Astamoore - maybe that girl had a southern accent. In those areas they usually have throaty Rs which tend to disappear before (otherwise) retroflexed clusters.
Jeff,
I see. But could it be that they also have different accents throughout Stockholm?
Oh yes. People speak more or less different wherever you go (although the silent /r/ isn’t a feature I associate with any non-Southern accent). There is no “Stockholm” accent, at least not just one. I once got a phonecall from a radio man who had a slightly foreign accent, as if he had moved to Sweden a few years before. His name was Swedish, and the radio station was located in Järfälla (one of the Stockholm suburbs). I once had a math teacher from Märsta (north of Stockholm) whose accent could as well have been my own Gotlandic one, albeit with a touch of Rikssvenska.
Stockholm (like any other capitol) has a lot of people from any part of the country (as well as other countries), so that hostel girl might not have been a good representant of pure Stockholmian accent (whatever that is…).
Here is a sample of eight classic fairytales (Grimm etc.), recorded in the 1950s and in a southern Sthlm-accent. Enjoy…
http://www.rekordronny.se/smulan/
Oh, what a great find! Thanks for the link, Jeff!
Now that I think of it, some actors in early comedies (~1930-1950s) pronounce some words without retroflex sounds, including situations when a final -r would produce a retroflex initial. Especially characters speaking some kind of slang (possibly similar to the sound samples above).
Another accent without retroflexes is the Gothenburg accent.
So, in southern Swedish, some older Stockholm accent, and the Gothenburg accent, the sounds could change like this:
ord - od, gård - gåd, farlig - fali, härlig - häli, barn - ban, järn - jän, norsk - nossk, torsk - tossk, vart - vatt, syrsa - syssa, tårta - tåta, morse - mosse…
All with their own prosodies of course.
I would like to learn Latin American Spanish, not Spain Spanish.
As a learner of German, I would also add to that list: Swabian, Swiss German
I think it depends on the country too. As a native Australian-English speaker, I would say the city-country distinction is the main one here - I don’t think we really have regional accents (although people may poke fun at say, the Queenslanders, for speaking more slowly). But of course, it’s a different case with UK English.
You can find lot of Latin American Spanish lessons at LingQ. If you are not able to find them, just go into our Library, and then under “Show more filters” option click on - South American, Mexico, Colombia etc… That way you will filter only courses with Latin American Spanish.
Steve:
If the objective is ultimately to add a feature that benefits learners, then not only categorizing the different dialects/variants but also giving a little bit of background would go a long way.
The real problem here is that there are so many subdivisions that…where do you draw the line? When do you stop?
If we are to use Spanish as an example, we have, to name a few, notably different accents… :
Spain’s
Mexico’s
Argentina’s
Cuba’s
But, even within those countries, there’s many interesting sub-variables as well. The classic accent found in Madrid is different to say, that found in Sevilla.
In Mexico, I would venture to say the differences in accents is even more profound. The differences between the accent found in Northern Mexico, Central Mexico and the Gulf Coast (chiefly the state of Veracruz) would confuse most basic-level spanish learners.
So, given this, I would suggest the following:
Break accents down based on two variables:
→ Country
----> Region
For example
Mexico
—> State of Veracruz
—> Basic description that explains the unique nature of the local accent, in this case, the mixture of hispanics, natives and chiefly, the deciding factor, the black cubans and other people of african descent. It is thus no surprise that this accent is the closest one to Cuba’s.
I am sure there are more, such as the differences between a highly educated individual and something with street slang but that would definitely go beyond reason. I’ve always been in favour of learning the accent of any language that makes it the easiest to learn all the variants and not the other way around.
*EDIT: In any case, once one understands a language decently, accents become more manageable. I personally find the topic of accents a more intriguing case when I’ve just begun learning a language. For example, when I started learning russian a while back, I was continuously confused by the differences between the various male and female speakers. If the people who made the learning program would have simply added a little info like ‘Maria from Moscow’ or ‘Sergei from Vladivostok’, the differences in their accents wouldn’t have been as daunting or confusing.
Cheers
Capagris
When an actor in the US can’t drop their regional accent, Hollywood talent agencies have no problem finding a Brit for the job! All the time I am watching Graham Norton on BBC America and realize some actor that plays an American is from the UK.