Like do southern Spanish speakers have a Spanish accent? Do people from Boston have a Boston accent with their Spanish? Is New York different than LA?
And I mainly mean people who can actually speak the language, not a Bostonian who took it for 2 years in high school speaking it with the same accent he always uses. More so would you be able to recognize that they are from a certain region in the US based off of their Spanish like how you can sort of determine if sometime is from the Northeast, Midwest, or south when speaking english?
24 comments
Imo its more so influenced by immigration patterns. California has a lot of Mexicans. Louisiana has a lot of hondurans, new york has (well, everything) puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Miami has (well, everything) cubans.
Differences in Spanish accents throughout the US have to do with accents in different Spanish-speaking countries of origin. They don’t really map to the English accents in different cities/regions. So for example SoCal Spanish is more Mexican, Miami Spanish is more Cuban, and NYC/Boston Spanish is more Puerto Rican/Dominican. The one exception to my ears is Tejano Spanish, which does kinda sound like a Texan English-speaking accent.
The accent you speak a language with is largely determined by the accent of the people you learned it from. I learned Spanish from an Argentinian teacher so I speak with an Argentinian accent, even though I’ve never been to Argentina. I speak English with a mid-Atlantic accent because I grew up around people with that accent.
I’m American, studied Spanish through high school and all through college. The Mexicans and sundry Central Americans I encounter daily tell me I sound like I learned Spanish is Spain.
In my experience, not really, but there’s some regional slang. And there’s a lot of regional variation because the regions/countries of origin of Spanish speakers often differ – for instance I grew up where most Spanish speakers were of Puerto Rican heritage, and where I live now most Spanish speaks are of Mexican heritage.
So maybe there’s an accent in the way you’re describing that gets obscured by the bigger differences, but not one that I’ve noticed.
In a way, sure. But not in the way that you might be thinking. Like others have mentioned it depends on who’s speaking the Spanish and where their Spanish has come from. I learned Spanish from mostly Puerto Ricans and Cubans. So if I spoke with someone who’s learned from Mexicans it sound slightly different. The pacing and slang is different. Similar to how in the UK you have Scottish and Irish accents and dialect Vs London and southern England.
Not so much accents like I hear in english but rather, accents based on where the Spanish folk came from. Newer generations in Florida have a sharp Cuban sound while older families (around tampa), itks a little softer, but nothing like Chicano spanish in Northern New Mexico.
Yes. Of course they do.
People from different parts of Mexico have different accents and dialects the same way people from the US have different accents. Same with all the countries in South America and so on and so forth.
Spanish is different from Mexican Spanish, which is different from the Spanish spoken in South American countries and the Caribbean. Dominicans in New York are going to sound different from the Pueto Ricans in Florida, which will sound different from the Mexicans in Texas, which will sound different from the Mexicans in California.
My favorite is listening to accents in different languages. I know what a British accent sounds like in English. I love hearing a British accent in Spanish.
I grew up hearing immigrants from Cuba and Puerto Rican citizens the most. I don’t really speak Spanish but I can have basic conversations pretty easily with them and can eavesdrop pretty well. I can barely understand folks from Mexico or Spain. I understand most Central Americans well.
I speak Spanish with a Caribbean accent because I live among Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, so I tend to do a lot of s-reduction and have a strong yeísmo (because I learned from people with yeísmo I can’t really shake it). I’d need a native to confirm what my accent actually sounds like to them because no one ever asks me how or where I learned Spanish.
I notice little differences when conversing with Mexican speakers.
Sort of….its more so which type of Spanish is spoken around your region.
For instance, I live in Texas where there’s a majority of Mexican people. I learned Mexican Spanish including slang and certain words exclusive to Mexico. For example, “¿mande?” Instead of “¿perdón?”. I said this in the Dominican Republic and they were like “¿tú eres de Mexico??”
And on the contrary, it’s tougher for me to understand Dominican or Puerto Rican Spanish. When I meet my friends from FL or NY, I’m so confused and have to speak a lot slower so I can understand better.
I’ve never personally experienced different accents or slang based off area unless it’s like you said where they’re speaking Spanish with their typical American accent. But when I learned Spanish, it was mandatory to get the accent correct.
Yes. Bilingual communities affect your accent in both languages!
But also, different parts of the US have communities from different Latin American countries, and the accents from these regions also affect their Spanish accent!
Not in the sense you mean. Many Spanish speakers speak Spanish at home and speak to their friends and neighbors with similar background and culture. That determines the accent. So for example, Spanish speakers from Little Havana area of Miami will have a different accent than Spanish speakers in East Los Angeles (who tend to be Mexican Americans).
Not a fluent Spanish speaker, but I have observed that a lot of things Mexican immigrants say and do that seem at first distinctly Mexican often actually vary quite a bit depending on geography. Mexican American culture in southern California has fascinating differences from Mexican american culture in central Texas, for instance.
So it wouldn’t surprise me if there are differences in accent or vocabulary as well, even though both immigrant groups come from the same country of origin.
It’s not regional but depending on your country of origin and family. Someone in Washington heights, NYC in a Dominican family speaks Spanish differently from a Guatemalan living also in NYC.
There are different dialects and accents across Spanish speaking countries. And most of us who speak Spanish are immigrants from such countries. My Spanish is from the Peruvian coast. It’s different from Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban Spanish.
We do understand each other. But the difference is obvious especially in the slang and accent parts.
It’s all contingent on migration patterns, I’m of Dominican decent and live in NYC the Spanish we speak in this area is based on Caribbean Spanish; Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cuban. Our Spanish is fast when spoken and we use tons of slang. We can different speak with other Spanish speakers but accents are different and a single word can mean something different to each other.
It’s common to hear Mexicans in this area to end up picking up on the Spanish we speak. It’s all contingent on who you mingle and mix. This is common along the east coast, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans are very common all the way up to New England.
Other parts of the US are more in line with Mexican Spanish.
Yes. A good example of this is the TV show Los Espookys. The actors are all Spanish speakers who have different accents and the TV show takes places in a fictional country.
Los Angeles and Miami both have unique dialects that are distinct from Mexican and Cuban. (For that matter, different Mexican localities also have different dialects.)
I speak Spanish with an Argentine dialect due to my ex’s family being from Argentina
It’s wild how English speakers know there are dozens of regional and National accents in their native language and then they are surprised that other languages are the same. Of-fucking-course there are different Spanish accents in the USA!
I’m told I sound like an American Spanish teacher when I speak Spanish. I think I used to speak with the accent of my high school teacher, but I lost it. My Panamanian cousins can’t understand a word of my Spanish; Puerto Ricans understand me fine.
I speak some Mexican Spanish. Cannot communicate at all with Puerto Ricans
Some of it is regional but it’s mostly dependent on where a Spanish speaking person’s family is originally from. The Spanish spoken in the western hemisphere is different than what is spoken in Spain. And daily spoken Spanish varies from country to country and sometimes within regions of the country.
I am not a native Spanish speaker but I speak Spanish fairly well. I had 5 years of language class in high school and I worked with many native Spanish speakers from Mexico and Central America. When I speak Spanish it’s mostly in a Mexican style since that is prevalent where I gre up.
I now live in another part of the county having moved to NJ. I’m married to a Dominican who always teases me about my Mexican accent. Dominic Spanish is very rapid fire, has a lot of reverse order syntax and altogether differnt word
Obviously yes.