Spanish Pronunciation Course — Hear It, Say It, Spell It

Hi everyone! Welcome to a new course on Spanish, on the Spanish language. This will be a course specifically focused on Spanish pronunciation. First of all, if you don't know me already, my name is Clara, me llamo Clara and I come from Argentina. I have been talking and learning Spanish since when I was born and I'm here to teach you all about the Spanish pronunciation the ways we pronounce words in Spanish all the rules tricks tips and much more so in this course as I told you we we're we are going to be focusing on the main rules used by Spanish native speakers to pronounce the words. We are going to see all the letters, the alphabet and then some specific letters, the combination of some letters and the sounds they produce and then at the end of the course we are going to do something more practical, we are going to see some examples of the rules we are going to study in the first lessons, we are going to do some exercises, dictation, we're going to do something fun such as tongue twisters to practice the pronunciation of some specific sounds and words, so it's going to be fun. So this is the first lesson, let's say an introduction to the Spanish pronunciation. In this lesson we're going to cover the first of the basis of every language which is the alphabet. Before we begin I have to make a disclaimer. As I told you I come from Argentina and so the pronunciation I use and I am and I will be teaching you is the one from Latin America which in some regards differs sometimes a bit sometimes actually a lot from the pronunciation used by Spanish speakers in Spain when there will be the occasion I will tell you this is the Latin American pronunciation which is different from the Spanish one from Spain and I will make a brief comparison between the two so you know what are the main differences so keep in mind my pronunciation is the one from Latin America okay with this being said I think it's time to start with the actual lesson so the alphabet consists of the Spanish alphabet consists of 27 letters we have five vowels and then the consonants among the consonants we have all the letters you already know from English but with an addition which is a special letter which we're going to talk more about in the future in a future lesson however let's begin with the beginning and so I will tell you the English then I will the English letter then I will tell you how to say it in Spanish and then I will repeat the Spanish letters so you can repeat it with me and of course because it is a video you can pause and rewind and repeat it as many times as you want we're going to break down the alphabet in groups so you don't get all the 27 letters in a go but you have them in groups and then I will tell you to keep in mind the fact that there are let's say three main pronunciation groups in in spanish we have the vowels which are pronounced in a specific way then we have the letters which in english are pronounced such as b or c and in spanish we say b and c so they are very very similar but the vowel changes a little bit and then we have the letters which are pronounced for example when we say l in in spanish that is ele so you see it's very very similar just brief change in the pronunciation and then we have those letters which do not really have a correspondence such as we have J and Spanish is Jota so that would be the fourth group which is the one which doesn't really fit into the other three groups and I say vowels is the first group because they are pronounced in a specific way very very similar to the English one but at the same time it has a much more defined sound and we're going to see that in just a second and about the vowels we are going to focus on them in the second lesson so yeah we are going to talk about vowels for a bit okay so I introduced all these things now we're going to see them in greater detail so let's start a is a a b is b b c is c c d is d d e is e e is f f g is h h is h h i is Okay, so this is the first group. Let's repeat it again and then I will tell you a few things. So in Spanish that is A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I. Okay, so as you can see, we can already see the four groups, the three four groups I was talking about, the vowels. We saw the first three ones A, E, I and as you can hear they have a much more defined sound if in english we say a in spanish that is an ah if we say um i that is an e so it is very precise it is very defined okay so bear in mind this and also as you can see there is a little problem here because in english we say the letter e is e and the letter i in spanish is e so i repeat uh keep this in mind i know it is confusing but that is how it is so remember in english e spanish e in english i spanish e okay so the vowels the first three vowels met in spanish are a e okay so uh first group the vowels we have we have talked about them it's a very defined sound and you will see this also when it comes to the o and the u but we are going to see them later then we have the group of the letters which are b c in spanish very similar is b c so instead of using the i in spanish we use the e so b c and then the group of the f for example right so f f in english f in spanish and then the h etc okay so this is the first group Now let's go on. So we have said H, then J is J, K is K, L is L, M is M, N is N, and now we have special letter which doesn't exist in English but it does exist in Spanish there's this special N with a wave on top so remember and then we have which is O, okay so this is the other group let's repeat it together I, J, K, L, M, N, enye, O, okay? So this, again, the O, as you can see, is O, very defined sound. This enye, as I told you, is this N with a wave on top, it's pronounced enye, and the sound it makes is enye. But we are going to talk about this letter, as I told you, in a future lesson. Remember, it is an official letter of the alphabet, it and so you have to include it and it goes after the normal N okay so now on to the last group of letters so we have said M N ñ O then we have P is P Q is Q R is R, R, S is S, S, T is T, T, U is U, U, V is V or UV, I will tell you Y in a second, W is W, or WV is X, Y is Y, Z is zeta. Okay, I didn't pronounce them a second time, I forgot, but we will do it now. So let's repeat this last part. So P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, or V, W, Now why do we have the V or UV? Well because in Spanish there is something which is the similarity between the B and the V and many times I cannot tell you how many times native Spanish native speakers themselves mistake the B for the V and so they write a word which should have the B with a V and vice versa. So the RAE, which is the Real Academia Española, has included a new pronunciation, which is as correct as the old one, to try and differentiate between the B and the V. So instead of pronouncing BV there is also the possibility to pronounce them BV. So as you can see you hear much better the difference between the two letters because bv very similar bv they are already different right so you can choose the pronunciation you prefer i prefer using v because i'm more used to it but if you use uv it's perfectly fine actually is um correct and it is it is taught in schools and and stuff so you can choose whatever you prefer and then the w is actually a double a double v and so W if you say the W if you say okay so this is the explanation and again I am repeating we saw the you here the vowel you and as you can hear it is ooh not you is ooh okay so the vowels let's repeat them ah eh e oh very good so now let's repeat the whole alphabet again and then we are done with the lesson. So A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, O, P, Q, S, T, U, V, O, W, W, W, X, Y, Z. So, last thing I didn't told you, Y literally means the Greek I, which is the Y, right? So, Y means that, okay? Very good, so this was about the alphabet. As I told you, next time we're going to talk about the vowels in greater detail, because there are some rules we have to remember about them. But in general, this is a good way to start, I think. So, if you want, you can repeat the whole alphabet, you can rewind the video and repeat it alongside with me as many times as you want and I suggest you do that because as The more you practice your pronunciation the better You will you will be and the more quicker you will learn all these rules Anyway, I will see you in the next lesson Nos vemos en la próxima lección. ¡Adiós! ¡Hola a todos, hola a todas! Hello everyone and welcome to a new lesson on Spanish pronunciation Welcome to a new lesson of Spanish pronunciation. five vowels in Spanish as in English a e i o u this correspond to a e i o u i have already told you about the difference between a e in English e i so there's similarity in pronunciation between the letter E in English which is the letter E in Spanish and the letter I in English which is the letter E in Spanish there is this little problem let's say it's a very easy to get confused but remember again so E in English in in Spanish sorry is e in English e in Spanish is i in English okay so again the vowels are and as you can hear we have very definite sounds we don't have a o u no we have a o u etc okay now We have to make a distinction between these vowels. And more specifically a distinction between the hard vowels and the soft vowels. So the hard vowels are A, O, U. The soft vowels E, I. Okay, so why do we have vowels that are hard and vowels that are soft? Well, very simply because of the sound they produce. More specifically, the sound they produce with regards to two or three specific consonants, which are C, G and, on a certain extent, also Z. So, generally speaking, a consonant followed by a vowel has always the same sound, it doesn't change. For example, the word philosophy, you see a consonant F followed by a vowel I, sound F, philosophy, right? Then we have with the same consonant F, we can have the word fácil, again, a consonant F followed by a vowel, in this case A, and the sound, it's the same, F, right? It is the same sound, even though we have, in the first case, a soft