Pronunciation Guide for Spanish Students

One reason many people pick Spanish as their choice for a foreign language is because theyve heard that its easy to learn its pronunciation. Indeed thats the case — even though some of the sounds can be difficult for foreigners to master. Its relative ease of pronunciation stems from the phonetic nature of Spanish: By knowing the spelling of a word, you can almost always know how its pronounced. The biggest exception is recent words of foreign origin, and in that case, you have a head start if you know English, because most such words come from English. The key, then, to learning Spanish spelling is to learn how each letter is pronounced. You can find guides to each of the letters on the following pages: Pronouncing the vowels: A, E, I, O, U, YPronouncing the easy consonants (ones pronounced roughly as they are in English): CH, F, K, M, P, Q, S, T, W, YPronouncing the difficult consonants (ones pronounced differently than in English): B, C, D, G, H, J, L, LL, N, Ñ, R, RR, V, X, Z Here are some general principles of Spanish pronunciation that you may find helpful: The vowel sounds of Spanish are usually purer than those of English. Although the vowel sounds of English can be indistinct — the a of about sounds much like the e of broken, for example — that isnt the case in Spanish.It is very common for sounds of words to blend together, especially when a word ends in the same letter that begins the next word. For example, helado (ice cream) and el lado are pronounced identically. This process is known as elision.Sounds of consonants tend to be softer or less explosive than they are in English. One notable example is the sound of the h, which has become so softened over the centuries that it is silent in modern speech.The rules on which syllable is stressed are clear and have limited exceptions. If a word has a nonstandard stress, a written accent  is placed over a vowel to indicate the correct stress. Unfortunately, although you can tell how a word is pronounced by its spelling, the reverse isnt always so. In fact, native Spanish speakers are often poor spellers. Thats because Spanish has a fair number of homophones  -- words that are spelled differently but pronounced alike.