Spanish
¿Se puede hablar un idioma no materno con acento prácticamente nativo? Sí se puede… si quieres.
En España había un anuncio de una academia de inglés que decía: ¿si te dieran a elegir entre una pastilla que te diera una pronunciación perfecta y una pastilla que hiciera que tuvieras un inglés perfecto… ?¿cuál elegirías?.
En el ejemplo de la pastilla para una pronunciación perfecta, se escuchaba a una persona que pronunciaba muy bien pero no entendía cuando le hablaban y tampoco sabía muy bien lo que estaba saliendo por su boca… ¡eso sí! su pronunciación era perfecta. Te daban a entender que tenías que elegir entre una cosa u otra, además de que una pronunciación perfecta no te llevaba a nada en realidad, que no era una cosa importante.
Engañas a la gente si empiezas pronunciando muy bien
Creo que este anuncio de radio ejemplifica muy bien lo que piensa la mayoría de la gente, que al principio para qué vas a esforzarte mucho en la pronunciación, la gente va a asumir que tu inglés (o cualquier otro idioma que estés estudiando) es bueno, cuando en realidad todavía no lo es, y la gente nativa te hablará como si supieses mucho más inglés del que en realidad sabes, y tú lo pasarás mal.
Este razonamiento me parece absurdo, ya que no cuesta nada avisar de que estás empezando y que a pesar de que pronuncias bastante bien, tu nivel de inglés es bajo. Tardas 1 minuto en aclararlo y a partir de ahí te hablarán de una manera sencilla que tú puedas comprender.
¿Es importante tener una buena pronunciación?
La mayoría de la gente piensa que da igual, que mientras te entiendan, es suficiente. Está claro que cada cual debe hacer lo que le venga en gana, pero a mí personalmente me gusta cuando escucho a gente no nativa que pronuncia el español (mi lengua materna) sin acento extranjero, me causa verdadera admiración, me parece que una persona con buen nivel y además una buena pronunciación “luce” mucho más. Da la sensación de que sabe más que una que tiene perfecta gramática pero pronuncia de aquella manera. Y es obvio que no hay que elegir, se puede tener ambas cosas.
Incluso hay mucha gente que piensa que mantener el acento de tu país es algo bueno, te da personalidad, suena sexy y es parte de ti. Es una opinión también respetable, obviamente.
¿Cuándo es el mejor momento para trabajar sobre tu pronunciación?
Aquí hay 3 teorías:
1 – Es mejor trabajarla desde el principio.
2 – Otra, es que ya te preocuparás de mejorarla cuando tu nivel en el idioma sea alto.
Mi experiencia es que es mucho mejor esforzarse al principio, ya que si decides trabajar sobre tu pronunciación más adelante, ya llevarás sobre tus espaldas un montón de malos hábitos, que luego va a hacer que tengas que esforzarte el doble para “arreglarlos”.
3 – La tercera, es que no hace falta esforzarse o trabajar para pronunciar bien, que es algo que aprenderás sin darte cuenta, escuchando y hablando mucho.
Para mí, esta teoría suena bien, pero creo que en la inmensa mayoría de los casos, no es verdad. Un claro ejemplo de esto es gente extranjera que lleva viviendo en el país 20 o 30 años y tiene una pronunciación desastrosa. Quizás su nivel en el idioma sea muy bueno pero pronuncian fatal. Esto también demuestra que vivir en el país no es requisito imprescindible ni suficiente para tener una buena pronunciación.
Diría que esta tercera teoría te lleva a pronunciar más o menos bien y serás capaz de hacerte entender, pero solo escuchar y hablar mucho no te llevará a pronunciar realmente bien. Ciertas personas con una habilidad especial para coger los sonidos quizás sí lleguen a pronunciar muy bien, pero para el resto de los mortales creo que no va a llevarnos muy lejos en nuestra misión de tener una buena pronunciación.
¿Se puede llegar a tener una pronunciación casi de persona nativa?
La gente dice que sí, pero solo si aprendes el idioma de pequeña, antes de los 12 años. Más tarde, ya es imposible o cuanto menos dificilísimo… eso dicen.
Tenemos el ejemplo de Luca, que ha aprendido sus idiomas después de los 12 años y mírale cómo pronuncia (¡que asqueroso es, qué envidia le tengo!) (es broma). La gente lo que dice, es que claro, Luca es superdotado para los idiomas y por eso pronuncia como una persona nativa.