vowel, the I, in the same example, we have a hard vowel, the A, but the sound the F makes is always the same. This is not true when it comes to the consonants C and G. And as I told you, the Z, let's put it in brackets, because it does not really follow this rule, and I will... talk about that later. So when it comes to C and G the sound these two consonants make depends on the vowel that follows. If the vowel is a hard vowel, the sound will be hard. If the vowel that follows is soft, then the sound will be, you guessed it, soft. And this rule, the difference between hard and soft only works for this C and G consonants. As I told you for example the F consonant it is always F. The sound is always the same regardless of hard or soft vowels. This difference is only important when it comes to C and G. Let's make some examples so you can understand better. Let's take the consonant C so we have two words casa and cena casa a consonant C followed by a hard vowel in this case a cena we have the consonant C followed by a soft vowel as you can see as you can hear we have two very different sounds we have a hard sound in Casa and we have a soft sound in Sena so C in the first case in the second case. Let's make an example with the letter G. For example las gafas and la gente. So gafas again is the consonant G followed by a hard vowel. In the second case we have the same consonant G followed by a soft vowel and in that case the sound is different. It makes the sound gente. okay so this is why we have to make the distinction between hard and soft vowels in the case of the G the this example is interesting because it shows the similarity between the pronunciation of the letter G followed by soft vowels which is a sound and the pronunciation of the J sound Jota right so both make the same sound . The G followed by a hard vowel is a , the G followed by a soft vowel is a , and the J followed by any kind of vowel, because it is not a consonant, it is not a C or G consonant, so the J followed by any kind of vowel, soft or hard, is again. Okay, we will talk about the difference between he he so the G followed by a soft vowel and the J huh in a later video for now let's repeat all the information I gave you so in Spanish we have five vowels a e i o u these five vowels are divided into two groups hard hard vowels and soft vowels. Hard vowels A, O, U, soft vowels E, I. This differentiation is important only when it comes to the consonants C and G. Forget about all the other consonants because all the other consonants behave the same way, so they produce the same sound regardless of the vowel that follows. I told you, Filosofía Fácil. Jota is the same sound, Juego and Cajita, okay? Just to give you an example. So all the consonants produce the same sound regardless of the vowel that follows, except for C and G. So C and G, when they are followed by a hard vowel produce a very hard sound k and G, casa and gafas when they are followed by a soft sound they make a totally different sound in the case of the C it is a C C so so when it is the G it's a hey he so very similar to the J okay now when it comes to the Z the Z follows the same rule as C and G the The only thing why did I put it in brackets is because it is very, very rare to find words made by the consonant z followed by a soft vowel. It is very hard, it is almost impossible, there are very few exceptions. So that is why I just put it in brackets, because I cannot show you the difference between the z followed by a hard vowel and the z followed by a soft vowel. But just to give you the theory, it follows the same rule as C and G. Okay, so last thing that I want to remind you is, as I said, the similarity between G and J. So G followed by an E or an I and the J followed by whatever vowel. For example, gigante and juego, the pronunciation is the same, but they are written differently. The first one, gigante, is GI, and the second one is J, so we are going to talk about that in the future. Okay, so hopefully this difference between hard and soft vowels is clear. It is not very difficult, it is not very complicated, but remember this difference. the sound that the C and the G make when followed up by either hard or soft vowel. Okay, so we'll see you in the next lesson in which we're going to talk about the letter H. It's going to be fun, so I will see you there. Bye! Hello everyone and welcome or welcome to a new lesson of our Spanish pronunciation course. talk about a very particular letter in the Spanish alphabet, which is the letter H, which has some specific rules of pronunciation, which we are going to talk about very very soon. Before we do that, I want to quickly repeat what we have done in the past two lessons. We have talked about the alphabet, el alfabeto, and more specifically about the vowels, las vocales. we said there are five vowels and they are divided into hard vowels and soft vowels and the only two consonants affected by this difference are the consonant c and the consonant g and also in a sense the consonant z so we have talked about that now let's focus as i told you more in depth on