CONSONANT SOUNDS

VOICELESS BILABIAL STOP

/p/
Comparison with Spanish:
Spanish / p / is also voiceless and bilabial, but is not accompanied by the degree of aspiration
which characterizes English / p /. It is usually syllable initial, but it may appear at the end of a syllable
if the next one begins with a voiceless dental stop, e.g. sptimo, captura. Spanish / p / rarely occurs
in word final position, and when it does, it is found in loan words: msica pop, se le quem el stop
izquierdo.
Native speakers who study EFL have great difficulty producing the aspirated variant of
English / p /. Great attention should be given to the pronunciation of this allophone, since the
production of the [ p ] in all environments will give the learner a very heavy foreign accent.
Compare the two ps:
English
pore
pester

Spanish
por
peste

VOICED BILABIAL STOP

/b/
Comparison with Spanish:
The English phoneme has only one important allophone, [ b ], while Spanish / b / has three:
[ b ]: voiced bilabial stop, identical to the [ b ] of English. It occurs in:
Initial position: banco, basura.
Preceded by [ m ]: tambaleante, cambiante, un buen da.
In medial position, followed by a consonant other that / l / or / r /: objeto, observa.
[ ]: devoiced bilabial fricative: In the rare instances in which it occurs in final position:
Molotov, Jacob.
[ ]: voiced bilabial fricative which occurs elsewhere: alba, larva, abeja.
The production of English / b / does not present many difficulties to Spanish speakers, though they
must learn to produce the sound in final position, where rarely occurs in Spanish. The teacher must
insist that the students pronounce the stop allophone in all environments, since they tend to produce the
Spanish fricative allophone [ ] in intervocalic position (sobbing, rabid).

VOICELESS ALVEOLAR STOP

/t/
Comparison with Spanish:
English / t / is alveolar, while Spanish / t / is dental in articulation. The Spanish sound is never
aspirated nor it becomes a flap between a stressed and an unstressed vowel. Spanish / t / is a phoneme
with little variation in phonetic shape. / t / is a consonantal sound whose mispronunciation by Spanish
influence results in a heavy accent, since in the early stages the learner will tend to produce the Spanish
dental unaspirated stop in all environments.
Compare the two ts:
English
tea
two

Spanish
t
t

VOICED ALVEOLAR STOP

/d/
Comparison with Spanish:
English / d / is alveolar, whereas Spanish / d / is dental. The Spanish speaker usually presents
some difficulty in learning the flap and glottal allophones of English / d /. The flap is part of the sound
system of Spanish; however, it is not an allophone of / t / or / d / but it functions as a separate
phoneme, / / (pero). Spanish / d / is realized as:
[ d ] voiced dental stop: In initial position: da, drama.
After / n /: cuando, donde.
After / l /: falta, toldo.
[ ]devoiced dental fricative: In final position: verdad, fealdad, maldad. Many speakers drop / d / in
this environment.
[ ] voiced dental fricative: occurs elsewhere: moneda, hada, pardo, arduo.

VOICELESS VELAR STOP

/k/
Comparison with Spanish:
Spanish / k / is velar also, but unaspirated. In Spanish, / k / may appear at the end of a syllable,
(accin), but rarely in word final position. English / k / appears in a larger number of environments than
Spanish / k /. When learning English, the Spanish speaker will tend to produce the unaspirated variant
in all environments, and will tend to omit / k / when it appears in final position.