No sé si Luca es superdotado, ni si tiene una habilidad innata, pero sé que trabaja muchísimo e invierte muchísimas horas en cada idioma que aprende, quizás si todo el mundo estudiase tanto, con esa pasión y de manera tan eficaz como él, nuestra pronunciación se podría igualar o asemejar a la de una persona nativa, como le pasa a él.
Lo que he aprendido con las clases de Luca
Llevo recibiendo unas cuantas clases de Luca para mejorar mi pronunciación en inglés y, entre otras cosas, me ha hecho ver algo importantísimo :
Que casi más importante que pronunciar bien las palabras de forma aislada, lo que hace que suenes como una nativa es la melodía de las frases. Puedes pronunciar de manera perfecta cada una de las palabras, pero si a la frase no le das la entonación adecuada, nunca sonarás como la gente nativa. Es más, si tienes bien la melodía pero te confundes y pronuncias ciertas palabras peor, sonarás mejor que la persona que pronuncia bien las palabras aisladas pero no entona bien las frases.
Para más inri, además resulta que una palabra tiene una pronunciación digamos estándar, pero según esté al principio, en medio o al final de la frase, tendrá diferente entonación.
Un ejemplo: Madrid es la capital de España. Yo vivo en Madrid.
Y no he acabado, resulta que llevo toda la vida pronunciando mal las frases, ya que nunca me he fijado en esto de la melodía y nadie me ha enseñado y nadie jamás me dijo que esto tenía tanta importancia. Las profesoras y profesores de inglés lo más que te dicen o tratan de enseñarte es a pronunciar las palabras aisladas.
Os dejo aqui dos audios, el primero es leyendo un texto tal y como lo llevo pronunciando toda la vida. (before.mp3 al final del post)
El segundo audio es ese mismo texto después del análisis fonético con Luca, creo que se ve una clara mejora. (after.mp3 al final del post)
No es que ahora ya vaya a pronunciar todo bien de pronto, la pastilla esa no existe. Pero saber cómo y el porqué de las cosas y el análisis fonético que me ha enseñado Luca, hará que poco a poco consiga que me salga de forma natural una pronunciación mucho más decente que la que tengo actualmente.
(Audio del artículo y de los ejemplos + análisis fonético: al final de este post)
English
Can we speak a foreign language with a native-like accent? Yes we can… if we want to
In Spain there was a radio advertisement of an English school that said “If you could choose between a pill that gives you perfect English pronunciation and a pill that gives you perfect English, which one would you choose”? This was followed by an example of a person who – after choosing the “perfect pronunciation pill” – spoke with a perfect accent but had a hard time understanding both what the other people said and his own sentences. In the other case the same person spoke with a mediocre accent, but he was at ease in every single conversation and seemed to have a great time with the language. This advertisement is misleading in that it makes you think that you have to choose between one thing or the other, while you can have both if you want.
I think that the advertisement clearly illustrates what most people think. If you work hard on your pronunciation and speak a language with a clear accent, natives will think that you speak the language much better than you actually do. As a consequence, they will start speaking fast to you and you will get lost very quickly.
This way of thinking seems rather absurd to me. In fact, you can simply tell the other person that you are a beginner – even if one with a good accent – and politely ask them to speak in a clear, slow way so that you can understand. It takes less than a minute to do this and clarify the situation.
Is it important to have good pronunciation?
Most people think that accent doesn’t matter, as long as people understand you. I believe that everyone should do what they think is best for them. As for me, I am very impressed every time I see a foreigner speak and pronounce my native tongue – Spanish – with a great accent. To me, these people “shine” more than others who have a similar level of the language, because they create a higher level of empathy with native speakers. If languages are a communication tool and a way to establish a connection among human beings, pronunciation plays a huge role in this.
There are obviously people who don’t share my point of view. For them, keeping your own accent is a great thing. They see it as part of who you are and where you come from, and can even come across as sexy. This is an equally respectable opinion.
When is the best time to work on your pronunciation?
Here are three theories:
1 – It is best to work on your pronunciation from the very beginning
2 – You can focus on learning the language and then refine your pronunciation after you have reached a high level
3 – You need to expose yourself to the language, and your brain will learn the patterns naturally, without any conscious effort.
Let me explain to you why the last two theories don’t convince me.
As for the second theory, in my experience I have seen many people trying to improve their pronunciation after studying a language for a few years. They had developed bad habits, and their brains were so accustomed to repeating certain patterns the wrong way that they struggled enormously to “fix” these bad habits, and their effort was often met with frustration and failure.
