The Everything Spanish Grammar Book: All The Rules You Need To Master Espanol (Everything®) (5 page)

Pronunciation Guide

The basics of Spanish pronunciation aren’t difficult to master—only a few sounds don’t have an equivalent in English. And learning to read is much easier too because Spanish is written as it’s spoken. For example, in Spanish the vowel letter A is always read as “ah.” In contrast, the English vowel letter A can represent several vowel sounds: “ei,” “e,” “ah,” and so on.

ALERT

A Few Helpful Hints

Here are a few additional points to review:

B
and
V:
In many parts of the Spanish-speaking world, B and V are pronounced the same. At the beginning of the word or following M or N, they’re pronounced like the “b” in “box.” In all other cases, the Spanish B and V are actually modified to a soft “b” sound, with lips barely meeting. There’s no equivalent of this sound in English, and you’ll have to practice listening to it in Spanish and try to reproduce it.

D:
Pronunciation of D also depends on its place in the word. At the beginning or after L or N, it’s pronounced like the “d” in “deck.” In all other cases, it sounds more like the “th” in “mother.”

X:
In words of American Indian origin, X may be pronounced as a hard “h” or “sh.”

Y:
People in the Río de la Plata region (Argentina and Uruguay) pronounce Y (as well as the LL combination) like the “s” in “treasure.”

Z:
Pronunciation of Z varies from country to country. In some parts of Spain, it’s pronounced like “th” in “think.” In a few areas, it’s pronounced like the “z” in “zoo.” In most of Latin America and Andalusia (Southern Spain), it’s pronounced exactly the same as S.

Letter Combinations

To complete the guide to pronunciation, let’s review the letter combinations used to represent additional sounds:

CH:
Just as in English, these two letters combine to form the sound of “ch” in “chin.”

GU
and
QU:
Just as in English, “q” always comes in combination with “u,” but the result is slightly different—the U remains silent. For example,
que
(that) is pronounced keh;
quince
(fifteen) is pronounced KEEN-seh. GU works the same way:
guerra
(war) is pronounced GEH-rrah. In GU words where the U is pronounced, it’s written with two dots (an umlaut) to indicate the change in pronunciation. For example,
vergüenza
(shame), pronounced behr-goo-EHN-sah.

LL:
Generally, this combination serves to represent the sound “y” in “yellow.” In Argentina and Uruguay, it is pronounced like the “s” in “measure.”

RR:
This combination represents a long rolling “r” sound that does not have an equivalent in English. A single R at the beginning of a word also represents this sound.

UA:
In this vowel combination, the letter U becomes shorter, forming a sound similar to “w” in “war.” For example,
puerta
(door) is pronounced PWER-tah.

Showing Stress

Because Spanish is written just like it sounds, spelling is rarely a problem. The only issue that may pose some difficulty is the use of the accent mark ( ´ ).

Accent marks aren’t arbitrary. They’re used to show which syllable should be stressed in words that don’t follow the standard stress pattern. This pattern is easy to learn and can be described by two simple rules:

1.
If a word ends in a vowel, N, or S, it is generally stressed on the second to last syllable. For example:
carta
(CAHR-tah), letter;
manchas
(MAHN-chahs), stains;
cantan
(CAHN-tahn), they sing.

2.
If a word ends in a consonant other than N or S, it is generally stressed on the last syllable. For example:
merced
(mehr-CEHD), mercy;
cantar
(cahn-TAHR), to sing;
metal
(meh-TAHL), metal.

If the stress does not obey these rules, it must be signaled by adding an accent mark over the vowel in the correctly stressed syllable. For example, the word
útil,
useful, should be stressed on the last syllable, because it ends with an L. However, because the correct pronunciation of this word is OO-teel (and not oo-TEEL), an accent is placed over the vowel U. Here are a few other examples of words that require an accent mark because they do not follow the standard stress pattern:

Accent marks may also be used to distinguish words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. For example, words like “who,” “what,” and “where” are spelled with an accent mark when they serve as questions, but they lose the accent mark when they are used in the answer. For example:

¿Dónde está el almacén?

Where is the grocery store?

Está donde vive Carlos, en la calle Union.

It’s where Carlos lives, on Union Street.

Here are a few common pairs of words that may be distinguished by the presence of the accent mark:

Counting Off

Another basic skill is counting. Just as in English, Spanish numbers are organized by tens. To start counting, here is the first set, starting with zero:

The next set of numbers
includes the teens:

The numbers 20–29 are also
written as one word: