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Most difficult Spanish words to pronounce | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ravi Newbie Netherlands Joined 5397 days ago 2 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Dutch* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 25 of 26 11 May 2013 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, the /l/ in suelto and the /l/ in calmar are pronounced differently: the first one is dental, meaning the tip of your tongue touches the back of your upper teeth, and the second one is alveolar, meaning your tongue touches the 'alveolar ridge'. Basically, the /l/ and the /n/ are alveolar in Spanish, but usually not in the following combinations: l + d/t -> the /l/ becomes dental, as in “suelto”; l + ch → the /l/ becomes alveopalatal, as in “el chico”; l + ll/y/hi/i(+VOWEL) → the /l/ is palatal, e.g. “el hielo”. As for the /n/: n + p/b/v → the /n/ becomes an 'm', like in “enviar”; n + f → the /f/ is labiodental, e.g. “un fin”, n + t/d → the /n/ is dental, e.g. “donde”; n + ch → the /n/ is alveopalatal, e.g. “un chico”; n + ll/y/hi/i(+VOWEL), the /n/ is palatal “un yerno”; n + k/g → the /n/ is velar, e.g. “tengo”. The names are technical, but they indicate what part in your mouth is touched by your tongue when making the sound. There is a really good website that explains all the different sounds with animations: http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# I got this information from the books I use: Introducción a la lingüística hispánica by Huelde and Fonética y fonología españolas by Schwegler. To make it a little bit more technical, the basic sounds (in any language) are called 'phonemes' and these can be pronounced differently. These different ways of pronouncing the basic sound are called 'allophones'. Phonemes are indicated by “/.../” and allophones by “[...]”. Spanish has, for example, the phoneme /b/, and this phoneme has the two allophones [b ] (i.e. the hard b) and [β] (the soft b). So if you want more information I think you should look for “spanish allophones”. Another interesting aspect is the way in which Spanish speaking people connect their words. In normal speech, a word that begins with an i or u or ends with an i, u or o, generally connects with the preceding or following word if this one also begins or ends with a vowel, making a diphthong. If you consider for instance, “no es verdad”: 'no' and 'es' are connected to one another making it sound like 'nwes', so the whole sentence consists of three syllables. I don't know whether the consonant decay you mentioned is caused by your greek pupils' native co-articulation, but I guess it may. Well, my answer has gotten a bit long :), but I hope it useful to you. Cheers Edited by Ravi on 11 May 2013 at 3:24pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| magicrob Newbie United Kingdom spanishobsessed.com Joined 4407 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 26 of 26 12 May 2013 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ravi - great answer, and thanks for sharing that site, it's really useful.
I've been thinking a lot about pronunciation, and wondering whether you can really teach this kind of stuff. I wonder about how much of learning an accent is the detailed minutiae about precise mouth positions and movement, and how much should be approached at a more holistic level, or whether we should aim for a combination. I read an interesting article (http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/04/how-to-speak-like-a- native/#ixzz2Ihq8w3Rp) which mentions that students who pay more attention to the global aspects of pronunciation - rhythm, intonation and flow - improved more within a certain time period than those who focused on detailed aspects. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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