Spanish Consonants

Video Transcription

[MUSIC PLAYING] Consonants. So now we're done with the vowels and we're onto the consonants. You'll notice in these charts that some of the consonants carry asterisks beside them. This means that they have the same sound in English and in Spanish. So the letter B is B just like it is in English. Try this one banana, banana. Now banana because all A's are the same remember so banana, banana, the C has two possible pronunciations but it does in English as well. So in English if you have the word C-I-T-Y it's pronounced, that's right city not kittie. And if you have the word C-A-T it's pronounced, good cat not sat, right?

And you kind of instinctively know this in English unless you learned English as a second language in which case you probably do remember the rules but the rule is the same in both. The C's soft like an S, Si before an E or an I. The C is a hard sound like a K before other vowels. So we have in Spanish, [SPANISH] but [SPANISH] for a CO.

Again you'll instinctively do this the right way but I just wanted you to know the rule. If you have two C's back to back, the first one has a hard sound and the second one has a soft sound, so it's like this, 'c, 'c. Therefore accento is the word for accent. Accento. The letter Ch in Spanish, which by some Spanish speakers is still considered one letter officially it's not, officially it's two separate letters but it does act as one letter. What I mean by that is that combination makes just one sound and that sound is different than the C would make by itself or the H would make by itself. And it's pronounced like this, which 'ch is never a shoft 'ch. I tell my students that in Spanish you never hear 'ch unless somebody is being too loud at the movies. So 'ch, therefore chico, chico.

The D like it is in English, it is softer in the middle of a word or at the end of a word. If you forget to soften it that's OK they'll still understand you but if you're aiming for more authentic pronunciation then soften it up a bit. In fact, some Spanish speakers even use the 'd sound for the D in the middle of a word or at the end of a word. So the word for finger is dedo, dedo. And we sort of do this too. If you think about it, put your fingers right in front of your mouth and say the word daddy, daddy, daddy. You should feel more air come out on the D in the front of that word than on the D in the middle. Try again, daddy.

Now do, dedo. Put your fingers right in front of your lips, dedo. You should feel more air coming out on the first d than on the middle d. If you want it to be even more authentic, you can make that second d more like a th, detho, detho, where you actually put your tongue between your teeth. The word ciudad has to soft d's. Neither one would be duh, duh but rather ciudad, ciudad. The f is the same as in English. So we have the most important word you guys can learn on this screen which is farmacia, farmacia.

The letter G has two possible pronunciations just like it does in English, but it's going to be much easier to learn after we learn h and j so we'll come back to it. The h in Spanish is always silent. That's why you don't see a little asterisk there. Our h is always, ha. But theirs has no sound. So therefore, it's not hola but rather ola. And that's why it's asta luego not hasta. In fact, I'll have Spanish speakers who are native speakers but never learned the writing system for Spanish because they grew up here in the US, and they will very frequently leave off the h's on their words because they don't hear them. That makes total sense. So ola. It's always silent.

That does not mean they don't have the ha sound. However, it is made by a different letter. It's made by the j. So the j does not make the juh sound, it makes the ha sound. So that guy's name is José, José. And you might have heard of Juan, John, J-U-A-N, Juan. Or Jorgé for George.

So just to recap, the h is always silent. The j carries the h sound ha. So the sound that they really don't have phonetically speaking is the hard j, juh sound.

Now going back to the g. In English, we have two different sounds for the g. If you have g before a or u, it's the hard guh sound. So G-A-M-E would be, that's right, game. And then go, gut. Very hard guttural guh, guh sound. But when it comes before an e or i, it has a softer sound. So how do you say G-E-O-R-G-I-A, my home state, in English. Georgia, good. So it has a j sound before e or I.

So that's the rule in English. The rule is very similar in Spanish. Only, it's not going to be pronounced like our j. it's going to be pronounced like their j which is ha. So G-E-N-T-E is not gente because it's not hard before e or i and it's not gente. It's gente, gente.

And that's a pretty tricky thing for English speakers to remember. Let's try one more. Can you figure out how this country would be pronounced in Spanish? A-R-G-E-N-T-I-N-A. Ar-hain-tee-nah, Ar-hain-tee-nah, not Argentina. Ar-hain-tee-nah.

And, of course, just like in English, before A, O, or U, it's going to be a hard guh, guh sound. So, mi gato, meow as mi gordo, very fat. Y no toco la guitarra. She doesn't play the guitar. All right. So we have the word domingo, domingo. The G is guh there.