VOICED VELAR STOP

/g/

Comparison with Spanish:

English / g / has only the velar allophone, while the Spanish voiced velar stop has two
allophones:
[ g ] the stop allophone: identical with that of English, which occurs in initial position:
gas, gota.
After velar nasal: mango, tengo, rango.
[ ] the velar fricative allophone: which occurs elsewhere: ruego, largo, hago, malgastar,
el gris, el grueso.
VOICELESS LABIODENTAL FRICATIVE
/f /
Comparison with Spanish:
English / f / is very similar to Spanish / f /, though the English sound is tenser and produced
with a greater degree of friction. Spanish speakers should pay attention to English / f / in final position,
where it rarely occurs in their native language. Spanish / f / occurs in this environment in loan words
(staff, latuff). Students tend to weaken the sound thus giving the word a Spanish-like pronunciation.
Compare the two fs:
English
affair
staff
fowl

Spanish
aferrar
staff
fausto

VOICED LABIODENTAL FRICATIVE

/v/
Comparison with Spanish:
/ v / is alien to the Spanish phonological structure.
In Spanish, words such as vello/bello are homophones. The speaker and hearer depend on context for
their interpretation. For this reason, the Spanish speaker will have difficulty with the pronunciation of
English pairs such as very/berry, and all those examples presented before.
The student will generally substitute / b / for / v /, being the mistake difficult to eradicate especially in
medial position.

VOICELESS DENTAL FRICATIVE

//
Comparison with Spanish:

/ / is part of the sound system of Castilian Spanish, yet it does not occur in any dialect of
American Spanish. In Castilian Spanish, / / occurs in words with z: zorro, caza, or when c is followed
by e or i: celos, cancin.
Students generally have trouble with this sound in the early stages, when they are most likely to
produce / s / instead. The substitution of one sound for the other brings serious consequences since it
makes changes in meaning: think, sink; theme, seen.

VOICED DENTAL FRICATIVE

//
Comparison with Spanish:
/ / presents difficulties to the Spanish speaker since in Spanish it does not function as a
separate phoneme but as an allophone of / d /. Although he produces a dental fricative in words like
encantado, merecido, he is not aware that this sound is part of his phonological inventory, due to
the fact that speakers are only conscious of the existence of contrastive units.
When Learning English, the Spanish speaker tends to substitute / d / for / / in all environments, and
thus needs intensive practice till he incorporates / / to his sound system.
VOICELESS ALVEOLAR FRICATIVE
/s/
Comparison with Spanish:
The Venezuelan / s / presents two variants:
[ s ]: voiceless alveolar variant, similar to the English sound: saco, saln, masa.
[ h ]:an aspiration which occurs before consonants or in final position in the pronunciation of most
Venezuelan speakers: postal, cuesta, de una vez.
When learning English, the student must learn to produce the alveolar sound in all environments, and
must make the sound somewhat longer and tenser than the Spanish / s /.
Compare the two ss:
English
soccer
saloon
massacre

Spanish
saco
salon
masa

VOICED ALVEOLAR FRICATIVE

/z/
Comparison with Spanish:
/ z / is not part of the Spanish inventory of sounds, so the Spanish speaker must learn to produce
this sound when learning the foreign language. This sound causes serious difficulties to the learner due

to the large number of English words in which / z / is represented by the letter s in spelling: hasnt,
doesnt, Jesus,etc. Thus the student tends to substitute / s / for / z / whenever he finds an s in spelling.
Those mispronunciations will give the speaker a very heavy foreign accent, and will lead to
misunderstandings in many cases.
Apart from giving the students the phonological rule presented earlier, very little aid can be
given to them as to when to pronounce / z / instead of / s /. This knowledge will come to them
progressively as they become more acquainted with the target language.

VOICELESS ALVEOPALATAL FRICATIVE

//
Comparison with Spanish:
Spanish does not have a voiceless alveopalatal fricative sound, consequently, the Spanish
speaker has to learn how to produce this new sound. In the beginning, he will frequently try to
substitute / t / for / /, but he soon gets rid of this habit. For instance, instead of saying sheep / p /
he will say / tp /. As can be seen, this is a serious mistake since he is making a change in meaning.

VOICED ALVEOPALATAL FRICATIVE

/ /
Comparison with Spanish:
Our Venezuelan dialect does not have a voiced alveopalatal fricative among its sounds. When
students encounter this sound, they tend to produce its voiceless counterpart, / /.