The third theory sounds great, but in the vast majority of the cases it is simply not true. A glaring example of this is that of expats who’ve been living abroad for 20 or 30 years. If the aforementioned theory were true, they would be speaking a with a native-like accent. The truth is that even though a number of them know the language very well, only a few speak with native-like pronunciation. Exposure is one of the best ways to learn a language. Listening and speaking a lot is a must for all of us ambitious language learners, but it is not enough. A few might reach native-like pronunciation with natural, constant exposure, but this simply doesn’t happen for most of us.
Is it possible to achieve native-like pronunciation?
Now, the question that arises is: how can we learn to speak like a native? Some maintain that there is a “cut-off age” after which it is impossible to speak like a native, or at least extremely rare. But let’s consider the example of the very owner of this blog, Luca. He has learned all his languages after the notorious cut-off age, and yet many natives swear by his native-like pronunciation in many languages. I have to admit that I would gladly strangle him sometimes (kidding). Looking at him, most people say, “Well, he is a genius, so that doesn’t count”.
I don’t know whether Luca is a genius or not. I don’t know whether he has an innate ability to pick up sounds, but I do know one thing for sure: he has a huge interest when it comes to “deciphering” the “phonetic fabric” of a given language. He works on his pronunciation with passion and diligence, quality and quantity. Maybe if everyone worked with the same efficient techniques and passion, they would meet his high standards.
What I have learned from Luca’s classes
I have been taking lessons from Luca for quite some time now, and he’s showed me an incredible amount of things I was not aware of.
The very first thing he emphasized is the fact that a language is learned in chunks, not in single words. Usually, people are taught how to pronounce single words but are never shown how to utter sentences or figure out intonation patterns. Luca showed me first-hand that a great melody with some pronunciation mistakes is always more pleasant than a robotic or unnatural voice pronouncing every word perfectly. Intonation conveys meaning. The more natural the intonation, the better you deliver your message.
Luca showed me that the phonetic fabric of a language is dynamic. In many languages – such as Spanish, French, Italian and English – the “phonetic configuration” of a word changes according to its position within the sentence. A word can be “uttered” in two completely different ways depending on if it’s at the beginning or at the end.
If an Italian tries to pronounce these two sentences:
“L’Italia è un bel paese”, and “Mi piace l’Italia!”
He/she will quickly realize that the syllables of “l’Italia” are pronounced in a different way in each sentence.
The same goes for Spanish: España es un pais maravilloso” and “me gusta España”!
What’s more, it turns out I have been mispronouncing English my whole life. Luca was the first one not only to show me that, but also to give me a very practical and easy tool to figure out phonetic patterns by myself and autocorrect my intonation: his phonetic analysis.
Here are two audio files of myself reading a text.
This first one is before I carried out the phonetic analysis, which is the way I had been speaking English until I met Luca: (before.mp3 at the end of this post).
The second one is myself reading the audio after analyzing the text with Luca: (after.mp3 at the end of this post)
I think you can hear clear improvement.
Now, this is not to say that I will now pronounce things perfectly in a heartbeat. The “magic pill” doesn’t exist. Nevertheless, with this great tool and renewed confidence, I am more sure that if I expose myself to the language and pay attention to the patterns, I will dramatically improve my pronunciation, and I have to thank Luca for this.
Written by Berta Fernández, translated by Jana Fadness and read by David Mansaray.
(Audio files of this article + phonetic analysis: at the end of this post)
Related links
I had to torture Luca to let me do this guest post (oh Goddess forgive me!). In case you wondered I also have “what I call” a website.
By the way thanks for reading this post!. And I want to personally thank Jana for her translation into English, David, for reading it so beautifully sexy and Luca for giving me the opportunity of writing on his blog and for teaching me things that nobody has shown me ever before.
Berta Fernández es madrileña y estudia inglés, francés, esperanto… y próximamente holandés (con el “método Luca via skype” un método súper eficaz y rápido para llegar a hablar con fluidez en pocos meses xD)
Media
Phonetic analysis:
19 comments
Angela says:
Feb 18, 2013
Wow, Berta! You didn’t have a bad pronunciation before, I would say it was quite good, but now it’s really great!
I agree with your insight that good pronunciation can create more of a connection with others. A person with a good pronunciation is not seen as much as a “them”, but as more familiar.
Berta Fernández says:
Feb 22, 2013
Thank you Angela!