a letter, the letter H, in Spanish H. So the letter H is important because generally speaking it is a letra muda, so it is a silent letter. It is not pronounced most of the times. There are two exceptions, we are going to talk about them of course in this lesson. First of all, so the letter H, the letter H, how does it behave? Generally speaking, as I told you, you don't pronounce it so if it is at the beginning at the end in the middle of it well it will be very hard to find a spanish word with the h at the end so if it is at the beginning or in the middle of a word you generally don't pronounce the letter for example ahora means now in spanish and let's do the spelling a h o r a so in spanish that would be a h o r a ahora as you hear it um has the h in the middle of the word but you don't notice it you don't notice there is an H unless you see it written down, right? Because the H is silent, es muda. So basically you have to pretend it does not exist. You have to pretend it is written A-O-R-A when in fact there is an H in between the A and the O, right? But pretend it doesn't exist, pretend the H isn't there and so you pronounce it normally ahora. Okay, another word hasta as in hasta luego which means see you later hasta um is written with the h at the beginning h a s t a in spanish h a s t a hasta literally means until so hasta luego until i see you so until so see you later and um it is at the beginning but it's not it is not pronounced as i told you it is silent if it is in the middle at the beginning wherever it is silent so hasta hasta luego is pronounced as if the H doesn't exist so you have to pretend it isn't there you have to pretend the word is written A S T A when in fact it is written H A S T A so ahora hasta luego however I told you there are two main exceptions. The first one regards foreign words and foreign words is a very important topic when talking about Spain and the Spanish language because generally speaking the Spanish language tries to avoid as much as possible influence from foreign languages. Therefore to understand this concept better let's analyze two foreign words in particular two English words. Let's start with hobby. So, hobby is an English word that is sometimes used in the Spanish language. It is not part of this official Spanish vocabulary because there is a specific Spanish word for hobby which is afición. However, sometimes it is used by Spanish speakers and so because it is a foreign word that is not rooted into the vocabulary it is considered a foreign word 100% and so they tried Spanish speakers tried to pronounce it as close as the original as possible therefore in English we have hobby and in Spanish if you want to say the word you say hobby you pronounce the H a little bit like the English do because it is a word that is not again there is not part of the vocabulary of the Spanish language and therefore it is completely a foreign one so try to this let's say this H has this sound that in Spanish would be impossible to to have however there are other words such as hotel in English hotel which are part of the Spanish vocabulary. There are no other words in Spanish to say hotel. If for hobby we had afición, for hotel we have hotel and that's it. Therefore it is considered a Spanish word and so the Spanish try to Spanishize it in a sense that they treat it as a Spanish word and so because in the Spanish rules the H is not pronounced they do not pronounce it either so hotel becomes hotel okay so you have this exception regarding foreign words that if they are not very well rooted in the vocabulary they still follow the rules the foreign language follows okay so if in English we say hobby the Spanish try to say hobby as well. If instead we have very well rooted words such as hotel in Spanish hotel they are considered Spanish words and so they follow Spanish rules and so the H is not pronounced. Okay so this was the first exception regarding foreign words. The second exception is when the H is preceded by the letter C. So what happens when we have CH? Well in that case the H is not silent anymore and the two letters combined form a specific sound which is CH so remember when you have CH and CH only not HC it must be CH then the two letters the two consonants combine go together and they form the sound CH an example very famous example we will use this one in the next lesson as well because it is interesting to learn rules of pronunciation Che Guevara, famous revolutionary and so Che is written C H E in Spanish C H E and as you can see the C H C H come together and they make the sound CH so Che Guevara. Another example the letter H itself so it is interesting because in Spanish H is spelled H A C H E in Spanish that would be H A C H E and so at the beginning we have an H we don't pronounce it because it is an H and we don't pronounce it then we have another H but in that case it is preceded by the letter C and so in that case the H does it is pronounced but it makes the peculiar, the unique sound CH. So H. Okay, another word CHAMPU. So CHAMPU is the Spanish word for shampoo and do you remember