Thursday, August 13, 2015

Spanish Semi-consonants u-i


The diphthongs with U before a,e,i or o sound like the W like in the following words: water/estatua. weather/cueva. woven/contiguo. winter/cuidar.

The diphthongs with i before a,e or u sound like the  Y  like in the following words: yesterday/fiesta. yolk/canciones. youth/ciudad.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Spanish pronunciation ( diphthongs and triphthongs)

Be careful when pronouncing Spanish diphthongs and triphthongs. In these cases, you have two or three different sounds to pronounce quickly and cannot omit any of them.
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Spanish Vowel : [Ai], [ay]
Spanish Example: Aire, hay
Corresponding sound in English: As in ice
 (note that in this case this sound stands for a single vowel in the English example while in Spanish it represents two different sounds.)
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Spanish Vowel [Au]
Spanish Example: Aumento
Corresponding sound in English: As in cow
(in this case, the Spanish [au] must not be confused with the English [au], which is pronounced [o] as in the word Australian)
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Spanish Vowel: [Ei], [ey]
Spanish Example: Veinte, rey
Corresponding sound in English: As in May or they, two sounds in this case.
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Spanish Vowel: [Oy]
Spanish Example: Voy
Corresponding sound in English: As in toy.
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Spanish Vowel: [Eu]
Spanish Example: Europa
Corresponding sound in English : As in Amadeus (two sounds in this case)
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Saturday, August 8, 2015

Spanish word stress


Spanish differs from English, which has weak syllables and silent letters. For example, “doctor” means the same in both languages. Spanish emphasizes the last syllable and pronounces every sound, whereas English emphasizes “doc-” and “-tor” is unstressed. Such weak sounds aren’t used in Spanish.