Sounds of Spanish

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 – goodbien - well vaca – cowvivo - I live verde – greentelevisión - 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 – moonpelo – hair ala – wingloro – parrot collar – necklaceella - She billete – ticketallá - over there millón – millionpollo - 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 – bigpera - pear rojo – redárbol - tree arroz – riceperro - dog torre – towerarriba -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 – garagegato – cat reloj - watch goma - rubber mujer – womanguitarra – guitar jamón – hamgorro - woolly hat ojo – eyeángel - 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 – housecolor - colour cuatro – fourcatorce - fourteen taza – cupcinco - five bloque – blockqueso - 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!

¡A practicar! ds/practice.shtml

Accents/Stresses

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

Fin