Practicing a particular accent...?
I was browsing through the questions and came across this one:
Can i ever have a perfect Spanish accent as if i were born in Mexico when i was really born in America? I mean, when i REALLY practice Español??
The answers to this question were interesting, but one caught my eye:
I believe that most universities now teach modern languages with the intention that a person majoring in the language be given at least a good start toward speaking with little accent. This involves literally hours of work with headphones & microphone (so that you hear what you are saying "from outside your head"). The "sentence melody" as well as the pronunciation of individual words is taught - and this affects the reading habit of the student: you begin to "hear" what you are reading, and read as though you were listening. This can be accomplished on your own - but you need to be able to record what you are saying and listen to your recordings critically. Finding a site which offers both written and spoken text helps - you can record yourself reading that text and compare how you sound with the spoken version. - Lector_Constante
I would like to begin working on speaking Spanish with less of an American accent and more of a Colombian accent (this one in particular, because I'm mostly around Colombians). In the past, I've been complimented on my accent when speaking Spanish (which one, I'm not sure), and I do consciously try to speak Spanish the correct way, so it's not like I'm starting from nothing.
My question is, is there someone who knows about a website where they have a Colombian speaking basic sentences and then it gives you the opportunity to record and hear yourself (or record yourself using your own means, but still has a Colombian saying the sentences)?
Or is there a willing Colombian out there who would kindly record themselves speaking various things and send me the audio? Or with whom I can just Skype and then he/she can correct my accent?
- I hope I'm not coming across as biased, or anything; it's just that, as I stated before, I'm mainly around Colombians, so I figured learning to speak with their accent would be the best and advantageous.
3 Answers
There's no such thing as speaking without an accent. Everyone speaks with an accent. One can learn to speak with an accent that is different from what one grew up with (a different accent) or one can learn to speak with a mish-mash of different accents (thus having an accent that is difficult to identify) but not to speak without an accent.
Ran across this article describing Colombian accents. It might help you to know some of the dialect names while conducting your search for lessons.
Hi. You can try this site. They have videos of speakers from many different Spanish-speaking countries (I'm sure you can find some from Colombia). They also include written transcripts. I hope this helps.