So we're skipping down to the letter K, which is just like it is in English. So try kilogramo, kilogramo. The L is also the same, luego, luego. What's different is the double L, or "ay, yay." It has a separate name because it has a separate sound.

It's not, technically, a separate letter anymore, but it sort of functions as one because they do say, "ay, yay" and the sound that it makes is not la. It's ya. So it would be Me llamo, for, I call myself. Not me "lamo," but me "yamo."

Now, in Spain, they have a special sound for the --e --ye. They sometimes pronounce it like a --zh, almost like a Z-H combination. So you may sometimes hear "me jamo, me jamo." That's from Castellano, the Castillian Spanish. But knowing that you're mostly going to be interacting with people from Latin America, and that the --y sound is far more predominant in Latin America, Me llamo is what you'll most often hear.

The M is just the same as it is an English. --m, so we have Mi, as an, Mi casa es su casa. Muy bien.

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Video Transcription

The letter N is just like it is in English, "nn." So we have no. In other words, no is no, no matter how you ask. We've already talked about the Ñ. It's like an N and a Y combination. If it helps to remember, you can pretend that the Y is tired, [SPEAKING SPANISH]. So he climbs up on top of the N, lies down sideways to take a siesta. Therefore it is not "es-pah-nol." It's "es-pah-nyol," "es-pah-nyol." And tomorrow is "mah-nya-nah," "mah-nya-nah."

Can you guess which N would carry the tilde, which one would be the Ñ in the word [SPANISH]? Is it the first one or the second one, "mah-nya-nah?" The first one because you hear the "nya" after the first mm-- "mah-nya-nah." [SPANISH] The P is the same, "pah-pell," "pah-pell" for paper.

The Q is similar. But there is one difference. In English and in Spanish, you will always see a U after the Q. Difference is that in English, that U actually affects the pronunciation. Whereas in Spanish, it does not. So the word quiet in English be "kwie-et." You actually hear the "wuh," "wuh" sound that the U is making, "kwie-et," right?

But in Spanish, you don't hear that. So Q-U-E is not pronounced "kwae." It's just pronounced "kay." So the Q functions like a K, "kay." And this is interesting to note because there are very few Ks in Spanish. You will far more often see a Q-U or just a letter C to make the "k" sound. Very infrequently will you see the letter K. That's because K was not part of the original Roman alphabet. It was adopted later on to accommodate words from other languages. So it's just not seen that often.

Now for the R. I'm going to give you a "Reader's Digest" version right now because right after this is a video tutorial that will explain it and illustrate. It you'll get to see my mouth making the shape for the Spanish R. The R in English is way in the back of the mouth. If you say the word car, car, you should feel the tongue pulling back in the mouth.

Whereas in Spanish, it's at the front of the mouth. So it's exactly where the double D is in the word ladder, ladder, ladder. So that tongue hits the roof of the mouth right behind the front teeth. So it's not a "ah-blahr." It's "ah-blahrd" "ah-blahrd."

And they'd sometimes repeat that sound. That's what they call trilling. It's when they repeat the R, or when it's the first letter of a word. For example, the word for rich is (TRILLING) "rr-eeko." So they would trill that. If you can trill it, you would trill it at the very beginning of a word, (TRILLING) "rr-eeko." If you have a double R, it's always trilled, or always repeated. So (TRILLING) "caddo," "caddo."

Now enjoy the video.

The Spanish R and the Spanish double R-- despite what your high school Spanish teacher may have told you, you really don't need to stress too much about whether or not you can trill your R in Spanish. In fact, the placement is far more important than being able to trill or repeat the sound. And leaving that aside, it is far more important to pronounce your vowels correctly than it is to pronounce the letter R correctly because there's a vowel in every single syllable of every single Spanish word, and they tell you very important information, such as gender and who did something when.

So really, in the grand scheme of things, the trilling of the R is not so important. However, the placement of the R is very important. So I'd like to talk to you about that for a little bit. In English, the R is what's called a velar R, which means we pull the tongue back to the roof of the mouth. So I want you to try to say this English word car and hold out the R as long as you can. Ready? Go, "carr."

Do you feel your tongue pulling back? Thus because that's the velar region. And our tongue does pull back and up in English. Now, if you were to pronounce the word C-A-R-R-O in Spanish, "car-roh" with an English R, that would be like nails on a chalkboard at the least. And it might cause a lack of comprehension, which is not at all what you want.

So what you would need to do is to pronounce the R in a different place in your mouth. In Spanish, it's in the front of the mouth. It's going to cause the tip of your tongue to touch the top of your mouth, the roof of your mouth, behind your front teeth. But don't let the tongue actually touch the teeth because then it'll come out more like an L. But you want to pull it back a little bit.

