Spanish pronunciation

Why is learning to pronounce Spanish easier than learning to pronounce English? Try pronouncing these English words if youre just learning the language: bought, knot, not, caught head, heat, feet, fed, read, read verse, worse, horse, course; Susy, busy, Lizzy; retain, Britain, written shoe, poem, toe script, receipt done, lone, gone, tone, none heart, hear, heard dies, diet, dye, dyed tear, tear, queer, fair, seer, hear, prayer lord, word, curd, bird, heard, beard, light, site,
enough, though, through, plough, dough, cough, hiccough

Spanish on the other hand is much easier to learn how to spell, read, and speak.

Spanish is a phonetic language. That means it is pronounced as it is spelled. Spanish vowels and most consonants have only one sound. Spanish is a consonant-vowel language. That means there are few consonant clusters (which also means it can sound faster than English) (ho-la, se-o-ra)

Spanish Vowels Spanish has only 5 single vowel sounds as opposed to English which has about 16. Vowels in Spanish are pronounced quicker and more precisely than they are in English. Vowel Spanish word English word

a e i o u

la le ti yo t

father let see open too, due

* y by itself is sometimes considered a vowel and is pronounced like the /ee/ in see a, o, u are considered the hard vowels in Spanish. Consonants that come before the hard vowels will be pronounced hard. - carro vs cero; cmo vs cien; gusto vs genial e, i are considered the soft vowels. Consonants that come before the soft vowels will be pronounced softly. -cine vs carpeta; hace vs calor;

* For certain plural words and verb conjugations, it is necessary to change the spelling in order to maintain a hard sound in front of a soft vowel or a soft sound in front of a hard vowel. To make a hard sound in front of a soft vowel: c --> qu sacar --> yo saqu buscar --> yo busqu g --> gu pagar --> yo pagu jugar --> yo jugu z --> c comenzar --> yo comenc lpiz --> lpices

To make a soft sound in front of a hard vowel: c --> z g --> j hacer --> l hizo coger --> yo cojo

Diphthongs When the strong vowels a, o, or u are combined with the weak vowels e or i, or the weak vowels are combined together, they are not pronounced individually; instead, they combine to form a new pronunciation considered a diphthong. Letters Spanish word English word sound

ai - ay au

baile, hay aula

eye cow

ei - ey eu

reino, ley europa

they

ia or ya

enviar, ya

yard

ie or ye io or yo iu or yu

bien, tiene iodo, yodo viuda, yugo

yes yore, video you

oi or oy

oigo, estoy

toy

ua

cuatro, cual, cuantos bueno

want way

ue uo ui

woke cuota week suizo

Consonant Letters and Their Pronunciation b / v - pronounce like the English b in boat or bring. - buenos, voy, buenas, vamos ch - pronounce like ch in chocolate or such. - mucho, chica cc - pronounce like the cc in the English word access. The first c has a hard /k/ sound and the second c has a soft /s/ sound. - coleccionar, direccin, leccin d - has two different sounds depending on its position in the word. - hard like the d in dog in the initial position of the word or after the consonants n or l. -da, doce, diez - caldo, cuando, Don Diego, Sol de Mxico - soft like the th in this between vowels and at the end of the word. - adis, nada, usted (Ud.) h - is silent as in the English words honest, honor, or hour. - ahora, hacer, hablar, hay, horario, helado, huevos, ll - sounds just like the English /y/ sound in yes or year. - amarillo, llamo, llamas, - pronounce like the ni in onion or ny in canyon. - Espaol, seor, ao, maana, nio/nia

r - has two different sounds depending on its position in the word. It in no way resembles the English /r/ sound. To make the Spanish /r/ sound, pay attention to where the tip of your tongue is when you pronounce the /d/ in dog. This is where the tip of you tongue will go when you trill the Spanish /r/. Blow air between the roof of your mouth and the tip of your tongue until your tongue has flapped twice against the roof of your mouth. Make sure you pronounce the /r/ sound in your throat while you are doing this. - trill when r is in the initial position. - rojo, rico, - pronounce like the dd in ladder, or tt in butter when between two vowels. - hora, seora, carro s - pronounce like the s in sun. It is never pronounced like the English z, as in the second s of Susan or at the end of a word like roses. - sol, seora, clase y - sounds just like the English y in yes or year. - yo, ya, yogur z - pronounce like the s in sun. In Spain it is pronounced like the th in thumb. - lpiz, nariz, zeta

