MULTIMEDIA-ENGLISH
Spanish Words "White" People Can't Say (FLAMA)
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3:47
Video page URL
https://multimedia-english.com/videos/esl/spanish-words-white-people-cant-say-flama-6113
Description

If you are having a hard time trying to get the English pronunciation right, it is a good thing to have a break and see how they can also have a hard time trying to get other pronunciations right. That will also help you remember that they are not better than you, they simply beat you when they are playing the game at home. But what happens when you confront them with a difficult foreign sound? On this video you will see English speakers from America trying to pronounce Spanish words, especially the rolling sound /r/ of the letter R. Have fun and get your own self-esteem a bit higher :)

Explanations

Just one comment about a word that may puzzle you. When people on the video are given the Spanish word NEGAR, they get shocked and some even refuse to read it. That word means "deny, reject" or "negate", and it is pronounced, more or less, /negɑ:r/. The problem is that if you read that spelling as if it were an English word, the most probable pronunciation would be /ni:gər/ or /nɪgər/, which is the pronunciation of the English word NIGGER, a very very offensive word used to refer to black people (not offensive when a black person uses it, but very offensive when a white person uses it). That is why the people on the video try to avoid attempting to read that word.


By the way, using the word BLACK sounds usually offensive in the UK, so they prefer to say COLOURED, which in turn sounds offensive in America. Crazy, isn't it?


And a second comment about the title. They oppose "Spanish" people to "White" people, taking for granted that both things are different. But people speaking Spanish come in all sizes and colours and they may be white, black, indian or mixed. That's why the title writes WHITE in inverted commas ("); they really want to say that they are White American Anglosaxons with no knowledge of the Spanish language and having a standard American pronunciation.


QUÉ in Spanish means WHAT?, so the title SAY QUÉ? is mixing English and Spanish and means SAY WHAT?