Sounds of Spanish. Unlike French, in Spanish you must pronounce every single letter except ‘h’....
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Transcript of Sounds of Spanish. Unlike French, in Spanish you must pronounce every single letter except ‘h’....
Unlike French, in Spanish you must pronounce every single letter except ‘h’.
Once you have learnt the sounds of Spanish you can pronounce ANY Spanish word!
In mainland Spain the letter ‘v’ is pronounced as a ‘b’, so the word holidays ‘vacaciones’ is said more like [bacaciones].
¿Puedes decir palabras con B y V?
Can you say words with B and V?
bajo - short (height)
bueno – good bien - well
vaca – cow vivo - I live
verde – green televisión -
television
In Spanish, 'll' is pronounced like 'y' in English. Notice that Spanish handwriting is slightly different to ours.
¿Puedes decir palabras con L y LL? Can you say words with L and LL?
¡Hola! - Hello! color – Colour
luna – moon pelo – hair
ala – wing loro – parrot
collar – necklace ella - She
billete – ticket allá - over there
millón – million pollo - chicken
In Spanish the 'r' sound is rolled when doubled 'rr', and if it's at the beginning or end of a word.
¿Puedes decir palabras con R y RR?
Can you say words with R and RR?
rubio – blonde río – river
grande – big pera - pear
rojo – red árbol - tree
arroz – rice perro - dog
torre – tower arriba -above
The curly line or 'tilda' over an 'n' in Spanish means it is pronounced 'ny', like the first 'n' in 'onion'. So 'baño' (which means toilet or bath) is
pronounced [banyo].
¿Puedes decir palabras con N y Ñ? Can you say words with N and Ñ?
mano – hand
uno – one
mañana - morning/tomorrow
uña - nail
¡ ñam ñam! - yum yum!
The 'j' in Spanish is pronounced in the back of the throat like the 'ch' in some
Scottish words like 'loch.'
¿Puedes decir palabras con G y J?
Can you say words with G and J?
garaje – garage gato – cat
reloj - watch goma - rubber
mujer – woman guitarra – guitar
jamón – ham gorro - woolly hat
ojo – eye ángel - angel
Spanish can sound different in different regions.For example, in northern Spain people usually say 'z' like the English 'th' in 'think'. However, in most of Latin America people say 'z' like the English
's'.
¿Puedes decir palabras con C, Q y Z?
Can you say words with C, Q and Z?
casa – house color - colour
cuatro – four catorce - fourteen
taza – cup cinco - five
bloque – block queso - cheese
quince - fifteen
H – this letter is never pronounced in Spanish.
Eg: Hola Helena, ¿Has hablado con Hector?
(Hello Helena, have you spoken to Hector?)
¿Puedes decir palabras con H?
Can you say words with H?
hola – hello
hablo - I speak
hamburgesa – hamburger
huevo – egg
historia - history
I/Y – these letters sound like the ‘ee’ in tree.
Eg: Sí, Madrid es divertido y bonito.
(Yes, Madrid is fun and beautiful.)
¿Puedes decir palabras con I/Y? Can you say words with I/Y?
vino tinto – red wine
sonido – sound
hija – daughter
geografía – Geography
castillo - castle
Qu – this is pronounced like the English letter ‘K’.
Eg: ¿Qué quieres?. Quiero queso por favor.
(What do you want? I want cheese please.)
¿Puedes decir palabras con Q?
Can you say words with Q?
¿Qué tal? - How are you?
¿Quién es? – Who is it?
¿Qué disastre! – What a disaster!
¡Qué asco! – How awful!
Spanish uses accents or stressed letters to help with the pronunciation of words.
Unlike French there is only ONE type of accent and it only goes in this direction (/)
Fall your voice where you see the accent.Eg: María = Mary las matemáticas = maths cómodo = comfortable
For words that don’t have visible accents the following rule applies…
Stress the last syllable for words ending in a consonant.Eg: animal = animal
Stress the second last syllable for words ending in a vowel.Eg: libro = book