Who's Blanca?
After more than 20 hours, and 4 planes I finally arrived in Minnesota.
I wanted to have fun. I was 17, shameless, and I had always aced my English exams at school.
It was gonna be epic!
But as soon as I touched ground, the reality slapped my face.
My exams said I had a level B1, but when I met someone and I said something as simple as “I’m in high school” or “I like skiing” (something I already said thousands of times in class)…
the same conversation occurred:
«What? What?» – Americans kept asking.
So I repeated myself. Again, and again.
«Ahhh! You mean … ?» – they finally said (repeating my exact words).
It was frustrating.
«That’s just what I said…».
Of course, it was not
Why didn’t people understand?
When I talked, people was looking at me as if I was dressed by a blind baby.
I could be wearing the most amazing clothes ever, but people won’t see if I was wearing them inside out, in the wrong place, or they didn’t match at all.
The same happened when I spoke English.
Nobody cared about my vocabulary or grammar because they had no clue what I was saying.
Spaniards can…
- Eat aunts (ants).
- Be afraid of butts (bats).
- Sleep in a hat (hut).
- Ask for a bare (beer) in a bar.
This kind of mistakes may be funny at a specific point but most of the times they make us feel awkward and prevent us from having a real connection with natives.
Why do language learners have a thick accent?
And what to do to get rid of it?
The answers to these questions are in an audio I recorded.
(People say they like my emails because they learn with fun and curious stories. You may find them interesting as well, and learn at the same time).
BUT
I don't recommend you filling the form just to listen to the audio. You can do it of course, but if that's the only reason, you'll lose 8 minutes and 52 seconds of your life (that's the audio lenght).
In the audio you’ll find out:
- The only reason why people don’t get to improve their pronunciation.
Hint: It’s something (almost) every Spanish learner does every day they practice, and - What to do instead.
But you won’t put it into practice.
Or not.
Stumbling twice on the same stone
When I finished my degree in teaching, I moved to Finland.
(Finnish is the most phonetic language -with the latin alphabet).
I already knew all the sounds of this language except one (ä) so I shouldn’t have problems to make myself understand.
I was wrong.
I’d been studying Finnish for 6 month during 8 h a day when I realized (again), that what I learned at school had nothing to do with what I heard on the street.
I was able to hear (and pronounce) individual words, but when in conversation, all the words became blurred.
I wan’t able to tell when a word ended and where the next one began.
It was very difficult to understand and I didn’t want to interrupt asking every 3 minutes “what does it mean?” slowing down the conversation.
“Study Spanish, get it perfect, and then go and speak flawless Spanish”
That’s what we are told.
But the reality is rather the other way round: speak first and then get it perfect.
What I do
I’m the first Spanish native who has specialized in pronunciation online for English natives.
I help English natives to reduce their accent in Spanish, understand fast-talking Spanish, and connect with native speakaers (especially when they don’t have much time. I mean the Spanish learners, not the natives).
With resources that go straight to the point, through TV series, podcasts, music, and real life conversations.
There's only one thing people who have a good pronunciation in Spanish did different form you to reduce their accent and get to connect with natives.
1 thing you’ll never hear in most of academies of Spanish.
If you want, you can listen to what they did, in 8 minutes and 57 seconds (and start doing it from today if you wish).
You already know how this works.