VOICELESS GLOTTAL FRICATIVE

/h/
Comparison with Spanish:
Venezuelan students have no trouble producing English / h /, since their dialect of Spanish has
an identical sound. Compare how/jaula. The problem arises mainly in relation to the orthographic
representation of the sound. In Spanish, / h / is represented by the letters by the letters j and by g
followed by I or e, whereas in English it is always represented by the letter h. This letter is silent in
Spanish. In the early stages, some learners tend to omit the glottal fricative when pronouncing English
words, but they soon generalize the pronunciation of / h / to all words in which the letter h appears in
spelling. Attention should be given then to the pronunciation of exceptions.

VOICELESS ALVOPALATAL FRICATIVE

/ t /
Comparison with Spanish:
The English affricate / t / is produced with more force and accompanied by a greater degree of
friction than the Spanish sound.
Compare:
English
check
chore
achieve

Spanish
cheque
chorro
archive

VOICED ALVEOPALATAL AFFRICATE

/ d /
Comparison with Spanish:
Spanish also has a voiced alveopalatal affricate among its sounds, however, it does not functions
as a separate phoneme as in English, but as an allophone of the palatal fricative phoneme / y/.
Spanish /y / presents the following phonetic variants:
[d ]: voiced alveopalatal affricate which occurs in word initial position, and in syllable initial position
preceded by [ n ] or [ l ]: yema, lluvia, y, cnyuge, inyeccion, enyesado, el yeso, el yerno.
[ y ]: which occurs elsewhere: raya, rastrillo, payaso, llave.
In word initial position, [ y ] and [ d ] are in free variation, [ d] being more typical of slow,
emphatic pronunciations.

VOICED BILABIAL NASAL

/m/
Comparison with Spanish:
The articulation of the English bilabial nasal should present no difficulty to Spanish speakers
since there is also a bilabial nasal in Spanish. The problem seems to arise only in final position, in
which the Spanish learner tends to produce [ ] instead of [ m ], e.g. I am a boy. This is due to the
fact that [ ] is the nasal that most speakers of Venezuelan Spanish pronounce in final position. This
phenomenon is commonly observed in Spanish in relation to the pronunciation of words of Latin origin

with a final / m /: curriculum, memorandum, pensum, Te Deum, which native speakers generally
pronounce with a final velar nasal.

VOIVED ALVEOLAR NASAL

/n/
Comparison with Spanish:
Spanish also presents an alveolar nasal. As it happens with the English consonant, the
articulation of Spanish / n / is also influenced by neighboring sounds, e.g:
When followed by a labiodental sound, it may become labiodental: enfriar, infierno, enfermera,
confuso.
Before a dental sound it becomes dental: cuanta, cuando.
Word final / n / frequently assimilates to a following word initial bilabial or velar consonant, being
realized as [ m ] or [ ]: ten paciencia, ven maana, cien carros.
[m]
[m]
[ ]
The Spanish speaker will have to pay attention to words ending in / n / since he will tend to substitute
an [ ] in this position.

VOICED VELAR NASAL

//
Comparison with Spanish:
/ n / and / / are separate phonemes in English, but not in Spanish. In Spanish the velar nasal
functions as an allophone of / n /. This variant occurs before velars (tango, banquete) and in final
position, where it may occurs in free variation with [ n ] (cien, Carmen).
Through Spanish speakers have [ ] as part of their sound system, they still have some
difficulty with the English sound due to the difference in spelling in English and in Spanish. Care
should be taken to make the students pronounce the the-ing morpheme termination as [ i ] and not as
[ ig ].
Spanish palatal nasal / /:
Apart from the bilabial and alveolar morphemes studied previously, Spanish presents another
nasal phoneme / /, which voiced and palatal. A similar sound does not occur in English: Spanish / /
is produced by a complete closure between the front of the tongue and the palate, the velum being
lowered, and the air escaping through the nasal cavity. This sound is generally found in word initial
position: ame, ato, ema; and between vowel sounds: rebao, rion, aadir.
The palatal nasal has a low frequency of occurrence in Spanish.

