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THE NEW YORK TIMES
PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
The Spanish Test: George W. Bush Vs Al Gore
August 8, 1999
Copyright © 1999 THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY. All Rights Reserved.
The top Presidential
candidates are courting Latino voters by speaking their language
-- or at least trying. A panel of renowned linguists rates their
performance in two recent speeches.
THE
SPEECHES
| Al Gore,
Carthage, Tenn., June 16, 1999: |
George W.
Bush, Detroit, June 22, 1999: |
''Sin accion, las palabras no valen nada --
aunque sean bonitas. Mis amigos, seguiremos, trabajando juntos,
mano a mano, para el futuro de nuestras familias y nuestros niños.''
(''Without
deeds, words are worthless -- even if they are pretty. My friends,
we have to join our hands to work together for the future of
our families and children.'') |
"El sueño Americano es para ti.
. . . Estoy feliz de estar aquí contigo y tambien con
mi amigos los anglos aqui en Michigan. Maria Elena, muchas gracias
para tu invitación.''
(''The
American dream is for you. . . . I'm happy to be here with all
my friends, even my Anglo friends here in Michigan. Maria Elena,
thank you for your invitation.'') |
THE
RESULTS
|
Roberto Gonzalez
Echevarria, Chairman of the Spanish and Portuguese department,
Yale University: |
| On Gore: ''He got his fricatives
right -- those are the consonants between vowels that English
speakers normally mispronounce. But his intonation and vowels
are English. He says bow-NEE-tahs instead of BO-neeta. Spanish
consonants are short and crisp, whereas in English they can be
long and have many variations. With 'sin accion' he nasalizes
the -on ending. He's making the 'el' in 'el futuro' too high
up in the palate.' '' |
On Bush: ''Bush is fluent but flawed.
He says 'gracias para tu invitacion' and it should be 'por invitacion.'
Also, he says 'mi amigos' instead of 'mis'; it should be plural.
He's having the same trouble with the vowels as Gore. He gets
the O wrong in 'sueno.' Bush doesn't know how to trill the R.
Gore's R is better.'' |
|
William R. Blue,
Chairman of the Spanish and Portuguese department, University
of Kansas: |
| On Gore: ''It sounds like
somebody from our third-semester Spanish course reading something
that he or she had practiced. Spanish speakers elide across syllable
boundaries, whereas in English we pause at that glottal stop
that separates each word from another. Gore has not grasped the
essence of that. He has this problem with the consonants. He
also has a problem with the word 'nada': the D is pronounced
like a 'th' -- natha' -- and he had 'na-da.' '' |
On Bush: ''His pronunciation is quite
good, much better than Gore's. Where Gore made that glottal stop,
Bush does that elision across word boundaries and makes it sound
much more native. He made two grammatical errors, however. He
said 'mi amigos'; it should be 'mis amigos.' Then he said 'para
tu invitacion.' And the 'para' should be 'por.' His slogan is
not bad, but his pronunciation of 'Americano' -- he hit that
first A like an 'eh' sound. In Spanish, it should be 'ah,' like
'ah' for the doctor.'' |
|
James Lantolf,
Professor of applied linguistics and Spanish, Pennsylvania State
University: |
| On Gore: ''Gore's intonation
has this iambic pentameter, which is so characteristic of English.
But Spanish has one heavy stress per word. It's clear that he's
struggling with that. His vowels are also English vowels. They're
all diphthongs, pretty much. In Spanish it would be pure vowel,
short. It's not any worse than a second-year university student.'' |
On Bush: ''He is more extemporaneous and
fluid, but there are grammar problems. 'Contigo' is completely
wrong. That's the second-person familiar singular form, and he's
addressing a group of people he doesn't know. So is the possessive
in 'mi amigos.' His intonation is a little better than Gore's.
The vowels and consonants, however, are pretty much English.
When he gets to vowels that don't carry stresses, he reduces
them to this neutral vowel, like 'uh.' '' |
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