Comment from que
Time: September 19, 2006, 5:38 pm

I remember having the same problem with ‘Amores perros’, very difficult, although i do watch any spanish with subtitle still.

For those with interest in the UK ‘ Y tu Mama También’ is on tonight at 11PM on C4

Comment from Matt
Time: September 19, 2006, 7:20 pm

Hello again Ben and everyone else! Been awhile since I’ve posted. For a good podcast about South American Spanish accents, check out Desde el Bano. It’s done in Spanish and will be pretty difficult to understand unless you’re at an “advanced” level (for me it’s much more of a challenge than the Notes in Spanish Advanced podcasts), but it’s well-worth a listen. Someone may want to post this in the forums as well if it’s not already there. Another good learning tool…

http://desdeelbano.blogspot.com/

Comment from Ben
Time: September 20, 2006, 7:10 am

Hi Matt,
good to hear from you again, I’ll check out that podcast, I love the Argentinian accent.

Que - did you watch it?

Comment from que
Time: September 20, 2006, 8:46 am

yes i did. All i can say is thank god it has subtitles! really. only when it was being narrated i felt more at ease.

A great film i thought

Comment from gi
Time: September 21, 2006, 5:59 pm

Hi, Ben. Hi, Marina, Hi everyone! It’s my first time here. I have to say that your podcast is just the best. I downloaded all available podcasts in iTunes about “learning Spanish” and similiars. Yours is great! I would like to add another great movie in Spanish: Guantanamera (1994). It’s from Cuba. Btw, mexican movies are not from South America they are north american.

Comment from Edith
Time: September 21, 2006, 9:09 pm

Hi Ben, even though I listen to Mexican accents quite a lot (e.g. on www.radiobilingue.org), the dialogues in movies like ‘Y tu mama también’ are almost like another language to me. It’s all urban slang from México D.F., no wonder we don’t understand much of what’s going on! Sofía from Argentina and ‘desde el baño’ needed subtitles too even though she’s a native speaker of Spanish.

Standard Mexican Spanish is very different and much easier to understand, just like standard European Spanish, therefore I’ve got few problems with those two guys discussing movies on the podcast. Thanks for showing us this site, the more podcasts the better! They are great for our listening skills. The thing which makes Notes from Spain different though is its interactivity (i.e. the forum and all the feedback - we are a real community here).

P.s.: Gi is right, Mexico is in North America.

Comment from ben
Time: September 22, 2006, 7:33 am

Hi gi, Welcome! I never thought of Mexico as being in North America before, but I agree, it is not South America. The term we often use in British English is ‘Central America’ in fact.

Hi Edith, you are right, between us we have certainly come up with a fine list of ways to listen to all those different Spanish accents!

I really enjoyed the slang in ‘Y tu mama tambien’, and spent a couple of weeks afterwards trying to speak it… soon gave up though after drivng Marina crazy for a while!

Comment from Edith
Time: September 22, 2006, 7:32 pm

Here is more stuff from Mexico. First, a BBC interview with Mexican actor Gael García Bernal (one of the protagonists in ‘Y tu mama también’ and ‘La mala educación’):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_4075000/4075022.stm

And the transcript:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_4682000/4682179.stm

Lila Downs, a Mexican-American singer who featured in the movie ‘Frida’, has a different accent and is easier to understand:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_4951000/4951580.stm

Comment from Steve
Time: September 22, 2006, 8:19 pm

Ben,
Central America starts below Mexico and finishes at Panama. I find the mexican accent much easier to understand than the Spanish accent I guess due to the fact that I studied in Mexico. I love hearing all the different accents from country to country and even region to region within each country. I can’t wait to start listening to “Desde el Bano”. I don’t understand why Notes In Spanish didn’t make this list http://www.hispanocast.com/top/10 This site is great.

Saludos,
Steve

Comment from ben
Time: September 23, 2006, 6:56 am

Thanks Steve, and everyone else for all the input on different places to listen to all those wonderful accents. I’ll do a round-up post later this week. with a comprehensive list of all the suggestions here and in the forum.

Comment from Moises Gutierrezm
Time: September 24, 2006, 12:50 am

I don’t think that it was hard to understand ‘A mi mama tambien’ because of the accent but because the two main characters (Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna) used so much Mexican slang. I’m from Mexico and my friends from Spain were using the slang theyt heard in the movie afterwards.

Comment from Edith
Time: September 24, 2006, 11:47 am

In this podcast from Radio Francia Internacional, you can listen to interviews with people from the state of Sonora in the north of Mexico. I’ve got the impression that the Yaqui Indians being interviewed here speak Spanish with a slight accent of their own. The program is about native folk healers (curanderos) in Mexico:

http://www.rfi.fr/actues/articles/074/article_318.asp

No slang here. The interviews are easy to follow.

Comment from Chicarcas
Time: September 25, 2006, 1:27 pm

Hi gang !

Here’s a website from a rock magazine in Mexico, and it features some podcasts (Mexican Spanish) about the rock scene in Mexico and around the world.

http://www.rockandroll.com.mx/programas/

Check this one in particular (quite funny if you can understand):
http://www.rockandroll.com.mx/programas/olallo/

Comment from gi
Time: September 29, 2006, 8:09 pm

Hi, Ben. Hi, Marina. Hi, everyone!
What about if we do a movie list with our favorites spanish language movies? I think we can share our sugestions here

My favorites: La Mala Educación (Spain, 2004), Diarios de Motocicleta (USA/Arg/Chile/Peru, 2004), Amores Perros (Mexico, 2000), Guantanamera (Cuba, 1995), Frida (USA/Mexico, 2002), L’Auberge Espagnole (Spain, 2002), Tinta Roja (USA/Peru, 2000).

Comment from Ricardo
Time: October 26, 2006, 12:40 am

Hi Ben, Marina and everyone, we’re the guys from the Hablemos de Cine podcast. We hope you enjoy it.

I wanted to recommend a professionally-produced podcast in Spanish with outstanding content and a variety of accents. It is “BBC Estudio 834″ - interviews with cultural/political luminaries from the Spanish-speaking world; it’s by far my favorite podcast in Spanish.

In the last few weeks they’ve interviewed Mario Vargas Llosa (writer/Peru), Rigoberta Menchu (activist/Guatemala), Jose Luis Rodriguez (musician/Venezuela), Willy Colon (musician/NY/Rican), Juanes (musician/Colombia), Eduardo Galeano (writer/Uruguay), Rodolfo Mederos (musician/Argentina), Juan Villoro (writer/Mexico)… the list goes on. The interviewers are also from different countries.

You can enjoy it at this web page, where you’ll also find the feed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/who_we_are/newsid_4357000/4357522.stm#6

warm regards -Ricardo

Comment from jimmy cortes
Time: March 28, 2007, 3:30 am

hi, everybody. !!! this is the first time I have visited this website even I was looking for a podcast in english to improve my english accent. I offer my friendship and colombian spanish accent to all of you who want to practice thier spanish. If one of you need help, here you have a native speaker who wants to help others…!!! jacoper@hotmail.com. If you want, write in spanish..!!! see ya. Espero recibir mensajes de todos aquellos a quienes les pueda ayudar. saludos.

Comment from Edith
Time: July 28, 2007, 12:03 am

YouTube is the thing to watch right now!!! There are TONS of Spanish-language videos and documentaries out there if you know how to look for them.

For instance, here is a 28-minute documentary by Telesur about Subcomandante Marcos’ recent Mexican tour, La Otra Campaña:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flDrLLFBic4