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Jiffy Spanish Lesson 2: Pronunciation

If you've ever spoken to someone learning English as a second language, you will understand how important learning (And practicing) correct pronunciation is. I'm sure you have spoken to someone learning English who had a really bad accent. They may have had a good grasp of the language itself, but what good is that if the people you want to speak to cannot understand you? So trust me when I say getting pronunciation down pat is an important skill to learn from day one.

Fortunately for you, Spanish is actually an easy language to pronounce. It is phonetic, which means it sounds like it looks. No silent letters like in English and other languages, so consider yourself lucky! A little trick that has helped me with my own accent, is pretending to put on a Spanish accent. If you've ever pretended to be Zorro, or Speedy Gonzalez, you know what I'm talking about. It's amazing how much your accent can improve using this little trick.

Some differences in Spanish

While Spanish uses the same alphabet as ours, there are a couple of different sounds to be aware of, if you are going to be speaking like a native. The first are the accents. When you see a ( ' ) above a letter, it means that the sound changes a little.

The second thing to watch out for is the tilde ( ~ ) above Ns. This changes how it is pronounced. If it makes it easier, imagine that if you remove the ~, you can replace it with a Y after the N.

To hear how the tilde N is pronounced, click the play button:

Another sound that we do not have in English is the roll of the "R". I remember meeting an Argentinian girl named Romina, who was quite frustrated that I couldn't pronounce her name right! It's actually not that tricky either, it just requires some practice before you can master it. Have a listen to the following sound clips to know what to imitate.

Spanish Vowel Pronunciation

As you can hear, Spanish vowels are not too tricky to pronounce.

Pronouncing Spanish Consonants

To understand how consonants are pronounced in Spanish, take a look at the following examples in English.

Ok, so that's Spanish pronunciation done. If you are ever unsure of how to say a particular word, come back here and refresh your memory.

Supplementary Sound Clips

From now on, you will find this section at the end of every lesson. The aim of this section is two fold. The first is to help you with your pronunciation of new words. If you constantly hear how words are spoken by a native speaker, then that is how you will also speak. The second is vocabulary building. Every lesson, you will see a few new words. Over time, this will help you build your vocabulary. To listen to any of the clips, simple click on the play button.

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