How&Why, plus shortest biography ever written

I hooked up with this pretty girl in Peru, in the Inca Trail, to be precise. Let’s call her Melissa, to protect her privacy. She was American, I was not only Argentinean, but also one of the few who could speak a somewhat understandable English and also managed to hold his rum after endless hours of mountain trekking –quite a feat. One thing led to another, and one month later, we met again in Buenos Aires.

This girl has this power, I don’t mean anything otherworldly, but she got me off my ass, and that’s a lot to say. She made me realize I had much to offer to the Argentinean society, but mostly to the expat part of it. During one of our enlightening conversations, the idea of a Spanish Pronunciation Course came up, and, as the weakest pup in the box, started nesting in my head. It was not the prettiest, but man, it had potential.

No one gives a darn about Spanish Pronunciation. I think there’s even some kind of pride in speaking lousy Spanish. But God forgive me if I ever dare to show up to a job interview with an English accent matching my sombrero! And what about those of you who want to teach English? How does your flawed Spanish pronunciation reflect on your language skills?

Acknowledged, it’s not entirely your fault. Most of the people who pick Spanish as their second language rarely get a decent teacher who can actually speak properly, and I’m not talking about a native teacher! The notion of the native teacher being the best option to teach a language is highly questionable. How can an English speaker tell me what the heck I gotta do with my mouth to say the “j” of “jelly”, when he himself has never faced such a challenge? Well, he would have to study a bit. Only then would he be able to tell me that that particular sound involves a total closure of the oral cavity and releasing the air with friction between the front of the tongue and the roof of the mouth and vibration of the vocal folds. In other words, he’d say it is a voiced palato alveolar affricate. Maybe he can also tell me that even native speakers have a hard time acquiring it, often not until the age of four. And regarding French, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Arabic or Spanish speakers... Well, we are in deep trouble, the little bugger does not even exist in those languages!

What about the other way round? If you’re still reading, I bet you are one of the many who, even after years of hard, demanding and time consuming Spanish courses, is still struggling with that erre de guitarra, erre de barril, cómo rueda la rueda de ferrocarril. Maybe you’re one of those who don’t know why people hear “e” when you say “i”. Or maybe, after years of living in Argentina, you still hear this weird anomaly in your “s”... Is it the same sound in sílaba and in cuesta? Is it the same “b” in bomba and in caballo? The same “n” in nena and in enfermo? And what about the “a” in man and in mamá?! Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re not going crazy; the letter is the same, but the sound is different.

There’s no doubt that the Spanish phonetic system is much simpler than the English one. You crazy bastards have about twelve vowels! Twelve! We stopped at five! Moreover, when we write an “e”, you can be darn sure we’re gonna say an “e”. On the other hand, think about your “i”, like the one in “police”. That same sound can be spelled either ee, e, ea, ie, ei, ey, or (logically?) i, not to mention those weird weird words, like quay, or people. Looks like you’ve got the upper hand, why not take the advantage?

Ok, studying phonetics is no picnic in the park. It involves a couple of sciences, from general grammar to phonoaudiology, but what I consider key is the will to change. Surely, playing a musical instrument or just having a trained ear will help you a lot, but you can do without that as long as you’re willing to do the hard work. And of course, hard work is never enough:

Melissa left about a month ago, with quite a good accent (something I had nothing to do with, the girl’s a natural). But, when she got into the taxi that was to take her to the airport, it was not her accent that gave her away. She didn’t have to say a word for the driver to ask: You American, or European?

Having finished high school in a German institute in 2000, Martín Ventola toured through mayors as dissimilar as Veterinary and Journalism, until he started steering towards Language; first Sworn Translation in UCA, and then the English Teacher’s Course in Lenguas Vivas Juan Ramón Fernández, where he’s currently studying to become, hopefully in about 3 years, a Literary-Scientific Translator. Presently, he attends Professor Roxana Basso’s Phonetic Tutorship in Lenguas Vivas Juan Ramón Fernández, plays sax in the funky Teniente Pascual and teaches Spanish Pronunciation.