Consonant Sounds and Their Spellings The following information is about Spanish sounds and their spellings. Letters found between / / represent sounds. /k/ - the hard /k/ sound is spelled several ways in Spanish - c before the hard vowels a, o, u -casa, cmo, cual -k as in kilo - qu before e, i - qu, quin, porque /s/ - the soft /s/ sound is spelled - c before the weak vowels e, i - cero, cien /g/ - the hard /g/ sound is spelled - g when followed by a consonant gritar - g before the hard vowels a, o, u

gato, agosto, gusto - gu before the weak vowels e, i Guillermo, guerra /h/ - the /h/ sound found in the English word house is spelled several ways in Spanish - g before the weak vowels e, i -general, genial - j as in julio, junio, - x as in Mxico

Syllabication - the process of forming or dividing words into syllables Spanish is a consonant-vowel (cv) language. That means whenever possible, Spanish will start off each syllable with a consonant and then follow it with a vowel (cv). ho-la se-o-ra do-ce c-mo di-ce

Sometimes Spanish will follow the consonant with two vowels (cvv) but the same pattern of starting the next syllable with a consonant followed by a vowel will continue (cv). bue-nos bue-nas lue-go

Other times, Spanish will have the pattern of cvc-cv or cvvc-cv, but Spanish will split the two consonants in order to continue the next syllable with the cv pattern. mar-zo mar-tes car-pe-ta en-can-ta-do in-vier-no cua-der-no

At times, Spanish words begin with a vowel and the vowel will be pronounced alone in order to start the next syllable with the cv pattern. a-ho-ra u-na o-jo es-t-ma-go o-to-o a-o

When words become phrases or sentences the overall pattern of cv remains el ano e-la-o el invierno e-lin-vier-no Cmo est Usted? c-moes-taus-ted

Consonant Clusters Spanish has few consonant clusters. What that means is that Spanish has few consonants that stay together and are pronounced in the same syllable. Generally, when two consonants are written together, Spanish will split them when speaking in order to start off the next syllable with the consonant-vowel (cv) pattern. The consonant clusters that we will encounter are:

bl ch cl

br cr dr

fl gl ll pl

fr gr

pr rr tr

sep-tiem-bre ca-rro pl-ta-no

cre-er fe-cha blan-co

gra-cias cla-se

pro-fe-so-ra lla-ma

Word Stress "Stress" refers to the loudness of a syllable. In Spanish, one syllable of a word is usually louder than the others. Stress is important because it can completely change the meaning of a word. The following words are identical, except for the location of the stressed syllable: - papa - father - pap - potato - hablo - I speak - habl - I spoke

There are three rules to learn about Spanish word stress: 1. When words end in a vowel, n, or s, place the stress on the next-to-last syllable.There bue-nas no-ches gus-to has-ta ha-blo ha-blas com-pu-ta-do-ra c-mo lue-go ha-bla en-can-ta-da lla-mas se-ma-na ha-blan mu-cho es-cr-ibe ha-bla-mos ge-ne-ral-men-te

2. When words end in a consonant (except n or s) place the stress on the last syllable. seor nariz trabajador usted profesor arroz papel reloj abril favor espaol regular comer

3. When a word has a written accent mark it means rule #1 or rule #2 is being broken and you need to place the stress on the accented syllable.

caf nmero fro

telfono lpiz adis

difcil

fcil estmago tambin

pltano bolgrafo da mircoles sbado

* An easy way to remember rule #1 is to remember how to conjugate Spanish verbs:

hablo hablas habla

hablamos hablan

como comes come

comemos comen

vivo vives vive

vivimos viven