Argentinian language - yes, it's Castilian Spanish but...

Over coffee with a local client, I was reflecting that soon I am going to meet the 12 years mark in Buenos Aires. I feel like I have just arrived, on certain days, and that it is time to move forwards, on others.

One thing I think I failed, is integrating by language. Truth to be told, I thought I'd be bilingual by now. Instead, I hit my plateau 4 years after arriving here, and now I am just slowing adding up new words and idioms. Something I have never worked on was my pronunciation. Even after 4 years of university, no course was provided to polish pronunciation and I just tried my best by ears. However, studies have shown that after childhood, our ear cannot physically hear some frequencies/sound, and hence we aren't able to imitate/articulate those by imitation like we did when we learned to speak from our parents.

The hardest words to pronounce are those with several aspirated sounds like mosca, moscato, bosque, joya, and the dreaded "y" as in cónyuge. Second place goes to accent in certain words, like cerebro... I always have to think twice - I know the answer, but I need a second to get there.

I am disappointed that after years of studying the language (and not just being exposed to it), I still find it difficult, or at least it takes me some (mental) effort. I can hold a conversation, but not a 8-hour asado. My brain calls quit at a certain point. In technical terms, this is called cognitive fatigue.

What's the hardest word to pronounce or what challenges are you still facing, when speaking Spanish? And how did you learn it?

I asked my husband to please correct my pronunciation as he says it sucks, as there is no point in saying it sucks without helping me improve.

There wasn't a single word I was saying correctly. The vowel too open or too close, the s too strong or too weak, the stress in the words wrong, the aspirated J not aspirated enough (we don't have this sound in Italian, at all)

Overall, a very frustrating feedback and my efforts to correct it were unsuccessful. I couldn't simply hear the differences he was talking about.

Quote from Splinter

Genders are also quite tricky, but there are rules there too.

Genders are all by memory, and they change depending on the romance language.

I always mix up the salt's gender, which is la sal (feminine) in Spanish but il sale (masculine) in Italian. Of course, I remember there is a difference with that word, but when I am speaking freely, it comes out wrong.

I have the same issue with the two TH sounds in English (none of which exist in Italian). When I watch videos of English teachers, it is all crystal clear. When it is time to use it, then my mind goes blank.

In fact, I gave the incorrect answer during the phonetics and phonology exam when I was asked to describe phonetically the TH sound in three. It was quite embarrassing as 1-2-3, along with hello and goodbye, are the very first words one learns. I still passed (the exams was quite extensive and had more questions), but I am still displeased with my performance on that one, as the word three is very common.