The present pilot study examines both the perception of Spanish vowels /a, e, o/ in wordfinal position and the perception of final and penultimate stress of words ending in those vowels by beginner American English learners of Spanish. Seventeen English speakers and seven native Spanish speakers participated in this study. The English speakers were exposed to 90 hours of Spanish lessons during a threeweek course in Mar del Plata, Argentina, a Spanish speaking country. Participants' perception was assessed by pretest and posttest, which consisted of identification tasks with nonce words. The study yielded these results: (a) native English-speaking participants perceived Spanish vowels like native Spanish-speaking participants after a three-week language course; (b) Initially, English speakers received lower scores in the perception of stress than did Spanish speakers who served as a comparison (control) group; c) Three weeks after exposure to the language, the English speaking students performed like Spanish speakers in the perception of penultimate stress but not in the perception of final stress. The article concludes that vowel perception is not a problem for English speakers learning Spanish while the perception of stress contrasts is a difficult challenge. More emphasis should be given to stress perception in Spanish programs for English speakers, as stress contrasts, together with vowels, are key to interpreting the meaning of a verb in the Spanish verbal morphology system.

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It has been suggested that human communities that share their basic cultural foundations evince no remarkable differences concerning the characterization of core concepts. However, the small but existing differences among them reflect their sociocultural diversity. This study compares 219 concrete concepts common to both Spanish and English semantic feature norms in order to assess whether core features of concepts follow a universal or cultural language-specific pattern. Concepts were compared through a geometric technique of vector comparison in the Euclidean n-dimensional space alongside the calculation of the network’s degree of centrality. The role of cognate status was also explored by repeating the former analysis separating cognate from noncognate words. Taken together, our data show that languages are structurally similar independent of the cognate status of words, further suggesting that there are some sort of core features common to both languages.

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This study assesses the claim that English late learners of Spanish do not perceive stress like native Spanish speakers, and that a short targeted stress perception training intervention during a study abroad Spanish language course has clear positive effects on stress perception. Fifteen English speakers were exposed to 90 hours of Spanish lessons during a three–week study abroad experience in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The trained group (N = 8) received 10 minutes of perceptual training on vowel and stress contrasts with nonce words three days a week, while the L1 English control group (N = 7) received communicative training focused on consonants, and the native Spanish control group (N = 7) received no training. Participants’ perception was assessed at pretest and posttest, both consisting of identification tasks with nonce words. Results indicated that all English speakers experienced difficulties in perceiving Spanish stress when compared to native Spanish speakers in the pretest. At posttest, however, the English trained group performed comparably to the native Spanish group and differed significantly from the control group, indicating an effect of training on the perception of L2 stress. The results show that English speakers evidenced perceptual difficulties when learning Spanish stress, which could be overcome with a small dose of targeted training with nonce words. Even though L2 immersion in a study abroad context was beneficial for the acquisition of Spanish stress, only students receiving stress training performed like native speakers.