As you’re beginning to learn a language, one of the most important things you can do early on is learn the foundation of how that language sounds. This will give you consistency in your pronunciation, and most importantly, let you read things and know how to actually say them!
Let’s take a look into the sounds of Spanish, and how they differ from English.
First off, vowels! In Spanish, vowels don’t change their sounds nearly as much as in English. They stay pretty consistent.
A - Always pronounced like “ah”
E- Always pronounced like the “e” in “best”
I - Always pronounced like “ee”
O - Always pronounced like “oh”
U - Always pronounced like the vowels at the end of “blue”
All right, let’s talk consonants. For the most part, the consonants are quite similar to their English counterparts. There are a few differences that we’ll highlight here.
C - Similar to English, “c” often simply sounds like the letter “k.” However, if it comes before an “i” or “e,” it sounds like an “s” (ex. “carcel” is pronounced like “car-sell”)
D - Think of the Spanish “d” as halfway between a “d” and “th.” It has a kind of soft combined “dth” sound, which we don’t have in English. Listen carefully as you encounter this sound in Spanish, it can be a little tricky.
G - If a “g” comes before “i” or “e,” it makes more of a soft “h” sound (ex. “gente” or “gimnasio”). Everywhere else, a “g” is hard, like the English “goal.”
H - This is one of the first sounds you’ll encounter in Spanish, by saying “hola” (hello). The “h” sound in Spanish is almost silent. You don’t really pronounce it, but it does give a little bit of breathy air to the following vowel sound.
J - The Spanish “j” is always followed by a vowel, and sounds like an English “h” (for example, jugo sounds like “hoo-go”).
Q - “Q” is always followed by a “u” and the combination sounds like the English “k” (ex. “quiero” sounds like “key-air-o”).
R - “R” is a little hard to describe, as it’s essentially a softer version of the English “r.” Basically, if you drop the hard “er” sound at the end of the letter and replace it with just a breath, you get the Spanish “r.” This one’s difficult as well, so be sure to listen and practice!
V - “V” is somewhat of a combination between the English “v” and “b.”
X - For the most part, “x” sounds like the English letters “ks,” like in sticks. However, in some proper nouns, the x sounds more like an English “h” (like in “México,” most notably, which is pronounced like “Meh-hee-ko”).
Y - Normally sounds like the English “y,” such as in the word “yogurt.” However, if it stands alone like the Spanish word for “and” (“y”), it sounds like “ee.”
Z - “Z” in Spanish sounds much more like an English “s.” It’s slightly different in that there’s a little bit of the harder English “z” sounds that sneaks in there, but you’ll notice that as you listen to more native speakers.
Whew! That’s a lot of stuff we just covered. Don’t worry about memorizing everything here, this is more for reference so you can come back to it as you move on. Speaking of which, let’s get on to actually learning some useful vocab!