Mar
15
English sounds that don’t exist in Spanish
In the first full episode of the Spanish Pronunciation 101 series, our teacher Martín Ventola talks about English consonants sounds that don’t exist in Spanish. What’s a consonant? Well, it’s any letter that isn’t a vowel (a,e,i,o,u). Yeah, I know, that’s a cheesy definition. You can find a more erudite one here. What’s important to know is that the English sounds of these letters can interfere with correct Spanish pronunciation, so that’s why it is important to be aware of them.
Some of the English consonants sounds we address are the following:
Sound “z” in zoo, cheese, exit
This is buzzing sound, like the sound of a bee. Does not exist in Spanish.
Sound “v” in vase, cover
This English “v” sound does not exist in Spanish. Just pronounce the “v” like a “b” when speaking Spanish and you’ll be perfect.
Sound “th” in think, anthem
This sound only exists in Castilian Spanish. The “th” of anthem is the same “th” sound used for the Spanish “z” in Spain. Zapato is pronounced “tha-pa-to”. But this in only in Spain. Outside of Spain, this “th” sound is not used.
Sound “h” in heat, ahead
The “h” is silent, i.e. mute, in Spanish. Avoid pronouncing the “h” at all times whenever you say words like hombre, hambre, hora, etc. Just pretend the “h” isn’t there whenever you say a Spanish word that contains it.
Sound r in horse, carry
The English “r” sound is very different from the Spanish “r.” Martín and I briefly mention the letter “r” in this podcast but we’re going to devote an entire episode to this bad boy of the Spanish alphabet, particularly his naughty twin, the double rr, who delights in throwing a wrench in English speakers’ Spanish pronunciation.
This episode is a little technical, but never fear, Martín has written a detailed explanation on his blog about the various terms (voiced and voiceless fricatives) he mentions in this podcast. He also gives us more examples of additional English consonants sounds (g, j, l,) that we didn’t have time to cover in this podcast.
The next episode in this series will focus on Spanish consonant sounds. Please leave feedback and suggestions in the comments section or send me a private message through the blog’s contact page. Thanks!
[...] In this podcast Martín Ventola talks at length about some of these sounds from English that interfere in pronouncing Spanish correctly. You can get more details here. [...]
Good stuff. Keep it coming! I find it surprising that for such an important aspect, so little attention is often given to the phonetics of Spanish. In the night-class courses that I took at a local college, it was hardly touched on.
Great episode! Like Graham, I found it very dissapointing that no teacher in college is concentrating on pronounciation. For example, lots of people in my class can’t pronounce the rr (I had to find this out the hard way, with Spaniards laughing about my erre and stuff like that).
If you’re talking about the erre in another episode, consider the steps I talked about on my own blog. Of course they’re not the only way to come to a perfectly rolled r, but I found a lot of other people suggesting them around the web (yes, I didn’t come up with the method, just combined things that enabled me to roll one).
“RR” is the bane of my existence. I hate it, I cant say it! I just blow a lot of air over the tip of my tongue and no sound comes out! My double RR (very English sounding) only makes sense to those that have learnt English. I can’t really say the difference between “pero” and “perro”!
Do you have any tips to learn it? I have read nearly every page I can find on the internet (blogs, a video showing tongue position, forums)
[...] so I know this is a wee bit off topic but kind of oddly related, considering yesterday’s Spanish pronunciation podcast. I find this YouTube video amusing and amazing at the same time. This woman, “Amy [...]
Yes, this is something that has always puzzled me as well. I guess it’s because of the belief that Spanish pronunciation should be “easy” because each letter only has one sound and you pronounce a Spanish word exactly the way it is spelled, unlike English, where a word can be pronounced in different ways depending on the meaning. For example, bass (in music) and bass (the fish).
Also, my experience as a student of Spanish has been that many teachers don’t have a background or any training in Spanish phonetics so they’re reluctant to try and teach that aspect of the language. I’ve heard teachers say “just listen and imitate,” but for some students that’s not enough. Some students need to know the mechanics involved in pronouncing a word correctly, not just hearing a native speaker say the word.
@ Rmss, yes, the “rr” is on the list for a future episode.
@Andrew, visit Rmss’ blog where he talks about how he went about conquering the rr.
http://spanish-only.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-roll-your-r.html
Martín and I are going to put together a solid episode that will help us slay this dragon once and for all!!
Thanks to you all for commenting!
The first time I was around some Spanish people when there was a newborn baby in the room, I was astonished to see that all the Spaniards, when they had the baby, would make ‘rr’ rolling tongue sounds. I thought it was so interesting that the hardest sound for me to make was the first that they were feeding to the infant’s brain.
I just thought I’d share that.
I find that, in actual practice, rarely do the words ‘pero’ and ‘perro’ get confused in context, even if you pronounce them the same way.
This one is good:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wsCxjH94gks
Aww man, that YouTube audio of Ted Kennedy speaking Spanish is downright awful! And you can hear people laughing loudly in the background as he mangles the Spanish language. Poor Teddy. Instead of gaining votes for Barack Obama, I think he may have cost him a few.
@Erik, believe it or not there are some native Spanish speakers who have trouble trilling their rrs. It’s considered a speech impediment. There’s a special name for it in Spanish when somebody can’t trill their rrs but I can’t remember it now. My ex had this problem when he was a little kid and it took him a few years to get the hang of it.
@eleena
Maybe Obama should speak Spanish, I believe he could do very well because he knows Bahasa Indonesia which sounds very similar to Spanish.
Here is what Ted Kennddy says:
muoh’choh’ma’ss gra’sses
wah’mos’ah’ganah’ en’ novi, e, m, b, r, e
Eleena, it’s called ‘rotacismo’. It’s also considered an impediment in Scotland.
