Alphabet and Pronunciation El Alfabeto y la pronunciación

The Spanish Alphabet The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters; 1 more than the English alphabet. The letter combinations of ch, ll, and rr were once considered separate letters. For the purpose of this class, we will view them as separate letters. The vowels in Spanish have one distinct sound and are always pronounced the same.

10 Rules for Pronunciation Rule 1: “b” and “v” are both pronounced “be” but not as hard as in English. Rule 2: If “c” comes before “a,” “o,” or “u,” it is pronounced like the English “k.” Rule 3: If “g” comes before “e” or “i,” it is pronounced like the letter “h.” It is pronounced like the letter “g” before an “a”, “o,” or “u.” Rule 4: Never pronounce the letter “h.” Rule 5: The letter “j” is always pronounced like “h” or a spitty “g.”

10 Rules For Pronunciation Rule 6: The letter “ll” is pronounced like the English “y”. Rule 7: The “n” is pronounced “ny”. Rule 8: The letter “q” is pronounced “k” but the “u” following the “q” is not pronounced. Rule 9: The “rr” is trilled. The letter “r” is trilled at the beginning of a word and when it come after “l” or “n”. Rule 10: The letter “z” is always pronounced like the letter “s”.

Practicing Pronunciation The best way to better your pronunciation is to practice every day. Find something written in Spanish and read it along or record yourself to see how you improve. Practice writing some sentences phonetically to help with longer, harder words. Listen to heritage speakers so you will know how the words are suppose to sound. You can do this by watching your favorite movie in Spanish, the Spanish-speaking channels, or simply listening to the many heritage speakers we have here in school.

Phonetics Phonetics can be defined as “the symbols used to represent the speech sounds of a language “. We will NOT use real phonetics but a resemblance to guide us to almost perfect pronunciations. The letter symbols will not change. The same symbols will always be used to represent the corresponding sound.

Examples El gato es rojo /ehl-gah-toh-ehs-rroh-hoh/ Mi mama y mi padre caminan los domingos. /mee-mah-mah-ee-mee-pah-dreh-ka-mee-nahn-lohs-doh-meen-gohs/ Juan tiene dieciocho anos. /wahn-teeeh-neh-deeeh-see-oh-choh-ahnyos/ Laura busca el libro que esta debajo de sus zapatos. /laoorah-boos-kah-ehl-lee-broh-kay-ehs-tah-deh-bah-ho-deh-soos-sah-pah-tohs/

Stress and Accent Where a word is stressed influences how it is pronounced. If a word ends in a vowel, n, or s, the natural stress is on the next to last syllable. If a word ends in a consonant, other than n or s, the natural stress falls on the last syllable. If a word does not follow the two above rules, the word has a written accent to denote the stressed syllable. If the stress falls on the third or fourth to last syllable, there is always a written accent. Some words have accent marks to denote meaning that is different from its counterpart without an accent (ej. sí: yes; si:if)