Edu82 said on February 7, 2003 11:35:

Well I think their spanish in “Baladas en español” is bad, but Marie sings better in spanish than Per. Their pronunciation is bad but the worst thing about this album are the lyrics!!! They’re are awfull and they are not the same than in english!!! ABout their english pronunciation I think that is better than mine, because I live in Spain.

Jud (moderator) said on February 7, 2003 12:18:

i dont think their pronunciation was *that* bad, we have to bear in mind that they are not even learning Spanish, so they had to learn to pronunciate something they don’t even understand the meaning of...and all at once :P

For Marie, I think it is harder for her to say the rrrrrrrrrrrr as we say it in Spanish, cuz her “r” in Swedish is more similar to the French/German one, and I can tell you, it IS hard to get to say our R correctly (I have tested that with Swedish people ;) - and they have tested with me..trying to teach me the “sj” sound, god!)

I think their English is pretty good, esp. Per’s, (long live to undubbed films and series!)

Jud (moderator) said on February 7, 2003 12:42:

hihi Bibi, my girlfriend has the same problem :P She is Austrian and she doesn’t know how to manage to say the rrrrrr... we have already had a lot of laughs about that, she trying to say spanish R and me trying to say German R :PPP

So i understand Per and Marie :P

onlywhenidream said on February 7, 2003 12:52:

when per speaks english on interviews he sounds to have an american-eque accent. This is realy obvious at the beginning of the Brussel’s FLAF accoustic. Marie always sounds scandinavian - even when she is singing I think.

I remember they did a promo on Pebble Mill for YDUM and whilst talking to the evergreen Alan Tichmarsh (no pun intended to you who know who I am talking about) Roxette (especially marie) said it was difficult to speak in english when they have been in Sweden for a long-time (ie when recording a new album).

:)

Just heard ATAY on BBC Radio 2

Bibi said on February 7, 2003 13:37:

I really have trouble with Icelandic! There you have to roll the r, if you don’t then it is a mistake!
If Icelandic children can’t roll the r they will be send to a speech therapist!!!
My Swedish teacher accepts our r. He says it’s no problem because in Sweden there are also regions where you don’t roll the r. Thanks God...!

Santi said on February 7, 2003 14:10:

They do the same in Spain as in Iceland with kids :D

Marie is Scanian, and in Scania and Southern Sweden they speak kind of “Danish” way. Northern Swedish “r” is very much like Spanish.
As far as I remember no one “taught” them Spanish, they were with someone (not Mr. Gómez Escolar) that was pronouncing the sentences and they had to repeat what they heard, sentence by sentence. They don’t know any Spanish.
So their mistakes are forgivable.
They can make you laugh though, I find especially funny Per’s singing in “cuanto lo siento” that sentence “todo perfeKKKto, todo correKKKto”. Well, and making English like sounds like in “Tímida”, where he sings “Eia ez chímida” :D lol! :D

By the way, I’m still wondering, if they did it with a Spaniard why they pronounce “z” and “c” in a “Southamerican way”. Because they do them as “s” while in almost all Spain we pronounce a “Z” that sounds very much like english “th” in “with”. If they can do it in English, why it’s so hard in Spanish? :/

@Ferdan: In Spanish from Spain actually “ll” sounds a lot like “y” and most people don’t make a real difference, that’s why if they “hear and repeat” they heard always “iuvia”, because Spaniards actually pronounce very close to that. We in Spain find also a bit annoying/funny the “Riverplatense” “ll” anyway...

Anyway a lot of Spanish people really love this album, began to know them thanks to this album or just knows this album. We really appreciate that people make the effort to make themselves understood in Spanish, though it might sound funny for us anyway...

Jud (moderator) said on February 7, 2003 14:17:

yeah but try to pronouce 77777 :DDD

Jud (moderator) said on February 7, 2003 14:37:

LOL Santi :P

ally77 said on February 7, 2003 15:23:

Per’s English has always been good... Marie’s English was good in the early days but I use to laugh at the pronuciation..... but now she speaks wonferful English.

rox-kuryliw said on February 7, 2003 15:57:

well im from england,
and its fine. heard worse english spoke in my city lol.

Roxeanne said on February 7, 2003 16:33:

i like their english, it sounds so cozy. :-)

but ialways (though i’m no perfect english-speaker, either) have to smile about marie’s “s”-sounds.
she can only do the sharp “s”-sounds, did you notice that?

i.e. when she says the word “crazy”, she pronounces it like “cracy” -or “cozy”, she says “cocy”...
i love that!!!!!! :-)
rox

NickNL74 said on February 7, 2003 17:24:

@Roxeanne :
I understand what you mean by the “s”-sound ;-)
I think it had also to do with the gap between here front teeth. Not sure if it has changed a lot since she had em fixed, although there still is a small gap left. It certainly LOOKS better now, so let’s forget about the sound ;-))

Anarem said on February 8, 2003 08:40:

I remember watching the ABBA Winner Takes It All Documentary and some producer guy was talking about how one of the reasons ABBA was so successful was their diction and intonation; I think this also would apply to Roxette. I once saw this awful commercial on American television where some retailer had used “The Look” as a jingle and had a guy from Minnesota singing it... it was just awful, his accent made the song sound all garbled. Oof.

To my Canadian ears, when Per speaks in English he sounds very British, and when Marie speaks English, she’s just very adorable. I remember in the old days she would pronounce Joyride as “Yoyride” and “ch” as “sh” (i.e. changes, chances). Very cute. :-)

But in the songs, I really notice their accents in Small Talk (“Smahl, smahl tahk”), and It Will Take A Long Long Time (when Marie pronounces “bath”). Marie’s French pronounciation isn’t too bad– in Sleeping Single, where she sings “toujours l’amour” but I think that’s because French sounds are very similar to Swedish.

Just my 2 cents. :-)

Santi said on February 8, 2003 11:03:

I think Vulnerable is very hard to pronounce in English... for a Spaniard too.

Jud (moderator) said on February 8, 2003 13:38:

finnish also have a strong r :P

Marie sometimes pronounces the “j” (as in Jane) in a kind of Swedish way, “göra” - it can be a yöra or a kind of “jora”...well dunno how to explain it :P

Anarem said on February 8, 2003 18:04:

About the “sj” sound in Swedish... I remember about 12 years ago I wrote to Marie Dimberg, who was still working for EMI at the time, and asking her why Marie Fredriksson didn’t have the lyrics to her Swedish songs on her tapes (I didn’t have a CD player back then), which was frustrating to me, since I didn’t know what the heck she was singing about.

So anyhoo, to my surprise, Marie Dimberg actually wrote back and sent me photocopies of the lyrics to Den Sjunde Vagen and Efter stormen, and a letter encouraging me to keep learning Swedish and that if I ever learned to pronounce “Sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sjuttisju sköna sjuksköterskor på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai,” I would be on the right track. :-)

It was a thoughtful thing she did for a silly teenage girl from Canada, and I’ll always be grateful for it.

Santi said on February 8, 2003 19:40:

Ok... I tried that too... now I need 1 litre of water!!! :DDDDDDD

Jud (moderator) said on February 11, 2003 13:46:

LOL i knew that sentence, some very “evil” Swede tried to make me pronounce that, I am still laughing :D:D:D

Anarem said on February 12, 2003 02:57:

I think I’ve got the “sj” sound right (many years later) but I could never ever say such a hard tongue twister. Marie Dimberg has a strange sense of humour! :-)