Learning to pronounce Spanish is easy but it takes time and practice to speak it well. Many people learn some vocabulary to begin with and translate each word. There are a few special pronunciations that may give you a little trouble at first. The ‘v’, ‘b’, ‘r’, and the silent ‘h’ are the ones to focus on in order to learn to pronounce Spanish words correctly. If you want to master the language, you must first master these key pronunciations.
If you want your speech to sound as natural and intelligible as possible, the rhythm of your speech can be just as important as, say, the quality of individual vowels. As an illustration of the importance of rhythm in speech, think in English about how you’d differentiate a ‘lighthouse keeper’ from a ‘light housekeeper’. In this article, I’ll outline two important elements of rhythm and how they work in Spanish: syllabification and stress. Syllabification is the process of organising the sounds of a word or utterance into syllables, and can differ a little from language to language. Informally, when we clap a word or phrase, we clap once to each syllable.
There are so many tools available today to help one to learn. The English/Spanish Dictionary, audio tapes, and online courses can all help you to learn; if you want to learn. That’s right. I said if you want to learn. Studies revealed that if you don’t have an intrinsic motivation, you won’t try to learn. Perception plays a large role in the situation. The tutor mentioned above can provide feedback and support to you and this will create feeling of competence that will push you to learn Spanish.
Variation: Especially in some parts of Spain, there is some variation to (2): there’s a greater tendency towards separate syllables at the beginnings of words (e.g. ‘bi..lo.go’, though ‘bi.lo.go’ is also possible), and where one word with definitely separate syllables has an influence on another by analogy. Thus, the word ‘v.a’ (“road”, “route”, “way”), always pronounced as two syllables, tends to influence speakers’ pronunciation of ‘vi.a.ble’ (“viable”); ‘r.e’ (“he/she laughs”) tends to influence ‘ri.en.do’ (“laughing”), whereas on the other hand speakers would generally pronounce ‘sien.do’ (“being”) as two syllables.
When learning a second language, it is imperative that you know how the word comes out of ones mouth. You can also tell how their tongue accentuates the word. In the Spanish language, Latin speakers talk with their tongue right behind their teeth. This is what helps give their words a much more crisper sound then that of English words. In English, our tongue tends to stay in the back of our throat and that is why it is hard for most North Americans to speak the language spoken in Central and South America.
So in careful speech, ‘poeta ingls’ (“English poet”) would be syllabified ‘po.e.ta.ing.ls’, in five syllables, but in normal, relaxed speech would tend to be ‘poe.taing.ls’; ‘come y toma’ (“eat and drink”) would be ‘co.mei.to.ma’; ‘mi amigo’ would be ‘mia.mi.go’ etc. The word ‘zanahoria’ (“carrot”) is often pronounced as three syllables, ‘za.na(h)o.ria’: as mentioned before, the ‘h’ isn’t pronounced and doesn’t affect syllabification.
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