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Transcription
The video analyzes the Spanish speaking skills of nine American presidential candidates. The first candidate, Beto, has a good accent but makes basic mistakes. Cory Booker overuses the rolled R and struggles with pronunciation. Joe Biden's Spanish is perfect grammatically, but his accent lacks effort. Julian Castro has a nice accent but seems rehearsed. Mayor Pete's accent is not the best, but he has confidence and fluidity. Jeb's Spanish is impressive and natural despite some minor mistakes. Hillary Clinton struggled with Spanish during a public speech. Overall, the candidates' efforts to speak Spanish are respected, but their skills vary. I found clips of nine presidential candidates speaking Spanish on live TV. But how good is their Spanish? Do they actually speak it or are they just parroting memorised phrases from focus groups? Well, in this video I'm going to be reacting to the Spanish of these nine politicians and passing ruthless judgement along with a few tips that will help you improve your own Spanish. If you're new here, my name is Ollie Richards and this channel is all about helping you learn a new language so that you can connect with other people around the world. But do these American politicians do a good job of connecting with the millions of Spanish-speaking voters all over the US? Well, let's find out. Beto, how does he do? Well, first of all, he's clearly memorised what he's saying here and probably as a result of that memorising, he's stumbling a little bit over what he's saying, stumbling over his words. But then again, on these kind of debates, every talking point is memorised, even in English. So it's kind of hard to say, hard to really know much about his Spanish just from this. He does have a good accent though, that much is clear. I'd like to hear something a little bit more spontaneous. Right, so here he's getting sprung with a surprise question in Spanish in a town hall, which is a good test. His Spanish is decent. I respect his Spanish. He clearly speaks the language, that much is clear. He's got a nice clear accent, but he does make quite a lot of mistakes though. So he says instead of gracias para el bienvenido instead of gracias por. We also have la gente que están aquí rather than la gente que está aquí. Gente is singular. These are quite basic mistakes. So he constrains me as a politician who can talk politics even in Spanish, but he probably doesn't speak Spanish all that often. He comes across to me as kind of slightly uncomfortable, and he lacks the fluidity that you'd expect from a regular Spanish speaker. But I really respect the effort. And so for that reason, he's going to get a grade seven from me. Who's next? La situación ahora es inacceptable. El presidente ha atacado, ha demonizado a los inmigrantes. Es inacceptable, voy a cambiar este. Right, now the difference between Cory Booker and Beto is striking. There are a lot of telltale signs here that Cory Booker never, ever speaks Spanish. So the clearest example here is where he says, where he's overusing the rolled R. So instead of ahora, meaning now, he says ahora. And instead of cambiar, it's cambiar. It's kind of common for people who have an awareness of Spanish just to think, okay, yeah, rolled R, right, that must mean every R is rolled. But it's not. This is such a fundamental mistake that I think it's really impossible to say that he is a regular speaker of Spanish. You also get, he really chops up his syllables and over-pronounces every syllable. Este presidente ha atacado. It's almost like he's had to memorise each syllable in order to get the sentence out. Unfortunately, there really aren't any signs of him pronouncing even individual words correctly. And it's, for that reason, it's very difficult to believe that he's ever really spoken Spanish before. Now you've got to cut these guys some slack because they're trying hard and I respect the fact that they are making the effort to speak Spanish. That's great. I remember giving my first press conference in Spanish and it became a very nerve-wracking experience. It was also full of tons of mistakes. But Cory Booker, Spanish, not so much. He's going to get a grade three from me. Next, please. El Partido Democrata de Joe Biden se ha convertido en el Partido Socialista. Nuestro país merece algo mejor. Queremos cuatro años más. All right. So this is interesting. The Spanish, he says, is actually perfect and it's delivered with this strange conviction. But man, that accent. El Partido se ha convertido. I can't understand speaking another language with zero effort to try to adopt the accent. It's not just saying words in the accent of your own language. You've got to actually make an effort to try and pronounce things properly. For me, this is a lack of respect for the culture. It's like, I'm too good to try to sound like a Spanish speaker. I can just speak American like I normally do. I'm not asking these guys to be perfect at all. Cory Booker was far from perfect, but he tried and he made an effort. But Rick Scott here, I can't get over the accent. It's going to be a great one for me. And if you agree that making an effort with your accent is important, then let me know by liking this video and subscribing to the channel. The very fact that I can say that tonight shows the progress that we have made in this country. OK, there's not much to go on here from Julian Castro, just a few words. But you can tell in the delivery that he's confident and practiced and he's got a nice accent too. But I'd like to hear something a little bit more, you know, a little bit more substantial. OK, so he does have a nice accent and his delivery is good. He speaks like a Spanish speaker. That much is clear for me. But as you can see, he can't sustain it when the topics get off his talking point, which suggests that a lot of what you hear from him is practiced and rehearsed. But what's impressive about Castro, though, is that he began learning Spanish in 2010, which means he was 36 years old when he started and also while serving as mayor of San Antonio. So kudos to him for learning a language later in life and for doing a good job with it as well. So I'm going to give him a grade seven. Next up, we have good old Mayor Pete. Now, Mayor Pete apparently speaks eight languages according to his campaign website, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Dari, Persian, French. But what about his Spanish? So this is a curious case for Mayor Pete. His accent is not the best. It's quite