I also agree with you that it creates more of a connection with others
Robert Budzul says:
Feb 18, 2013
Hmmm, perhaps the first try was worse than it should have been. Clearly the first attempt was made without actually understanding the text. What else would explain the fact that the first time through, the typo ‘wee’ was pronounced ‘wee’ even though it made no sense. The second time the ‘wee’ was pronounced ‘were’… Of course the intonation will be better if the reader actually understands the text.
Berta Fernández says:
Feb 22, 2013
You’re right that if you understand the text better, your reading improves. But I assure you that I can read a text a text a million times and my pronunciation wouldn’t change much, it would be “wrong”, even though I understand the text completely.
Juan Carlos says:
Feb 18, 2013
Bravo Berta,
Yo tambien e estudiado con Luca, pero para mejorar mi Frances. Yo hablo Inglés sin acento y te puedo dar el ejemplo de mi familia como ilustracion de como cada persona adquiere acentos. Somos 4 y mi mamá, y aunque todos vivimos en los estados unidos la misma cantidad de tiempo, yo soy el unico que tiene acento de “nativo”. El resto de familia varian en calidad de desastroso (mi mamá) a mejorando (mi hermano menor).
Cual es la diferencia? Cuando yo tenia 12 años, me grababa la voz cantando y comparaba con aquella de algun disco. Y repetia hasta que yo pensaba que me habia aproximado suficientemente. Tambien cotorreaba la tele. Yo creo que esta atencion a la pronunciacion es muy efectiva.
Hoy en dia estoy aprendiendo Francés y parte del esfuerzo tambien es el ejercitar la boca, ya que se cual es la diferencia, pero mis musculos de la boca no estan acostumbrados a ciertos movimientos (la “R” y algunas vocales por ejemplo). La melodia en Frances es MUY importante tambien.
Buena suerte, y sigue adelante.
Berta Fernández says:
Feb 22, 2013
Gracias Juan Carlos.
Recuerdo que leí una vez que Charlize Theron cuando emigró a EEUU no sabía nada de inglés. Y contaba que para alcanzar ese dominio del idioma que tiene ahora (parece nativa), se pasaba horas y horas viendo la tele tratando de imitar repitiendo todo lo que escuchaba. Esfuerzo hercúleo que la llevó a sonar nativa.
Creo que hay gente que de forma natural e incosciente es capaz de hacer eso, pero el resto tiene que esforzarse y FIJARSE y PRACTICAR mucho.
Buena suerte a ti tb con tu Francés.
Miklós says:
Feb 19, 2013
Yo creo que para hablar con acento nativo una lengua que tiene sonidos muy diferentes a los de tu lengua materna tienes que practicar mucho, pero muchísimo más que con idiomas fonéticamente más cercanos.
Siendo húngaro los sonidos del espanol (quizás con la única excepción de “c”) a mí no me resultan difíciles, e incluso puedo imitar diferentes acentos peninsulares y latinoamericanos. Por el otro mi inglés es mucho mejor que mi castellano, sin embargo apenas abro la boca ya todo el mundo sabe que no soy nativo.
Berta Fernández says:
Feb 22, 2013
Totalmente de acuerdo. Hay incluso que entrenar los músculos de la boca, la lengua y la boca se moverán de maneras que nunca se han movido antes con ciertos idiomas alejados fonéticamente del nuestro.
Sandor says:
Mar 1, 2013
Berta, muchas gracias por tu artículo. Fue muy interesante. Mi español no esta suficiente por el resto lo que quiero decir así voy a escribir en Inglés.
I always strive for perfect pronunciation because I think it’s a sign of respect, both for the language and the person you’re speaking to. My Spanish accent is often good enough to make people assume I know more than I do but I enjoy the challenge!
In my experience, the more comfortable you sound with a person’s native language the less they dumb it down for you. Not only does that teach you more but it also lets you interact on a level you couldn’t if they limited themselves to simple words.
Berta Fernández says:
Mar 1, 2013
¡Gracias a ti Sandor!
Completamente de acuerdo con tus dos puntos. ;)
medicivalencia says:
Mar 25, 2013
La fonética es como la materia prima sobre la que se sustenta un idioma. Prescindir de ella para aprender un idioma es como prescindir de la palabra para hacer un poema. Lo interesante que recoge este artículo es que también incide en algo fundamental: la melodía. Prescindir de ella también es como prescindir del ritmo para practicar solfeo.
