There is a bizarre phenomenon occurring among American students in Seville. Suddenly some of us are dropping S’s off the ends of plurals, skipping over certain consonants and developing momentary lisps. We may have taken years of Spanish, but it feels like we’re just now learning to talk.

In the process of acclimating to life in a city that can sometimes seem overrun by tourists, those of us that can get away with it (read: brunettes) do our best to blend in with the Spanish people. Playing the role can involve anything from buying a nice pair of leather boots to knowing the names of every kind of coffee-milk combination (a sombra is a cup of milk with literally a shadow of coffee) to simply looking like we know where the hell we are.

But looking the part only gets you so far. For some students, the Andalusian accent is what makes or breaks their sevillano image. The accent varies slightly across the region and from person to person, but some features that set it apart from other Spanish dialects are the occasional aspiration of the “s” sound, turning it into a burst of air, and the disappearance of the “d” sound when it’s in between vowels. As for that infamous Spanish lisp, it’s trickier than many think. In most of Spain, speakers differentiate between “th” and “s.” But in central Andalusia, including Seville, most speakers very rarely use the “th” sound. Practically the only part of the country where you may encounter “th” substituted for every “s” sound (e.g. Mi catha eth tu catha) is in rural southern Andalusia, where the lisp is considered macho, contrary to what it may connote in the United States. Overdo it anywhere else in Spain, and you’ll just sound like a foreigner with a speech impediment.

Those blessed with an ear for phonetic distinctions – I cheated and took Intro to Spanish Linguistics – are doing their best to imitate. Sometimes it’s purely practical: Certain words, including English loans like WiFi and Heath Ledger, will only be understood if said with the regional accent.

And sometimes we do it for street cred. Getting a whole sentence and a half out before prompting the inevitable “where are you from?” is the ultimate achievement. It’s not that we’re ashamed of our international-student identity, but with only a few days to go before our University of Seville classes start, it’s no surprise that we want to fit in, and nothing says non-native speaker like standardized pronunciation.

Ironically, in high school language classrooms, it seemed to be the other way around: Mimicking the teacher’s accent would trigger smirks and label you a nerd (in Spanish, the word is empollón, an egg that’s had a little extra time under Mama Hen). The key to academic and social success was to have your verb conjugations down but avoid sounding like you cared about them. Now students are calling forth the rolled R’s they once perhaps suppressed. As is often the case among Georgetown students and their peers, it’s suddenly cool to be nerdy.

Then again, there are still those students that don’t even attempt the accent, maybe out of ambivalence or maybe because it often feels like we have enough to adapt to. Some days even speaking the language feels like a losing battle, and testing out an accent whose rules we’re still not sure about can ultimately just be embarrassing. But giving it a shot can be an important and positive way to experience the culture. Think of it this way: The worst that can happen is they’ll think you’ve got a lisp.

Beth Shook is a junior in the College. She can be reached at shook@thehoya.com. Found in Translation appears every other Friday in The Guide.