I said that if a word there are no other words in the Spanish vocabulary to say something then the Spanish try to Spanish-cise the foreign word and make it 100% Spanish? Well Well, this is what happens with CHAMPU, so not only hotel but also CHAMPU. Why? Because CHAMPU in Spanish is not written S-H-A-M-P-O-O as in English, it is written C-H-A-M-P-U. So in Spanish that would be C-H-A-M-P-U. Why is that? Well, because they made it Spanish and so they made it sound like a Spanish word. And say H, sorry CH again, they come together and they form the sound CH. So that is CHAMPU. Okay, so this was the lesson about the letter H. So remember, general rule, the H is never pronounced, neither at the beginning, nor in the middle, nor at the end. But it is very difficult to find a Spanish word with the H in the end. But anyway, it is never pronounced. There are two exceptions. The first one, when it is preceded by the letter C. In that case, the two make together the sound CH. The second exception is when it comes to foreign words, which are not very well eradicated into the Spanish vocabulary, such as hobby. And therefore, we follow, the Spanish follow the rules of the foreign language. So if in English we aspire the H, then in the Spanish try to do it as well. When it comes to foreign languages that are not part of the Spanish vocabulary. Okay, so this was it. Next time we will talk about another letter, the letter Ñ, which I have anticipated in the first lesson about the alphabet. It is a particular letter that does not have a correspondent in English. We'll talk about it, it will be very easy. There are no particular rules about it, but we will deal with it in the next lesson. So I hope to see you there. Nos vemos muy pronto. ¡Adiós! Hi everyone! ¡Hola a todos! Welcome to a new lesson on Spanish pronunciation. Bienvenidos a una nueva lección sobre pronunciación española. In today's lesson we are going to talk about a unique letter of the Spanish alphabet, which is the letter Ñ. We have talked about it very briefly in the first lesson, as I told you. Ñ is one of the 27 letters of the alphabet. It is officially recognized as a letter of the alphabet, even though it has no real correspondence to other letters in other alphabets, such as the English alphabet. So the letter Ñ is a particular one, because it is an N with a little wave on top. In the past there have been other letters that belonged to the official Spanish alphabet, such as the LL, and we will talk about that in a later lesson, but in the recent decades they have disappeared, they are not part of the alphabet anymore officially and the Ñ instead let's say took their place and is now officially recognized as a letter of the Spanish alphabet um so how do we pronounce the letter Ñ what is it and why do we have that letter well simply the letter is like an n but it has a peculiar sound okay let's see some examples it is a very very common letter you will see it in in many words and simply the pronunciation is ñe so when you see an n with a wave on top well that is not an n so you don't pronounce it as n you pronounce it as For example, España is written E-S-P-A-Ñ-A, in Spanish that would be E-S-P-A-Ñ-A, and the pronunciation of that n with the wave on top is ñe, so it is not España, it is España. word niño. niño means child. We have N-I-Ñ-O. So N-I-Ñ-O. And again, you see the difference between the n and the ñ. So the n and the ñ. So at the beginning we have N, N, normal n so no me and then we have the ñ in it so yeah so me no me no okay yeah another word año so año is a año oh ah año you don't want to pronounce it without the ñ because without the ñ with a normal n that is a completely different word and you don't really want to pronounce it so the ñ enables us to understand that año means year and not something else so again año so the ñ is pronounced as ñ very similar word cumpleaños means birthday right so cumpleaños again cumple it is a whole word but cumple is not interesting for us what is it what is interesting is años so a ñ o s in spanish and again this n with the wave is yeah so okay so this is the letter ñ again remember it is not a normal n it is an n with a wave on top and when you see it the pronunciation is so as you can see it is very common to find this word so remember the difference so the sound is again España practice this word niño because it is important as it shows the difference between the n and the ñ, right? You have an n at the beginning, n, and then you have an ñ in the second syllable, so ñ, niño, niño. Okay, as you can see, however, it is no difficult, simply a particular pronunciation of a letter, which we don't have in English. But anyway, it is it is easy to remember and you won't have difficulties in mixing it with some other sounds as it happens with in other cases as we will see in later lessons so remember and yet the end with the wave on top is pronounced yeah very simple with this being said I will see you in the next lesson I will continue with this explanation of specific sounds of the Spanish language so I hope to see you there adios