Hope says:
Apr 7, 2013
I’m a native English speaker from England and I actually find it quite jarring when foreigners try to learn English with a native-like accent. It’s really quite distracting when someone speaks to you with a completely constructed, false accent, e.g. a generic American one, when you know that they are from Spain or somewhere. It’s just a bit weird and confusing and can often sound vaguely robotic. The accent has no link to their culture at all, and it just comes off as a bit false and impersonal. Even with someone like Luca, whose English pronunciation is excellent; if you listen hard, you can tell that he isn’t really American even though he has learnt English with a very accurate American accent. There’s an inherent artificiality there that even someone who works incredibly hard on their pronunciation can never really get rid of. A casual listener would say ‘oh wow, you speak like a native’ but those of us who really listen hard can always differentiate a native from a non-native speaker. The only time when this perhaps would not be the case might be if you met a perfect bilingual, whom you could probably only catch out through picking up on a more complex error, such as an irregularity of idiom or syntax.
I think that many non-native English speakers don’t realise that native English speakers are so used to hearing foreigners speak our language to us that it doesn’t bother us much if the person has an accent. The fact is that we expect it to be so in the first place – we expect a French person to pronounce ‘the’ as ‘ze’ and so on. My advice to people learning English would be that they shouldn’t worry about it too much. You do have to be mindful of intonation and stress patterns, which are more important than the basic pronunciation of individual sounds, as you point out in the article, however I think that mastery of that is something which only comes at quite an advanced stage.
I myself have studied French, Spanish and German for several years but I’ve never cared about trying to eliminate my English accent and replacing it with a false foreign one – I just grasped the basics of pronunciation, found my level and stuck to it, and focussed much more on acquiring vocabulary and grammar. It’s not lazy or defeatist to not obsessively work on pronunciation, it’s just that, from my perspective, I never wanted to try to fool, for example, a native Spanish speaker into thinking that I’m Spanish – I’m not Spanish, I never will be, so why would I bother? I’m just an English person who is using their language. They should be grateful that I even learned it in the first place! Perhaps that sounds a bit flippant but I really think that placing all this onus on overly neutralising our accents takes a lot of the fun and character out of the experience of learning and using a foreign language. We should bring our culture with us when we speak another language, not try to stamp it out.
Nascor says:
Apr 13, 2013
I cannot agree with Hope. I met people with a flawless accent and I think that I’m very critical if I hear someone who speak my native language (German) as a foreinger. It could be that Luce “only” have 97/100 of a native accent but let’s talk about my native language. We people in Switzerland speak Germans German with a big accent. But I triet to get rid of him and I think I’ve made it. At the beginning i couldn’t distinguish the sounds z like in “Sahne” and the sound ss like in Wasser”.
But I heard a lot and got the feeling for this sounds. So I could practise it and now, I’m able to speak a z sound without a problem.
I’ve just heard a lot and later imitate natives (In fact, I’m also a native :) ), and it worked.
I think it is important not to speak at the very beginning. Just listen and get a feeling for the sounds. After few months you could risk the first tries. Then imitate while keep listening. Berta has improves a lot in a short time, what could she achieve in a year?
I believe, every people can achieve a near native or a proper native
accent.
(Sorry for my English, but I’m not interested in this language and speak only a king of survival English :P )
Toss says:
Apr 19, 2013
Hope..
“I’ve never cared about trying to eliminate my English accent and replacing it with a false foreign one”
“I never wanted to try to fool..”
“I’m just an English person who is using their language”
“They should be grateful that I even learned it”
“We should bring our culture with us when we speak another language, not try to stamp it out”
????
1) DEFINE “FALSE”. Your first language is same as everybody’s first language (that is: body language!!) ANYTHING else on top of that is stuff that you were taught by others. Does learning something at the age of 5 make that something “REAL” and learning it at 10 lets say.. “FLASE”? lol
2)You never wanted to fool? Who wants to fool anyone? I think you should re-read the first post.
3)You are an English person using THEIR language. Son.. let me give you a piece of advise here.. a language belong to all its speakers. Each one of them! “English” is not more “yours” than “Luca’s”.
4) “They should be grateful that I even learned it” I can honestly see a great deal of frustration there.. which is a pity! isn’t it? When I decided to learn Italian, I wasn’t doing a favour to the Italians.. (..”the owners..” lol)
5) about: “We should bring our culture with us when we speak another language, not try to stamp it out”
It’s gonna have to be another lol (I recommend you re-read the initial post, my UK friend..)
