaking... The truth is I come from the south which stereotypically speaks very posh and slow. And I have trouble understanding the fast speakers of the north of England which have a totally different accent.
So yes, the speed of your voice all depends on where you live and how you were brought up.
I think us Australians are very hard to understand for Spanish speakers. We tend to abbreviate everything. Por ejemplo- "service station" (where we buy petrol for our car) = "servo". "Bottle shop" (where we buy alcohol) = "bottlo". As mentioned before "wanna"= want to, "gunna"= going to, "barbie"= barbeque. I am sure there are a lot more but I can't think of them all. They just come out of my mouth naturally and when they do I will write them down and post them here. Oh I know for a fact that Americans spell colour without the "u"= color. In Australia we spell it with a "u"=colour. Anything that ends in "ir", "er", "or" we pronunce as "a". Por ejemplo, "colour/color" we say "cala". "Spectator" becomes "spectata". 'Barber" becomes "barba". "Skater" becomes "skata". "Doctor" becomes "Docta". "Hamburger" becomes "hamburga" and so on. We spell them the same (except for colour) but we just pronounce them differently. Then comes the Scottish.....I find them the hardest out of all the countries that speak English to understand.
This is an interesting thread.
I know that the general line is that people speak their native language rapidly, but I have concluded, after several decades of hanging around with Spanish-speaking people from a variety of countries, that the average normal conversation is at a faster rate than an average normal conversation in English. (I know, I know...I need to define "average" and "normal"!!)
This really became clearer to me this winter when I was in Mexico, but on the periphery of French Canadians who were speaking French. It struck me how much slower the pace of the conversation almost always seemed to be. I inquired of a French Canadian friend who is also totally fluent in English if this is true, and she said that French is normally spoken at a slower pace than Spanish. She compared the pace of French with that of English.
A lot of it has to do with the venue. Hugo Chavez is remarkably easy to understand during his speeches, but understanding a pick-up game of basketball in Maracaibo isn't any easy feat. (A Venezuelan friend of mine always swears that he can't understand anyone from Maracaibo, either!)
Some people are gifted with a good ear, and are able to comprehend spoken language with greater facility than others. I always marvel at people who can repeat verbatim the sounds they hear in Dutch, for example, even though these people speak no Dutch.
Regardless, it is what it is. Spanish may or may not be faster, but it's immaterial for those of us who are students of the language; it is what it is. At the end of the day, our love of the language and the people who speak it remains the same. If sometimes we only catch 80% of what's going on in the basketball game in Maracaibo, we are at least happy with what we understood. And the day that we actually catch 99%...what a celebration!
I had to ask people in costa rica to slow down a few times. The problem with that is they then go Very Very Slooooooooow, to the point it's annoyingly slow and I feel like a retard being spoken to. There doesn't seem to be a good medium, it's either rabbit or turtle speed sort of like my lawn mower
Also, it's not that they speak fast, it's that I don't know all the words they are saying. I think a major increase in my vocabulary would help with filling in the blanks.
I think that we speak at the speed that we do, according to our custom and location - and that is what is normal for us. Knowing that, we probably need to be sensitive to the fact that learners and non-native speakers, who are not used to our native speech pattern, may not be able to follow. In those cases, we should slow down a bit for the benefit of our listeners.
I personally don't agree with this.
I think Spanish is an unusually fast spoken language. We often get imitated by foreigners just making a fast sequence of sounds. At least in Spain, I also think we speak much faster in Spain than in other Hispanic countries...well, we do everything faster over here, I got desperate at the speed in other countries like Mexico, omg....so sloooooow, jeje, no offense, just the custom I guess.
Much faster, and here's the proof:
I am a beginner/intermediate student of Spanish watching the soap opera Corazón Indomable on Hulu. I cannot read the subtitles because they go by too fast. Consistently.
Case closed.
I have difficulty understanding the English spoken by certain people from the USA, for example Brad Pitt in 'Inglourious Basterds', and many characters in '8 Mile'. It's really rapid and all blurs together for me. (I'm an English native speaker from England.)
My parents, who are young 70-something's and not hard of hearing, told me recently that they find this with most modern films so they have given up trying to watch them!
Speedy and lazy talk is not limited to Spanish speakers for certain!
Watching 'Amores Perros', I noticed a large difference between speech according to the various characters' social standing and situation.
It all adds to the fun eh?
Soy de Texas. Todos los demás hablan rápidamente.
I lived in Spain last summer for 6 weeks and you get used to the speed in the beginning it sucks and you can barely understand anything but by the end i was speaking well (maybe not as fast 
) and understood everything.
I have trouble when people speak Spanish to each other in their casual everyday conversations. Though I realize that we English speakers also speak differently with each other than if we are giving a speech in front a class or something. I hope that as my vocabulary builds and I hear it spoken more, that over the years it will become easier. Question: I have read that Spanish speakers often combine similar vowels from one word to the next and even dipthong them (which could be part of my confusion) (i.e. va a hacer becomes pronounced like "vacer"). Is this correct? How common is that? 
This is a good question. Of course it is too fast for me at times. But then again, any language I don't understand is going to sound too fast.
I would be curious to know if Spanish speaking people learning English think we speak too fast also.
Very interesting thread...I'm speechless...
