Spanish Pronunciation Made Easy: A Beginner's Guide

A beginner’s guide to Spanish pronunciation should focus on the basic sounds of the language, including vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation.

Spanish Pronunciation Basics for Beginners

• Vowels: Spanish vowels are pure sounds and have one consistent pronunciation. There are five vowels:

  • A as in amigo (ah)
  • E as in elefante (eh)
  • I as in índice (ee)
  • O as in oso (oh)
  • U as in uno (oo)

• Consonants: Most consonants are pronounced similarly to English, but some are distinct. For beginners, it’s important to note:

  • The letter “h” is silent (e.g., hola).
  • The letter “j” is pronounced like an English “h” in “house.”
  • The “ll” is often pronounced like a “y.”
  • The “ñ” is like the “ny” sound in “canyon.”

• Stress: Spanish words have natural stress on one syllable. Usually, words ending in vowels, “n,” or “s” stress the penultimate syllable; words ending in other consonants stress the last syllable unless indicated with an accent mark.

• Intonation: Spanish intonation generally rises at the end of questions and falls at the end of statements, similar to English.

This general introduction covers essential pronunciation elements for Spanish beginners and can help establish a strong foundation for further learning.

References

• Camino al español

• 500 Spanish verbs for dummies

• What is the role of the reading aloud activity in the foreign language teaching-learning process of a beginners class ?

• Medics on the Move South Africa: Access to Medical Words

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• Evidence-Based Design Principles for Spanish Pronunciation Teaching

• Powerful and Effective Pronunciation Instruction: How Can We Achieve It?

• Después de usted: Variation and Change in a Spanish Tripartite Politeness System

• Variety of pronunciation models in European and American teaching or (self-)learning manuals of pronunciation for non-native speakers of Spanish

• Resolving contiguous vowels across word boundaries in Spanish: L2 learners, levels, and tasks

• Resyllabification Reconsidered: On the Durational Properties of Word-Final /s/ in Spanish

• Spanish prepositions and silent PLACE

• A holographic mobile-based application for practicing pronunciation of basic English vocabulary for Spanish speaking children

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• Utterance Signaling and Tonal Levels in Dominican Spanish Declaratives and Interrogatives

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• The Development of a Comprehensive Spanish Dictionary for Phonetic and Lexical Tagging in Socio-phonetic Research (ESPADA)