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The IPA chart allows us to compare sounds across languages using this common written phonetic alphabet. If you know how a foreign word is written phonetically using the IPA, you can both compare the pronunciation with familiar sounds native to your language, and also understand how to correctly pronounce any word.
- Spanish Pronunciation and Spelling
- Vowels
- Semiconsonants
- Consonants
- Pronouncing Latin American Spanish
- Spanish Spelling
1 Pronouncing European Spanish
The pronunciation of European Spanish is generally quite clear from its spelling and the notes below should be sufficient for an English speaker to understand what written Spanish actually sounds like. Because Spanish pronunciation is so regular you will find that in Part I of the dictionary (Spanish into English) most of the headwords are not transcribed phonetically in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). Any words that do have a phonetic transcription are pronounced in a way that you would...
2 Placing the stress
There are simple rules for placing stress on Spanish words: A If a word ends in a vowel, or in n or s (often an indication of the plural of verbs and nouns respectively), the penultimate syllable is stressed: zapato, zapatos, divide, dividen, dividieron, antiviviseccionista, telefonea, historia, diluviaba. B If the word ends in a consonant other than n or s, the last syllable is stressed: verdad, practicar, decibel, virrey, coñac, pesadez. C If the word needs to be stressed in some way contra...
3 Dividing syllables
You will have seen in 2 A above that in cases like telefonea and historia not all vowels count equally when dividing and stressing syllables. The convention is that a, e and o are ‘strong’ vowels while i and u are ‘weak’. Bearing this in mind we can apply four rules: A Where there is a combination of weak + strong vowels, forming a single syllable (called a diphthong), the stress falls on the strong vowel: baila, cierra, puesto, peine, causa. B In a combination of weak + weak vowels, again fo...
Spanish vowels are pronounced clearly and quite sharply, and unlike English are not extended to form diphthongs (e.g. side [saɪd], know [nəʊ]). Unstressed vowels are relaxed only slightly (compare English natural [‘nætʃrəl] with Spanish natural [natu’ral]). Stressed vowels are pronounced slightly more open and short before rr (compare carro with ca...
There are two semiconsonants in Spanish which appear in a variety of combinations as the first element. Not all the combinations are listed here.
5 Additional notes on pronunciation
A The letter b is usually not pronounced in groups with s such as obscuro, substituir. In practice, such words are generally written oscuro, sustituiretc and this is the spelling under which they are treated in the dictionary. B With one exception there are no real double consonants in Spanish speech. cc in words like acción is two separate sounds [kθ], while ll and rrhave their own values (see table). The exception is the nn group found in words with the prefix in-, e.g. innato, or occasional...
6 The letters of the Spanish alphabet
The gender of the letters is feminine: ‘¿esto es una c o una t?’ You also say ‘una a’ and ‘la a’, ‘una h’ and ‘la h’ (i.e. you do not apply the rule as in un ave, el agua). *Though not strictly letters of the alphabet, these are considered separate sounds in Spanish.
The pronunciation of Latin American Spanish varies widely from place to place, so the following notes are intended to give a general picture only. As a rule, the Spanish spoken in the upland areas of Latin America is similar to Castilian Spanish, while the lowland and coastal areas have many features of Andalusian pronunciation. Vowel sounds are al...
1 Use of capitals
As in English, capital letters are used to begin words in the following cases: 1. for the first letter of the first word in a sentence 2. for proper names (but see also below) María, el Papa, el Rey, la Real Academia Española, Viernes Santo, el Partido Laborista, Dios Note that where the article is an integral part of the proper name, it also begins with a capital – El Escorial, La Haya, La Habana – but where the article is generally or optionally used with the name of a country, it does not be...
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Mar 29, 2022 · Spanish Letters – Sounds. Although there are 27 letters, there are more sounds, as some letters in combinations can produce different sounds. Here, I’ll just put the basic chart, with IPA pronunciation (International Phonetic Alphabet), and then I will explain letter by letter.
Try out the all new International Phonetic Alphabet Translators. Convert English, French, Spanish and more to IPA by simply entering the word into a textbox and the algorithm does the rest. The International Phonetic Alphabet in Voice Acting.
Jun 2, 2022 · The Latin alphabet isn’t a good universal or cross-linguistic representation of language sounds even though English, Spanish, Italian, etc. all use it. Each language historically “defines” what their A, B, C, D, etc, sound like. This is where the IPA comes in. The first rule of IPA is: you do not talk about IPA… :p Sorry, got carried away.
Convert Spanish text to phonetic transcription — International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Audio recordings of 10,000 words. Free pronunciation trainer.
