Every one struggles when they first start learning Spanish, and one of the hardest things is the basic pronunciation. What this article will do is give you a quick fun way of to learn the rules and how to apply them to Spanish words
Welcome to Spanish for beginners, a pronunciation guide, the first thing we are are going to look at is the Spanish Alphabet (alfabeto).
a b c ch d e f g h i j k l ll m n D o p q r s t u vx y z
Firstly lest just acknowledge that there is on w, but we do have three letters that are not in the English alphabet, ch, ll and D. We will get to those soon, but lets start with the vowels.
Spanish For Beginners – A Pronunciation Guide – The Vowels
Unlike English vowels, Spanish vowels only have one sound.
a is said as in pat, not as in say.
e is said as in egg.
i is said as in feet, not as in bit.
o is said as in lot, not as in vote.
u is the exception to the one vowels sound rule! it is said as in pool, unless it is between a g and an i, or a g and an e, then it is silent, even then if it has two dots over it ü, then you do pronounce it as described. Easy?
Spanish For Beginners – A Pronunciation Guide – The Consonants
We will only look at the consonants the differ from their English cousins and leave our three new friends (ch,ll and D) until the end.
b and v have more or less the same sound, not as harsh as either of the English version, more a light breathy combination of the two.
c is pronounced as in cat, unless it is followed by an e or i, then it is pronounced like th in this.
d is very similar to the English d but is softer, especially if it falls at the end of a word.
h is silent, always.
j is good fun, it should not be said as in jump, instead it should be said like the ch in loch, quite throaty.
g has two sounds, its pronounced like an English j (as in jump) if followed by an e or i, and like an English g (as in girl) when followed by a, o and u.
qu is always pronounced like an English k, never a kw sound.
r is a letter you can have fun with, it should be rolled like a mini. rattle snake!
z is like the English th sound.
Go on have a go a go at few words now, try Havier, Valladolid, quiosco or Barcelona.
Spanish For Beginners – A Pronunciation Guide – Stress Rules
Spanish words are put into three groups when it comes to putting the right stress on a word, by stress I mean where you vocally emphasize the word (try saying emphasize out-loud, you will stress the em at the start of the word).
The first group is every word apart from those that end in a consonant other than n or s. In this first group the stress is put on the last syllable as in calor, lavar or nacionalidad.
The second group, the words that end in a vowel or n or s. Here the stress is on the syllable before last as in Mexico, nacimiento or primavera.
The last group is nice and easy, if you see a word with a letter with an accent like a D, then that is where the stress goes, as in marrón, fácil or también.
Well thats those are the ground rules for Spanish for beginners, I really hope they have helped, you can have great fun with Spanish, give it a try.
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