typical of an English speaker. What you hear him doing is swallowing the vowels. As English speakers, we tend to swallow vowels because vowels aren't so important in English all the time. But you've got to pronounce your vowels in Spanish. So when you say presidente or debe, you've got to pronounce that e at the end. But Mayor Pete, he's going to drop in that presidente or debe. He's focusing on the beginning of the word and kind of forgetting about the end of the word, which is a sign to me that he's probably not a regular Spanish speaker. But he clearly knows the language. That's what's interesting. He has a certain confidence and fluidity that you can't get just by memorising a bunch of phrases. He clearly knows what he's doing. It is difficult to say more. We don't need this to go on. We couldn't find any other clips of Mayor Pete speaking Spanish either, but I can tell that the guy has a linguistic background. And so, you know, fair enough. Grade six, I think. But do you need to speak Spanish to become president? Well, let's have a look. You have criticised Governor Bush for speaking Spanish on the campaign trail. You said, quote, he should really set an example by speaking English in the United States. This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish. OK, apparently not. You don't have to speak Spanish to be president. Less said about that, the better. Republicans haven't done so well so far. Maybe this next guy can redeem them. Now we're talking. Jeb's Spanish is pretty good. And this is a long form interview as well. So there's no scripting here. And one sign that he's being that he's speaking his authentic level of Spanish is that you can see himself correcting. So he'll say something and then he will realise he's made a mistake and correct himself. And you can only do that if you actually know the language. So, for example, he says, So he said he went to Miami to play a game of baseball, but he said he used the word equipo, which means team. So he said, I went to Miami to play a team. And he corrects himself. So he's correcting himself, which means he knows these words, right? So pretty much anything we get here from Jeb is going to be automatically de facto more impressive than all the others, which comes across as memorised. But we've actually got another example here. So this is a spontaneous press gathering, which is impressive. But here's what's interesting. It's not perfect. In fact, he makes mistakes that are quite common among native English speakers. For example, he keeps saying, meaning something can be done. He overuses that se puede. He overuses the se. For example, he says, un conservador que se puede cambiar la dirección del país. You don't need the se there. So it's classic over. A bit like earlier when Cory Booker was overusing the r, rolled r. Jeb's overusing certain phrases here. But that's more minor for me. And what this shows is that with his confidence, it shows that mistakes don't have to matter in Spanish if your delivery is natural and confident, which is one reason that in my story learning method, I teach students to develop overall language skills, not to obsess over grammar, because grammar doesn't matter as much as you think if you've got the complete package. Jeb's Spanish, it's really, really natural. His Spanish flows. He can clearly speak at length, even in pressure situations. So for that reason, Jeb, you get a nine from me. And now there's the case of Hilary Clinton. Now, she had a rough time in 2016. So I'll go easy on her. But we're talking about Spanish here. And the only time she has apparently ever spoken Spanish on camera in public, it didn't go so well. And I know we are a nation of immigrants from New York to California. And I want. Now what's happening here is that the crowd are starting to chant si se puede, si se puede, which means it can be done. And this is a term rooted in the struggle of working class Latinos that goes back decades. And Obama adopted the English version for his own campaign in 2008. Yes, we can, which is kind of similar. So si se puede is only three words. It's three simple words, also very central to the Clinton's politics. But she says not si se puede, but si se pueda. And a at the end, pueda instead of puede is a small difference. But unfortunately for her, it is totally wrong. So if you're going to say three words in Spanish on a national stage, you've got to get them right. And so with the absence of any other evidence of Clinton's Spanish, it's going to be a two from me. The only reason it's not a one is because she tried. So too harsh? Let me know in the comments. I wonder if her running mate, Tim Kaine, can do slightly better. So once again, this is most likely scripted, so it's hard to know. But you can tell that he's comfortable speaking Spanish. His accent is okay. He's bringing a little bit of flair to it. And in his pronunciation of certain words, you can tell that he speaks Spanish a lot. So in that word there, ciudadano, meaning citizen, he's internalised that soft Spanish D. Because if you were saying this with an American accent, it would be ciudadano, that hard D. But he's got the ciudadano, he's internalised that sound, which is the sign of someone that actually speaks the language. And if we look at an unscripted sit down interview, we can see that he can sustain his Spanish in conversation too. So this is great Spanish from Tim Kaine. He's not quite as fluent as Jeb Bush, and he makes some fairly elementary errors, like yo creo va a ser. Whereas he needs to say yo creo que. And his pronunciation slips a little bit too much for my liking. So we've got the voy with a V. Like voy a, I'm going to. Instead of voy a in Spanish, you need to have the heart. You don't have a V sound. You've got to make a but. So a few too many pronunciation slips for my liking. But in spite of this, his Spanish is really good. And he can do a live interview like this, which is big respect. He's getting a grade eight from me. So all in all, it's a mixed bag. Jeb Bush is the clear winner for my money with natural, convincing Spanish that he can use spontaneously too. But if you want to see a really impressive example of someone who's learned Spanish, then watch this video next. This is the story of a girl from the UK who learned Spanish while still at school, but was so successful that she found herself giving a TV interview and even tricking people in the street by persuading them that she was Spanish. So go ahead and watch this video right now if you want to be inspired to learn Spanish yourself.
