Spanish pronunciation

Spanish Alphabet Pronunciation

 

Learning proper Spanish pronunciation is the best way to lay down the foundation of the Spanish language. Here is your how to on how to pronounce the alphabet and Spanish vowels. And let's not forget, Spanish diphthongs or cognates too.

Due to the fact that there are so many Spanish speaking countries, sounding like a native is not easy, but never fear as long as you learn how to pronounce Spanish, you are on the right track.  The dialect or accent is not that important, the key is to avoid misunderstandings.

A great way to improve your Spanish and learn how to pronounce Spanish words is to listen to Spanish radio or watch Spanish TV, you will be amazed at how much you can learn.

A couple of other parts of the Spanish language that differ from English, are the use of accent marks and punctuation.

Accent marks in Spanish are always placed over a vowel in order to indicate stress.

Ok so for some proper Spanish pronunciation.  Spanish is a phonetic language, meaning that words are pronounced just like they are spelled.

The letter/vowel A (ah)

is always pronounced as (ah) much like father in English.  Basic Spanish words like Ana, mapa, sala, are always pronounced with a long a, unlike hat, same or fame in English. If you say ah, as in ah that's it, then that is how you pronounce the letter a.

• ana (aa-nah) Anna
• mapa (mah-pah) map
• sala (sah-lah) room

The letters B and V (beh/veh)

are the same, and the sound falls somewhere in-between the two letters. 

The easiest way to describe it, is you place your lips and teeth to make a v sound and then try to make a b sound at the same time. 

• Vida (bvee-dah) life
• violín (bveeoh-leen) violin
• vaca (bvah-kah) cow
• bien (bvee-ehn) well
• bueno (bvoo-ehn-oh) good
• también (tahm-bvee-ehn) also

These are just a few examples of Spanish pronunciation.  I don’t want to overwhelm you with too much at one time.  But if you want more, jump over to my Spanish alphabet pronunciation page, or my Spanish vowels page or even my Spanish numbers page.

Letters Z and C (zeh-tah/ceh)

A lot of people ask how to pronounce Spanish words in different countries, there really aren't too many differences, but the most obvious is the difference between the pronunciation of the letter Z and C (when they appear before e and i).

The official language of Spain is Castilian (castellano), the rest of the Spanish speaking world – Latin America -speaks Spanish, except for Argentina (also known for speaking Castilian Spanish).

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 NOTE: Kah-stay-YAH-noh.  Remember we talked about the ll being pronounced as (ye) and the a(ah)?

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Ok moving forward with Spanish pronunciation...

In Castilian, these letters are pronounced like th in think.  In the Spanish of the rest of Latin America they are pronounced like s in see, just like the English s.  For example (por ejemplo):

Spanish word	Latin American Pronunciation	Castilian Pronunciation
cero (zero)	seh-roh	the-roh
gracias (thank you )	gra-see-ahs	gra-thee-ahs
cabeza (head)	kah-beh-sah	kah-beh-thah
zapato (shoe)	sah-pah-toh	thah-pah-toh

Now when the letter c falls in front of the vowels a, o, and u, it sounds like the English k.

• café (kah-feh) coffee
• casa (kah-sah) house
• coser (koh-ser) to sew/stitch

The Spanish pronunciation is the same between countries.

If you would like to continue with more pronunciation of the Spanish alphabet, simply jump over to my pronounce Spanish page.

And if you are simply too busy and want want to learn Spanish fast and all in one place, try out Rocket Spanish's free 6-day course. They have a great bonus lesson on pronuncation with a native Spanish speaker who demonstrates really well how to pronounce words and letters of the alphabet properly. Rocket Spanish helped my out tremendously, and I wasn't convinced until I did the trial run, it was well worth it.