So it's like the sound that the double D makes in the middle of a word in English. So think of the word ladder, ladder. Think of that double D sound. Now I want you to focus on where your tongue is hitting the roof of your mouth as you say ladder with me a few times, ladder, ladder, ladder. That's where the R is in Spanish.

Now, pretend that C-A-R-R-O is spelled C-A-D-D-O. You don't really want to spell it that way. But let's just use our imaginations. It would be "caddo." Try it, "caddo." that's exactly where you should pronounce the R in Spanish. And if you pronounce it "caddo" you will be understood by a native Spanish speaker very readily, even if you can't trill. If you can trill, that's icing on the cake, (TRILLING) "carr-rro." You would trill it there. Try again, "carr-rro."

The double R is always trilled. The single R is trilled at the beginning of a word. So now I want you to try this country name, "Pwaerto (TRILLING) Rr-eeco." "Pwaerto (TRILLING) "Rr-eeco." How would you say prescription? (TRILLING) "Rlay-say-tah," (TRILLING) "rlay-say-tah," if you can't trill. If you can't, "rr-say-tah" is fine. Just not "ray-say-tah." So try (TRILLING) "rlay-say-tah," "rlay-say-tah."

And here's the word for dog, P-E-R-R-O. It would be (TRILLING) "paird-loh," if you can trill. If you can't, "pair-lo" is fine. So again, it's not the trilling. It's the placement that's the most important. If you'd like to practice in a way that's kind of fun, you can lie down upside down on your bed or a sofa, let your head lean back, and try these words like, [SPANISH] with your head leaning back. That will force the tongue to the right spot in the roof of your mouth. Have fun. [SPANISH]

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Video Transcription

The letter S is just like it is in English. So we have the word [SPANISH]. The letter T is the same, only it's a little softer than an English when it falls in the middle or at the end of a word. So our example of it being at the beginning is [SPANISH] for uncle, [SPANISH]. And our example for it being in the middle of a word is [SPANISH]. Notice it's not "gah-toe" but rather dotto-- "gahdho." [SPANISH] It's much more muted.

Again, you can use your fingers in front of your mouth to help you envision that. So we have [SPANISH]. You should feel more air coming out on that T, [SPANISH]. And now [SPANISH], with your fingers in front of your mat you should feel far less air coming out on [SPANISH].

The letter V is like the letter B, in most dialects that is. There a couple of dialects of Spanish where they do have the "vuh" as in Victor sound. But for the most part, it's just like the letter B. Therefore, it's not "vee-ae-ho" but rather "bee-ae-ho," [SPANISH].

The W is like it is in English, "weh," for example. However you very, very rarely see a W. It's another one of those adopted letters. The X has two possible pronunciations, but they're different than the two possible pronunciations in English. In English if we have an exam, "egg-zam," we have a harsher sound. You have a G, a hard G, "guh," the gutteral G followed by a Z, "egg-zam." Then in Spanish it's "k-ss" "k-ss," much softer, right? So it's not "egg-zam-in." It's "ex-ah-min," "ex-ah-min."

And according to the rules, it should be pronounced like an S when it comes before a consonant, so "ae-stra," "ae-stra." But the truth is that a lot of Spanish speakers will still pronounce that X before a consonant like "ex." So you will sometimes hear "aex-xtra" and "aex-ah-len-tae." The most important thing is not to pronounce it like "gzz." So try this again, "ex-ah-min," "ex-ah-min," much softer.

The Y is the same as in English. Here it's acting as a consonant, so it makes the sound "yuh" as a yo, yo. Just as the double L makes the "yuh-- sound, where in Castillian, castellano, it can also be pronounced "zh." In castellano, that dialect of Spanish, you will also hear the Y pronounced as "zh." In fact, some people pronounce my daughter's name "Mai-zha" instead of Maya-- M-A-Y-A-- because of that very reason. So if you're speaking with someone who speaks Castillian, just be aware that they will use the "zh" sound, the Z-H sound.

The Z is like an S. So that's the sound-- or another phonetic sound that's missing from their alphabet that we do have is the "zz." So it's not "em-pay-zar." it's "em-pay-sar," "em-pay-sar." And the word for shoes, [SPANISH] "sah-pah-toes."

I was teaching a class of Spanish speakers who wanted to learn English. And to get them to make the sound "zz" for English I had to tell them to envision bees flying around the room. That worked. "Zz." Oh! "Zz."

[SPANISH]