Why do hispanic americans change their accent when saying certain words? (cities, locations)

[iNviNciBL3]

On television and just in daily life i always hear hispanic americans talking in a perfect american accent but when they say words like "Mexico" "Latina" "Latino" they all of a sudden switch to a really thick mexican accent, what is up with this?

[bruhms]

They're probably bilingual and see those words as Spanish words and not English words. Might stem from code switching.

[steel03]

That's how those words are pronounced, and there's no such thing as a "perfect" accent, accents aren't standardized.

[amaiunmei]

Learning a language is like learning to be ambidextrous - yes, technically, you can do it ... but generally, you will favor one language slightly over the other. For a lot of Spanish speakers who learn Spanish first, Spanish becomes the language that they have an innate "comfort" with. With those language speakers, you will hear a lot of switching back and forth between pronunciations, even if they are speaking in English.

Words that get used in both Spanish and English have entirely different pronunciations in those two languages.

Cuba is pronounced "koo-bah" in Spanish and "kyoo-bah" in English.

Mexico is pronounced "meh-hee-koh" in Spanish and "mecks-ee-koh" in English.

Argentina is pronounced "arr-jen-tee-nah" in English and "arr-hen-tee-nah" in Spanish.

You get the idea.

[fcacciola]

Precisely what amaiunmei said.

In fact, in my case, I'm a native Spanish speaker, so when I speak Spanish and say isolated words in English, say, "internet" or "smart phone", I do it with a spanish voice, completely unlike the accent if I'm speaking English.
So, even when speaking English, many spanish (to me) words come out "in spanish". I do try to correct it though, so when I say, for example, my spansh name in English, fellow Argentinians laugh about it.

[2e1m5a]

I often wondered why we change the name or pronunciation of proper nouns like countries-Mexico should always be Me-hico and Cuba should always be Coo-ba, etc. Why can't we call Spain Espana? Is Spain really that much easier?

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by iNviNciBL3

On television and just in daily life i always hear hispanic americans talking in a perfect american accent but when they say words like "Mexico" "Latina" "Latino" they all of a sudden switch to a really thick mexican accent, what is up with this?

Because the rest of the words they're saying are English and they pronounce them the correct English way. Mexico, Latina and Latino are Spanish words and they're correctly pronouncing them in Spanish.

[dollaztx]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

Because the rest of the words they're saying are English and they pronounce them the correct English way. Mexico, Latina and Latino are Spanish words and they're correctly pronouncing them in Spanish.

This. Let's say you were reading spanish out loud and you come upon the word "United States" which is an english word of course. You would not actually try to pronunce it in spanish because you know better, you know english and you know the correct way to pronounce it.

I've seen people do it on TV in other languages as well, for example reporters who are familiar with the middle east sometimes pronounce place names and peoples names in their correct pronunciation as well.

[Deezus]

Originally Posted by 2e1m5a

I often wondered why we change the name or pronunciation of proper nouns like countries-Mexico should always be Me-hico and Cuba should always be Coo-ba, etc. Why can't we call Spain Espana? Is Spain really that much easier?

Yeah, I feel the same way and not just limited to Latin/Spanish locations. All the Italians cities have beautiful names already that aren't hard to say yet, Roma, Firenze, and Napoli, become Rome, Florence, and Naples. It's not limited to just English as a lot of languages change the name of foreign cities to something else, but still--how hard is is to say Roma?

[jtur88]

I find it very annoying when news reporters do that. When I am in Latin America and in a Spanish-speaking conversation, I would never dream of pronouncing Television or Sandwich or Africa or Robinson Cano the way an American would. It would be discourteous and disruptive to shift the accent for one word.