Spanish question! Do American people who try to speak spanish.......?

Question

I have heard that English is one of the hardest languages to learn...
I have been studying Spanish for 3 months now, And I'm getting rather good at it. There is a spanish speaking family that lives in my apartment complex, And I study with them daily, They teach me Spanish, And I teach them English.

When they try to speak English, They can say the word,
But yet, they can't exactly get rid of their mexican accent.


My question is,
When American people speak Spanish,
Do they sound as foreign to the Mexicans
as the Mexicans do to Americans when they are in their first
year of learning Spanish?


Thanks so much for taking time out of your day to answer!
It's greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Yo Kiwi
Darlin' ---even people who are native speakers within a language have accents that can be readily picked up on by others of the same language base !!
This is true almost totally across the boards-- the differences between English spoken in the U K and America
Between Spanish speakers from Mexico and Spain
Between French speakers in France and in Polynesia
It is what gives each language identifiers to region and culture !!

Answer 2

Absolutely, most Americans (wrong term, because Mexicans are also Americans) have an accent when they speak Spanish, they have a lot of trouble with the "r" which is pronounce very different in Spanish.

But the main problem is not the accent, it is that when we hear someone speaking with an accent or having difficulties speaking a language (American speaking Spanish or Mexican speaking English or just anyone not speaking their native tongue) we assume they are kind of "illiterate" and "dumb" so we have to remember that acquiring another language is a skill and an achievement aside of the accents, and that no matter how it sounds most definitely people don't think with an accent and we have to see over that.

Answer 3

Yes, it takes a long time and a huge amount of practice to lose an accent.

Here's an interesting thought: I learnt basic Spanish in Spain and, when I went to live in a South American country, the locals thought I sounded cute, in the same way that Brits sound cute in the US.

Answer 4

Good for you.....yeah they do...unless they have been speaking Spanish for a long time....but I think anyone one who's first languages is Spanish or any other language can tell .........but be careful with Spanish sometimes words we would say in the States will be totally different from what they say.....and have you noticed that most Spanish speaking people tend to use there hands.....

Answer 5

Definitely. Unless you are born in the country and grow up with a language, we will all have an accent when speaking another language.

Answer 6

From what I've heard, yes. We've grown accustomed to a certain way of pronouncing letters in a certain language, and on top of that, we've all got accents.

Answer 7

yes it does....... i know i speak french, even with a much better accent than most americans, i still sound foreign to a french person- same with spanish

Answer 8

definitely the American accent is very recognizable
its weird and funny
I'm from from Mexico and I've tried to get rid of my accent but it takes a lot of practice

Answer 9

yes, in gerneral you can tell the accent and i am sorry to say very few can get rid of it unless they learn it when they are children.
source:exeprience.

Answer 10

Yes they do!! But I like how they talk, they try too hard to pronounce correctly, especially the r. : )