VOICED ALVEOLAR LATERAL

/l/
Comparison with Spanish:
In Venezuelan Spanish we only find one lateral phoneme. This is the voiced alveolar lateral / l /.
Spanish / l / is clear. As Venezuelan Speakers do not have a dark l in their dialect, they usually
pronounce a clear l in all those environments in which the dark l occurs in English, sounding extremely
foreign. An easy way to lead students towards the correct articulation of [ ] is to place the sound in the
learners own language. Students are usually very good at imitating foreign accents, so pronouncing a
sentence like Manuel y Miguel hicieron aquel cartel with an English like pronunciation, will usually
help.
The articulation of Spanish / l / is also susceptible of modification by a neighboring sound, e.g.
when followed by / t, d /, it becomes dentals rather than alveolar: salto, escolta, pldora, maldecir.

VOICED RETROFLEX
/r/
Comparison with Spanish:
In Spanish are two r-phonemes:
/ /:the flap, which is pronounce when we find a single r in spelling which is not word initial position
or preceded by /n, l, s /: para, coral, siempre, corto.
When the r-sound occurs in word final position, it is usually pronounced as a fricative r which we will
symbolize as [ ]. This sound produced by the approach of the tip of the tongue toward the alveolar
ridge, without coming into contact with it. If a contact does occur, no vibrations are produced.
Examples oh this variant are found in words such as: mujer, huir, color.
/ r /: The trill, which is represented by r or rr in spelling.
- Word initial position: Ruben, reza, rama.
- Medial position preceded by /n, l, s /: Enrique, alrededor, desraizar, Israel.
- Medial position represented byby rr: parra, corral, tierra, torre.
It is important to notice that when two r- morphemes of Spanish are not in intervocalic position,
the contrast existing in other positions is neutralized; in other words, the opposition existing between
these two phonemes is lost. For example, the contrast between / / and / r / in pero and perro is
crucial, but the contrast is lost or neutralized in cases like tejer, carta, mojar, cargo, where the
substitution of one phoneme for the other will make no meaning differences.

PALATAL SEMIVOWEL
/j/
Comparison with Spanish:
In Spanish we also have a sound very similar to the English semivowel. This Spanish [ j ]
functions as an allophone of the vowel / i /. We find this sound in diphthongs starting with / i /, for
instance in /ia, ie, io, iu /.
Compare:
English
Spanish
yard
asitico
yes
pies
suit
ciudad
york
muri
Native Spanish speakers usually mispronounce English / j / when it is orthographically
represented by the letter y, since Spanish words are spelled with initial, are pronounce with the palatal
fricative in non-emphatic speech. They tend to pronounce words like yes, you, as /dzes/ and /dzu/.

LABIOVELAR SEMIVOWEL
/w/
Comparison with Spanish:
There is in Spanish a labiovelar sound which matches closely the English / w /. The Spanish [ w ]
functions as an allophone of / u /. English and Spanish ws are both labial, velar, and gliding; but in
defining the English phoneme the labial quality is more important. A clear illustration of this difference
is the way in which nasals are assimilated before / w / in each language: in English, the word
sandwich is pronounced by some speakers [
]; in Spanish, the same word (borrowed) is
pronounced by most speakers [
]. Another example of this importance of the velar quality of the
Spanish [ w ] is that in non-standard pronunciation you hear guevos [
] for huevos, guesos
[
] for huesos.
Among Venezuelan learners of EFL we can observe the tendency to substitute a / g / for / w /
when the labiovelar semivowel occurs in word initial position followed by a high back vowel. For
instance, instead of saying wood / /, they say good /
/, instead of women /
/, they

say
/
/. Another mistake observed is the introduction of / g / before word initial / w /: instead of
saying window /
/, they say /
/, and instead of saying when /
/, they say /
/.
Compare the two glides:
English
Spanish
west
hueste
wave
huevo
wake
hueca