Do I have an accent? Spanish speakers please help! :)
Just a small excerpt! I want to know if I am pronouncing these words right, its my favourite poem in spanish! graciass a todo!
12 Answers
My observations as a non-native speaker of Spanish:
As Manity said, the letter z should not be voiced: pronouncing it as an s in non-Castilian Spanish is generally a good idea. Also, the syllabic stresses in noria and vacíos. You can practice by distinguishing 'hacia' and 'hacía'.
As modrak mentioned, you should be careful to dentalize d and t.
To my ear, you are trilling every r that you encounter. The r in corazón should be just an alveolar tap: trilling should be reserved for rr and an r that begins a word.
Overall, I think that your pronunciation is quite good. I believe that you can reduce your English-influenced accent--i.e., sound more like a native Spanish speaker--with some practice on particular sounds and by listening to native speakers. On television, I watch a couple of German shows that are dubbed into "international Spanish".
Tengo que decir que sí es posible hablar cómo un nativo, y no tiene nada que ver con el talento. Solo es cuestión de tiempo y trabajo duro. Hay varios políglotas, entre otras personas, que lograron tener un acento "nativo".
I have to say, it is possible to speak like a native, and it has nothing to do with talent. It is just a matter of time and hard work. There are several polyglots, among others, who have managed to get a "native" accent.
Here are some examples with English accents:
Ignacio - His first language is Spanish, and he taught himself English. He has a native American accent.
Jerry - "Jerry Dai immigrated to Canada at the age of 20, and due to his poor language skills he had difficulty finding employment" He now has a native accent.
Luca, hyperpolyglot - He speaks American English like a native as well. I cannot judge his accent in the other languages he speaks since I am not a native.
Ana Lourdes - This is the last person on YouTube that I know of. She moved from Mexico to the United States in her teen years (I believe around 15 she began speaking English), and now she speaks like a native. Most of her videos are in Spanish, but you can find some where she throws in some English as well.
I hope this will motivate you! It is my goal to speak like a native one day as well. I work at it every day. If you search YouTube, you can find more videos and techniques to help you improve. You need a lot of input, so listen to Spanish as much as you can. A lot of people will tell you it is not possible or not worth the trouble to try. I say if it is something you want, keep working on it. You will only improve. =)
Good luck!
Se escucha muy mal pero aun así hablas bastante bien, por el acento no te preocupes todos tenemos acento es imposible hablar como un hablante nativo, incluso dentro del mismo país hay diferentes acentos, asi que no te preocupes por ello y sigue así : )
Contrary to what some have said, I think it sounds pretty good, especially if you're not a native speaker! Keep it up!
Everyone one in the world has an accent.
Accents are not a problem - pronunciation is.
I thought it sounded great
I am no native, but I will say that you seem to speak well. However, if you're asking if you have an accent of a non-native speaker, then I would say yes, but it is one of the better attempts that I have heard. Some pronunciations on a few words were convincing, but you're still making a few major pronunciation mistakes that scream, "This is not my first language!" :p
Others have already mentioned the majority of these errors, but an important one is how you pronounced your /d/ in todos. It's not a strong /d/ sound. It's like a mix between the /d/ sound and /th/ sound in thick.
Here are some natives saying todo (this applies to all /d/'s that lay between two vowels in the Spanish language):
http://www.forvo.com/word/todo/#es
It is impossible not to have an accent, as we will all pick up an accent of one kind or another which will be the result of:
1 Parental infleunce
2 The family in which we grew up = I am referring to the close family of siblings (brothers, sisters, step- brothers and sisters) but can also include the extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins etc...
3 Our own physiological make up ...the way in which we hear, imitate and produce the sounds of our native language/mother tongue.
4 The regional influence - The geographical area/s in which we grew up in our early, formative years -the first 7 -8 years . If we are talking Spanish accents a man from Madrid will sound quite different to a man from Seville as the Andalusian accent and the way they drop the last sound from their words will contrast with the clearer sounding accent from Madrid..
"Have I developed a Spanish accent yet?" You need to pay particular attention to the opinions of the native speakers. here with respect to this point! This will take time and effort and depend on the amount of exposure you have to listening to natives. If you are living in Spain or another Spanish speaking country and spending time working amoung them and/or interacting socially with them you will develop an authentic sounding accent much more quickly!
At this stage I would advise you to focus on improving your pronounciation and fluency: speaking slowly and enunciating each sound clearly. Focus also on accuracy and understanding what other natives are saying. I am sure your accent will develop in time but there would be little point in anyone having an authentic Spanish accent if they were not able to communicate clearly and accurately so that they could be easily understood by natives! An authentic accent is like the icing on the cake! Young Children do this naturally, they do not consciously try to learn an accent, they just try to imitate the sounds of the words they hear in any language and emulate the way adults around them use that language! Perhaps we should learn from them.
By the way, I tried listening to your recording but there is a lot of background noise./interference.....so the sounds of many words were not clear! I think you also need to make sure that you are making the recording in a quiet environment, away from traffic and that you set the microphone to a moderate level!
I hope this helps 
I thought you spoke fast and well and I can hear what you're saying and understand you. Note that I'm no native!
Well done for trying, the microphone is very intimidating, I find.
I just listened to your thing.
yes i can tell that you arent from a spanish speaking country
everyone has an accent. what do you mean by accent?
The problems I can spot are with the words corazón, noria and vacíos, the rest sounds fine. The z in corazón can be pronounced either as s or as th but to my knowledge it can't be pronounced as z. The accent in noria is on the first syllable and the accent in vacíos is on the í. All the best!
Someone correct me if I'm wrong please.
