Received Pronounciation or General American accent for LA Spanish?
June 11, 2018 9:59 AM   Subscribe

I want to integrate some accent work into my Spanish language education. Unfortunately I live in the Yucatán and I’d rather not end up with that as my default. Is there a neutral(ish) accent that is recognized across Latin America? Something that newsreaders and sportscasters use for international programming? Or if not for all of Latin America, at least for Mexico?
posted by Tell Me No Lies to Writing & Language (7 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
I have heard the the accent that Colombians use is the “best” accent for Spanish speakers and is emulated by announcers on Univision/TV news.
posted by vunder at 10:16 AM on June 11, 2018 [3 favorites]


The plural of anecdote isn't data, I know, but I've heard the same thing as vunder. Most often from Colombians, to be fair, but it has been described to me as being the most neutral accent for Latin American speakers of Spanish in a similar fashion to the way Midwestern American English falls on the ear of most American anglophones.
posted by solotoro at 11:12 AM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


Thirding Colombian.
posted by 8603 at 2:09 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


Part of my department's workload on a recent project included a discussion of which type of Spanish accent to use for recordings for a US-based phone system. Columbian was the recommended and agreed upon accent.
posted by neilbert at 5:38 PM on June 11, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have heard the same thing. Also from Colombians, but when I’ve seen people from other parts of Latin America react to that, while they get annoyed sometimes, they don’t offer a consistent alternative. (This is second-hand, though. I don’t speak Spanish myself, I just live in a heavily Latinx neighborhood and have talked to friends about my kids’ Spanish language education.)
posted by LizardBreath at 3:40 AM on June 12, 2018


There is more than one Colombian accent. This page addresses the subject and provides examples of the different accents using video clips.
posted by A. Davey at 5:19 PM on June 12, 2018


Response by poster: Well, the plural of anecdote is "breadcrumbs", so I'll follow these. Thank you everyone for the pointers.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:39 PM on June 13, 2018


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