I am looking for podcasts or YouTube channels where the accent of the Dominican Republic is noticeable. (At least it is an accent that I think of as being Dominican - one where sounds are frequently dropped.)
The channel WilliamRamosTV is a good example of what I am looking for…except I would love to have something that has shorter, more concise presentations that don’t depend on video to illustrate what they are talking about. (William Ramos does have several like that.)
I have found numerous channels where the speakers are Dominican but do not use the accent when they speak or where the person is presenting “Ten phrases you should know when you go to the DR”, etc. These are not as useful to me.
Does anyone have any ideas?
First, take into account that the “stereotypical Dominican accent” is not necessarily how all speakers usually speak. It is not that those speakers “do not use” their accent, they may not speak the way you expect, especially not in all situations. Just as not every born and raised Southerner in the states speak with the typical Southern drawl. My advice would be for you to be open-minded and listen to Dominican speakers, rather than try and find what you think their accent sounds like.
As another example, say someone is interested in moving to Australia and learning “Australian English”, that person would be very ill-advised if they tried to just focus in speakers using “broad Australian”. In fact, lots of actual speakers use less stereotypical accents and a learner that overemphasizes the typical accent may end up sounding funny and out of place and not understanding most of what is actually said in real Australia.
See this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-r8QnePI34
Same thing in Southern States and so on: if a foreigner wants to live in, say, Missouri, they should probably listen to a lot of general American, especially as spoken by Southerners, rather than limiting themselves to speakers with stereotypical Southern accents, which would also result in much less available material.
As someone raised and born in Andalusia, I can assure you that something similar happens to those trying to speak “Andalusian”.
At the end of the day, Dominican Spanish is what actual Dominican speakers speak, period.
Having said that, a YT channel you may like is, ironically, by an American:
He has mastered the “Dominican” accent, so he’s a good model and he often speaks with natives, from different countries but often from DR. He has videos both in [Dominican] Spanish and English.
In this one he suggests further resources to learn the Dominican accent:
[Edit] I initially linked to the Puerto Rican resources video, this is the correct link to the Dominican one:
And in this one he talks with Dominican speakers, notice how some think that the American guy speaks more “Dominican” (read, more stereotypically Dominican) than they do:
Thank you for your response, ftornay. Yes, I realized that I was in the tricky situation of trying to explain what I wanted without sounding…uh…narrow-minded!
Long story short: I am trying to provide listening practice for several people from the United States who will be living in the Dominican Republic in an area where we already know that they will need to understand an accent to which they haven´t been exposed yet. (I don´t know how to say this without falling into the trap of sounding narrowminded!)
And, I found it rather comical that I unknowingly chose an American as my model!
Whoops! I read too quickly and thought you said that William Ramos was American. I see now that that is not what you said…The goal of the people I am trying to help will be to understand the people where they live. I agree that purposely speaking with that particular accent should not be their goal, especially since they are still beginners at learning any variety of Spanish.
I totally understand and I wish you success.
I hope that the “bilingüe blog” channel and the resources it proposes will be helpful for your students. I think it’s a great channel and Ricky (the American guy) is very enthusiastic about learning Spanish in general and the Dominican variety in particular.
¡Muchísimas gracias!