Well, normally the erre is the last sound kids learn, up to an age of 5. In the Netherlands most kids learn the throat rolled r which is correct here, but when they want to learn Spanish or any other language which has a tongue rolled r, they’re in trouble. Hehe :).
If you ever want a “class” on this topic, most universities offer Spanish Linguistic courses. PSU really drilled this type of information. Unfortunately, in a high school classroom it is very hard to focus on sounds when you have an entire curriculum to cover with vocabulary and grammar aspects. Sure your pronunciation might make people smile but at least you are getting your point across
I’m majoring Spanish in college, and still; pronounciation is something my teachers almost never discuss.
I teach Spanish and Spanish phonetics at the university level and it is too bad that teachers don’t work on pronunciation in Spanish classes. One comment about the consonant info of this blog.. It is true that the “z” in Spanish is not pronounced like the “z” in English. Spanish “z” sounds like “s”.. it is voiceless…no vibration of vocal chords. However you said that this sound ../z/.. does not exist. That is not exactly true.. the /z/ sound does exist in Spanish but it is for the “s” when it comes before a voiced consonant…such as words like mismo, rasgo, and desde.
I created a podcast for my students to help them with their Spanish pronunciation and the topic of my next podcast happens to be the English “z” and its influence in Spanish and the /z/ sound in Spanish.
http://syllable.rice.edu/langex_07_08/BLOGS/36
I enjoyed your blog and podcast.. thanks.
Thanks to all who have commented on this thread. These are the most comments I’ve received to date on a single topic! Keep them coming! And a special thanks to Prof. Peggy, for your detailed comment and for the link to your web site. I’ve Stumbled it.
I’ve been compiling a little audio library of accents from around the Spanish-speaking world. You can see (and hear!) the first results of the project here: http://es-xchange.blogspot.com/2008/03/seseo-ceceo-and-ye-or-some-major.html
Graham,
Wow! That’s an extremely comprehensive resource you’ve built. Thank you for telling us about it!
Peggy; the /s/ sound for the z is, of course, for the bigger part how the Latin-American speakers pronounce it. In Spain the majority pronounce it as /T/ (X-Sampa) or /θ/.
Rmss, Yes, of course the “z” and “ce” and “ci” are pronounced differently (as /θ/) in most areas of Spain as compared to Latin America. I should have made it clear in my Post that I was talking about Spanish spoken in Latin America. But I was referring to the voiced and voiceless sibilants and how the English sounds can affect Spanish pronunciation.. ie the voiced /z/ for the letter “z” instead of the voiceless /s/ (in LA) or the voiceless /θ/ in Spain. Even in Spain the /θ/ is voiceless for ‘z’ depending on the environment in the word. And the /z/ sound in Spanish comes from the letter “s” followed by a voiced consonant (like the examples I gave in my post before.. rasgo, mismo, desde.) This also occurs in most parts of Spain (not in the south if they aspirate the “s”) . Thanks for pointing this out .
Graham,
I have never heard of rotacismo as referring to the inability to produce the trilled “r”. I learned that ‘rotacismo’ is when the speaker produces the /r/ sound instead of /l/ sound for the syllable final letter “l’ ….although not real frequent it as is done by Spanish speakers in some parts of the Spanish speaking world.
soldado –> /sordado/
Hi Peggy
The term applies to both phenomena. Here are a few links about it:
«…(trastorno en la articulación del fonema ), cuando esta se enfoca solo en un fonema se llama dislalia selectiva; y cuando el fonema es la “r” se conoce como rotacismo.»
http://destellosdeluna.wordpress.com/2006/03/21/rotacismo-pronunciar-la-r/
«El rotacismo es el nombre que se da a la dislalia selectiva del fonema /ɾ/ o /r/. Es normal en niños menores de 5 años que están aprendiendo a hablar.»
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotacismo
«En la lingüística, el rotacismo (del griego rho, la letra R) es un fenómeno lingüístico en el que una consonante distinta se convierte en R. De esta manera el rotacismo forma parte del proceso de cambio lingüístico.»
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotacismo_(ling%C3%BC%C3%ADstica)
Cheers, G.
Graham Stephen,
Thanks so much for the info. I am going to use some of this in my phonetics class. I really appreciate it.
Peggy
No hay de qué, Peggy
[...] only have one /s/, pretty much the same as the English. If you missed it, go back and check out the previous episode in this series about English consonant sounds that don’t really exist in Spanish. And if you want to be sure to catch all future episodes [...]
The youtube about Ted Kennedy totally missed the boat! Hispanics at that rally were happy to hear a United States senator trying to communicate in their nnative tongue and loved him for the effort. They probably delighted to hear Senator Kennedy struggle with the language, just as they have struggled with English.
Anyone old enough to remember the roar of approval from the German crowd four decades ago when John Kennedy said, “Ik bin ein Bear-lean-ear” to the people? I do - German was my first language, and even though his Boston accent could be heard in every syllable, I loved his effort.
One of the big things that I notice with native English speakers is the way they pronounce the letter D in Spanish. It’s semi-dental in Spanish, as opposed to lingua-aveolar in English.
Yep, the letter D is another sticking point. It’s on the list to cover in a future pronunciation episode. Thanks for your comment!
Karen,
I don’t know, I really squirmed when I heard the Teddy Kennedy audio. I still think some of those people were laughing at him. But you’re right about JFK. That was definitely an incredible moment in history. I wasn’t alive when it happened, of course, but when one hears the audio and knows the historical context, it does seems quite thrilling to hear JFK say those three little words and the reaction it caused.
[...] English Consonant sounds that don’t exist in Spanish [...]