Pronounciation in Spanish
Vowels in Spanish
The pronunciation of Spanish vowels is easy for all native English speakers and for those ones which English is the second language. This is because there are similar vowel sounds in English and all the Spanish vowels are generally pronounced in the same way. In some cases Spanish vowels are pronounced slightly differently depending on the letters before or after them.
In Spanish,
- A is pronounced like the A in "awesome", never like the A in "apple".
- E is pronounced like the A in "hay".
- I is pronounced like the EE in "jeep".
- O is pronounced like the OA in "goat".
- U is pronounced like the U in "duty".
Consonants in Spanish
In Spanish
- B and V sound identical in Spanish in most cases, like the "b" in baby.
- G is pronounced like the g in good, except when it comes before an E or an I, when it is pronounced like the hard H in English (the Spanish J). Gimenez (himenez), Girona (hirona), Genial (henial)
- H is always silent "hola" is pronounced "ola". Hernandez (ernandez), Hermano (ermano)
- J is pronounced like the hard H of "hello", perhaps a little harder than one would say it in English. Javier (havier), juego (huego)
- L is pronounced like the L in "like", never like the "le" in ankle.
- LL is pronounced like the Y in "yawn", Lleno (yeno),
- Ñ is pronounced like the NY in "canyon". Nunez (nunyez)
- RR is the infamous rolling R, which stumps beginning speakers. You can try making to brum-brum sound imitating a car motor or imitate a cat purring.
- X is pronounced either like the S or the Spanish J, "experto", is pronounced as esperto, "México" is pronounced as meh-hee-co and not meks-ih-co.
- Z is pronounced identically to S, like "single". This pronunciation is standard in all of Latin American. In Spain, Z is pronounced as TH, as in the TH of 'math'.
