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help with spanish

  • Thread starter Clint
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Clint

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can anyone give me tips on spanish? i can't make my r's roll and i can't make the sound with 2 ll,s like in baillando, it's got an yl or ly sound to it. i cant pronounce mujers either

i use rosetta stone to learn spanish, and it has a voice recognition program to compare my voice with the voice of a native speaker, i'm pathetic
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Sorry..I know only one Spanish phrase..
it was taught to me in college by a hispanic friend:

"palabra a su madre"

that was 15 years ago and I have not yet had an opportunity to use it..  
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Scot
 
lol, word to your mother?
 
OK, my Spanish is super rusty but I've got a good accent, so maybe I can help a little.
Rolling r's is tricky. Well, doing it isn't tricky, but explaining it is. Start by making a "rur" sound - point your tounge to the roof of your mouth, stick your jaw out just a little and say "rur rur rur" like a tired old dog. Then you work on the tounge movement. With the same mouth position, exhale and allow the tip of your tounge to drift from the roof of your mouth to the back of your upper row of teeth. If you do it right, the pressure from exhaling will cause your tounge to oscillate forward and backward, making a kind of drumroll noise. If you don't get the vibration in your tounge, then you're probably pointing it too sharply - your tounge needs to be flat and extended, like you're trying to cradle something in it. You must block most of the airflow in your mouth in order to get your tounge to oscillate properly. When you can make the drumroll noise consistently, just add the "rur" sound and you get a rolling r.
Ll's are much easier. It's a sound like the phonetic English "Eee." Bailando doesn't actually have an ll; it's composed entirely of letters from the English alphabet. So, bailando is "buy-lahn-do" just as it looks. Llame is a better example - "yah-mé." The ll is just a "yah" sound. Deceptively, it looks like it should have an "ell" sound do it somewhere, but it doesn't.
The j sound in "mujer" isn't too difficult either, once you recognize it. J's make "hyuh" sounds, like an ordinary English h with a heavy vowel sound at the end. So "jugo" sounds like the English name "Hugo," and "mujer" sounds like "mu-hair." At the beginnings of words, so far as I can remember, j's in Spanish make a vaugely English j sound, but it's followed by a heavy h slur, so "jay" would be pronounced like "j-hay." I think that's more of an accent thing though.
Best luck with your studies,
~Joe
 
I've learn a lot of spanish from the guys at work. I can't repaet any of it here though.
 
i know a bunch of spanish.
 
I've studied Spanish for 10 years now, and I got a minor in it...feel free to PM me with any questions!  
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making double Rs roll is not easy to learn...in fact some people simply cannot due to their genes.  basically, you have to trill your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and get used to being able to do that in the middle of a sentence.  took me YEARS, and I still have trouble with it.  practice, practice, practice.  also, I didn't learn until senior year of high school that you also are supposed to roll any Rs that begin a word..

double Ls sound like the Y in the english word "you".  I think the double L is actually considered a letter in the spanish alphabet, all its own.  the word "ellos" would be pronounced "AY-yose".  I once had a teacher who I think might have studied French, and took a little spanish so he could teach it as well...he pronounced it "ELL-yose"...which is incorrect.

Js sound like the English H.  "mujers" would sound like "moo-HAIRS".

are you learning Spanish in school, too, or just on Rosetta Stone?
 
WOW! i still cant make that sound! i sound like i'm drowning and growling at the same time.

i go to school at ablazeacademy.com, so rosetta stone is all i do. it comes free if you go to ablaze
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