Spanish Pronunciation



My Spanish Word-a-Day pronunciation guide!



a b c ch d e f g h i j k l ll m n ñ o p q r rr s t u v w x y z

If you want to know how any of the letters are pronounced in Spanish just click on the letter and you will find out! This can only be a rough guide to Spanish pronunciation, as it is sometimes hard to explain the pronunciation. The best thing is to listen to the audio examples for the Spanish words of the day...

You may be familiar with the "trilled r" as represented by the "rr" character. Many English speakers find this sound difficult to reproduce. If you are one of those people—don't worry about it! Eventually, you will probably get it. But even if you don't you can still sound good. You'll just have a bit of an exotic foreign accent.

Pronouncing Spanish based on the written word is much simpler than pronouncing English based on written English. Each vowel represents only one sound. With some exceptions (such as w and x), each consonant also represents one sound. Many consonants sound very similar to their English counterparts.

If you're a US speaker, try to avoid "flapping" the t when it occurs between to vowels (as in US English better)— in the Spanish t, the tongue still makes "full contact" (though as mentioned, at a point a little further forward in the mouth than in English, so that the very tip of the tongue also touches the teeth).

Have fun! Saludos, Chris

Diphthongs:

Diphthongs occur when an 'i', 'u' or 'y-ending' stands next to another vowel in the same syllable. Their vowel sounds are still the same, but they combine to form a single syllable.

ai/ay au ei/ey eu ia ie

io iu oi/oy ua ue ui/uy uo