6) last point. I know you have been honest. But I guarantee, you can “hear” that Luca is not native because you know he’s not. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.. but this is only my personal opinion.. it might be that my ears are not so good anymore.
I wish you a good day,
Toss
Saundz English Pronunciation says:
Apr 29, 2013
People tend to understand non-native speakers with strong accent in bigger cities. Believe me, foreign accent can be a huge problem when living in smaller communities all over the USA, Canada or England. People with strong accent also have troubles when getting jobs that require fluent English. That is why I am in favor of accent reduction training, but the resources are limited, and classes unstructured.
Hearing that someone is non-native is OK. But not being able to understand the person, although his or hers grammar is impeccable and vocabulary perfect is something completely different.
Steve says:
May 9, 2013
Hope has a few valid points. Although I disagree with his statement that one should not strive for perfect pronunciation in a foreign language, as an native English speaker who has spent a fair amount of time living abroad I can not agree more with his observation about that there are quite a few non-native speakers who acquire this false, impersonal and vaguely robotic accent. It is indeed quite unpleasant and jarring to listen to. Does this mean that everyone who attempts to perfect their pronunciation is doomed to fall into this trap? Of course not. Some people have more talent than others for perfecting pronunciation and, as Luca would say, it’s vital to use the right methods. That being said, I’m convinced that this “artificiality” that Hope remarks is far more common among people who have learned English to a high level but who have never spent a significant amount of time in an English-speaking country. I don’t know what the missing element is that can’t be reproduced elsewhere, but it seems that living in the country definitely increases one’s chances of reaching native-like pronunciation and reduces this jarring artificiality. I’ve experienced this with my Spanish. I work tirelessly for years on my pronunciation, but only after spending 6 months in Spain was I able to pick up on more of the little nuances of pronunciation. That being said, I’d need another 4-5 years there to really master it. Hope is right that us native English speakers are quite accustomed to a variety of accents and most of us are not bothered in the slightest by foreign accents (even those English speakers who have never studied a foreign language). I agree with Hope that it is silly for him to try to pass as Spanish; however, this is not an excuse to not learn as much about Spanish/Latin-American culture as possible and to become as culturally literate in that language as a native speaker. Perhaps your life experiences will be different, but I have found my enjoyment of using both the French and Spanish languages greatly improved as my cultural knowledge in each of these languages improved – this includes everything from nursery rhymes to literature to cinema (new and old) to television series to celebrities to political figures to types of cheeses. Sure, nobody thinks I’m Swiss after spending more than a 2 minutes with me (I currently living in Switzerland), but I sure enjoy being able to talk about things that Swiss people talk about and to understand them. It’s a privilege to get to know other cultures along with learning the language. Finally (this point is irrelevant, but since it is often debated I thought I would contribute my opinion), Luca’s English is impeccable (he probably has a better command of the language than I do) but within 20 seconds of listening to him talk I know that he is not a native speaker of an American dialect. On a scale of 1 to 100 he’s a 97. My theory is that he could reach 100/100 if he didn’t speak so many languages and that he sacrifices this absolute perfection for the sake of speaking other languages. It’s impossible to spend enough time in countries where each of his languages are spoken to acquire a native-like accent in all 12 of them. Luca has even written a post on the importance of living in-country. However, I think this sacrifice of giving up absolute perfection for speaking more languages is quite worthwhile. Way to go, Luca. You are the most inspiring living polyglot that I’ve come across.
admin says:
May 12, 2013
Dear Steve,
thanks for the awesome reply :)
On a scale of 1 to 100 he’s a 97. My theory is that he could reach 100/100 if he didn’t speak so many languages and that he sacrifices this absolute perfection for the sake of speaking other languages. It’s impossible to spend enough time in countries where each of his languages are spoken to acquire a native-like accent in all 12 of them.
That is quite true. When you start speaking a lot of languages they end up influencing each other a bit, but that’s life. Perfection doesn’t exist. I am more than happy to be in the “90% zone” :)
Luca
Ettore Tonaniq says:
Jun 5, 2013
Penélope Cruz debería hacer unas cuantas clases con Luca: aún habla como “Berta sample – before”
Por cierto Berta, ¡Qué cambio! y con solo unas clases.
Muchísimas gracias por tu artículo.
Berta Fernández says:
Jun 8, 2013
JAJAJ ETTORE, gracias a ti ;)