Viral charm

A little 8-year-old girl and her musical family are having one of those YouTube explosions that happen when nearly everyone who watches a video clip feels an irresistible urge to share it. I first saw it without any explanatory comments and couldn't figure out her accent. At first it seemed it might be European Spanish, not the New World variant I'm more familiar with, but the family looked Indian. But then they were dressed so warmly, and the hint of architecture in the background was European. That made me think the mountains of South America.

It turns out the family are French, with a dad who was born in South Korea, so that explains the Asian look as well as the accent that online Spanish-speaking fans describe as "exotic." She gets going on a trilled R and just doesn't stop. They're appearing at festivals now, under the name "Isaac et Nora," and cutting a CD.

Veinte Años is a Cuban torch song from the 1930s.

What's it matter if I love you
If you don't want me any more
A love that's over
Should be forgotten

If what one wants
Could be won
You'd want me the same
As twenty years ago


 

 Veinte Años

¿Qué te importa que te ame
Si tú no me quieres ya?
El amor que ya ha pasado
No se debe recordar

Fui la ilusión de tu vida
Un día lejano ya
Hoy represento el pasado
No me puedo conformar

Si las cosas que uno quiere
Se pudieran alcanzar
Tú me quisieras lo mismo
Que veinte años atrás

Con qué tristeza miramos
Un amor que se nos va
Es un pedazo del alma
Que se arranca sin piedad

2 comments:

Grim said...

The young girl has a lovely voice. There's an irony in one so young singing such a song, whose import she cannot yet imagine.

Gringo said...

Had I not been informed that the singers were French (/Korean), I would have thought they were not native Spanish speakers. While there is admittedly a lot of regional variation in how Spanish is spoken, there were some pronunciations that struck me as being not quite kosher.

There is another posting of this video with the heading,Ella es la niña con exótico acento que se vuelve viral, Tr.: She is the girl with the exotic accent that went viral. So, my opinion is shared.

For example, the standard pronunciation of "d" is "th," but here it was pronounced as "d," admittedly a soft one. There was also what I could call an over-correction for the trilled "r." At the end of a word, the "r" is not trilled or, if trilled, done with a soft trill. In the video, the "r" at the end of the word is pronounced with a hard trill.

Be that as it may, as she is a child, she will eventually sound like a native speaker of Spanish. She has plenty of time. Her brother is a good trumpeter.

Most native speakers of Spanish peg me as not a native Spanish speaker. So, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Thank goodness she didn't speak like someone from Maracaibo.(Maracucho/a) COMO ENTENDER EL ACENTO MARACUCHO. (how to understand the Maracucho accent- and slang).