Scribd
Upload
102 views4 pages

Pronunciation Problems For Spanish

This document discusses pronunciation problems that Spanish-speaking learners of English may experience. It notes that Spanish does not distinguish between short and long vowels, which causes difficulties with vowel pairs like "bit/beat." It also explains that Spanish does not have certain vowel and consonant sounds found in English, such as the "th" sound. Additionally, differences in word stress, sentence stress, intonation and number of syllables between the two languages can pose challenges. The document provides examples to illustrate each problem area and suggests techniques for pronunciation practice.

Uploaded by

Andy J
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
102 views4 pages

Pronunciation Problems For Spanish

This document discusses pronunciation problems that Spanish-speaking learners of English may experience. It notes that Spanish does not distinguish between short and long vowels, which causes difficulties with vowel pairs like "bit/beat." It also explains that Spanish does not have certain vowel and consonant sounds found in English, such as the "th" sound. Additionally, differences in word stress, sentence stress, intonation and number of syllables between the two languages can pose challenges. The document provides examples to illustrate each problem area and suggests techniques for pronunciation practice.

Uploaded by

Andy J
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Pronunciation Problems For

Spanish-Speaking Learners
Of English
Pronunciation problems and solutions for all speakers of Spanish.

Written by Alex Case

Although a strong Spanish accent is usually easier to understand than a


similarly strong French or Portuguese one, the pronunciation can cause
considerable strain for the listener and seem somewhat harsh and flat.
More importantly, Spanish speakers often have listening comprehension far
below their other skills.

School English lessons in most Spanish-speaking countries also tend to


focus much more on reading and grammar than speaking and listening, and
so pronunciation work will both help redress the balance and be considered
worthwhile by students.

Points That Spanish-Speaking Learners Of


English Find Difficult
Vowels

Short and long vowel pairs

Perhaps the single biggest pronunciation problem for Spanish speakers is


that their language does not have a distinction between short and long
vowels. They often stretch all vowel sounds out too much and confuse pairs
of short and long English vowel sounds like “ship” and “sheep” both in
comprehension and speaking. Relevant pairs include:

 bit/beat
 not/note and bought/boat
 batter/barter
 pull/pool

As the pairs above are all pronounced with different mouth positions as well
as different lengths, focusing on that can help students distinguish between
the minimal pairs above even if they don’t fully understand the idea of
vowel length.
Other vowels

In common with most learners, Spanish speakers find the distinction


between the very similar sounds in “cat” and “cut” difficult to notice and
produce. Perhaps more importantly, they can also have problems with the
two closest sounds to an “o” sound in “not” mentioned above, making
“boat” and “bought” difficult to distinguish. The unstressed schwa “er”
sound in “computer” does not exist in Spanish, and neither do the closest
long sounds in “fur” and “her”.

Consonants

Words written with “b” and “v” are mostly pronounced identically, making
this perhaps the most common spelling mistake in Spanish. There is also no
distinction between the first sounds in “yacht” and “jot” in Spanish and
which of those two sounds is perceived by English speakers tends to
depend on the variety of Spanish spoken (this being one of the easiest
ways of spotting an Argentinean accent, for example). There may also be
some confusion between the first sound in “jeep” and its unvoiced
equivalent in “cheap” (a common sound in Spanish).

The “ch” in “cheese” may also be confused with the “sh” in “she’s”, as the
latter sound does not exist in Spanish. The difference is similar to that
between “yacht” and “jot” mentioned above, being between a smooth
sound (sh) and a more explosive one (ch), so the distinction can usefully be
taught as a more general point. Alternatively, the “sh” in “sheep” may
come out sounding more like “s” in “seep”, in which case it is mouth shape
that needs to be worked on.

Spanish words never start with an “s” sound, and words which are similar
to English tend to have an initial “es” sound instead, as in escuela/school.
This is very common in Spanish speakers’ pronunciation of English as well,
leading to pronunciations like “I am from Espain”. Spanish speakers have
no problem producing a hissing sound, so the secret is to have them make
the word directly after that “ssss” and then practise reducing the length of
that down to a short initial “s”.

Unlike most languages, the “th” sounds in “thing” and “bathe” do exist in
Spanish. The problem with “bathe” is that the sound is just a variation on
mid or final “d” for Spanish speakers and so some work on understanding
the distinction between initial “d” and initial “th” is usually needed before it
can be understood and produced in an initial position – in fact making the
amount of work needed not much less than for speakers of languages
entirely without this sound. The problem with “thing” and “sing” is different
as it is a distinction that exists in some varieties of Spanish and not others,
meaning that again for some speakers practice will need to start basically
from zero.

Some speakers also pronounce a final “d” similar to an unvoiced “th”. “d”
and “t” can also be a problem at the end of words, as can “thing”/“think”
and sometimes “thing”/“thin” or even “ring” and “rim”. In general, Spanish
consonant sounds vary more by position than English consonants do.

Although a “w” sound exists in Spanish, it is spelt “gu” and can be


pronounced “gw”, sometimes making it difficult to work out if a “g” or “w”
is what is meant.

As a “z” is pronounced as “s” or “th” (depending on the speaker, as in the


two pronunciations of “Barcelona”), a “z” sound does not exist in Spanish.
However, perhaps because not so much air is produced in a Spanish “s” I
find that this version rarely produces comprehension problems.

Although a Spanish “r” is different from most English ones, it rarely causes
comprehension problems. However, the English “r” can seem so soft to
Spanish speakers that it is sometimes perceived as “w”.

The Spanish “j” in José (similar to the Scottish “ch” in “loch”) and the
English “h” in “hope” rarely if ever cause communication problems, but is
perhaps the main thing to work on if students are interested in accent
reduction. An English “h” is like breathing air onto your glasses so you can
polish them, and students can actually practise doing that to help.

Spanish doesn’t have the soft, French-sounding sound from the middle of
“television” and “pleasure”, but this rarely if ever causes comprehension
problems.

Number of syllables

Particularly when it comes to final consonant clusters in English, Spanish-


speakers can suffer both from adding extra syllables (e.g. three syllables
for “advanced” with the final “e” pronounced) and swallowing sounds to
make it match the desired number of syllables (e.g. “fifths” sounding like
“fiss”). With words that are similar in Spanish and English, they can also
often try to make the English word match the Spanish number of syllables.

Word stress

Trying to make Latinate words in English match Spanish pronunciation is


also true for word stress. There is also a more general problem that
Spanish, unlike English, has a pretty regular system of word stress.
Sentence stress

Spanish is sometimes described as a “syllable-timed” language, basically


meaning that each syllable takes up about the same amount of time. This
means that the English idea of unstressed syllables and weak forms being
squashed in between stressed syllables doesn’t really exist in Spanish. This
can make it difficult for Spanish speakers to pick out and point out the
important words in a sentence.

Intonation

Spanish speakers, especially males, can sound quite flat in English, and this
can cause problems in formal situations and other times when polite
language is needed (especially as Spanish speakers also have other
problems with polite language such as over-use of the verb “give”).

Alphabet

The names and pronunciations of the letters of the alphabet in Spanish can
cause confusions between these pairs in both listening and speaking, e.g.

 A/E
 A/R
 E/I
 C/K
 G/J

You might also like