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LL and final D in Spanish (Europe) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| flabbergasted Triglot Groupie Latvia Joined 6356 days ago 75 posts - 97 votes  Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Latvian Studies: Arabic (classical), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Serbo-Croatian, Catalan, Persian | Message 1 of 16 10 June 2009 at 6:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dear native speakers of European Spanish on the forum,
Could you enlighten me on the current situation of the 'll' and the final 'd'? The way I understand it, nobody pronounces 'll' as LY anymore (i.e. ella as elya). Which is the norm now, eDZHA or eYYa? Or something else? Secondly, I have been taught that D in such words as 'pared' or 'Madrid' is almost unpronounced, a very weak ghost of 't'. But I have heard it pronounced many times as TH (e.g. pareTH, MadriTH). Has this become a new norm? Thanks in advance! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6203 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 2 of 16 10 June 2009 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi flabbergasted,
I'm not a native speaker of Spanish, but I live in Barcelona and have had contact with people from other parts of Spain, so I'll give you my input until some Spaniards come along. The "ll" is pronounced as "y" in most parts of Spain, although there are plenty of people in Catalonia who pronounce it as "ly" (more or less), and it can be stronger (i.e. like English j) or weaker (like English y) depending on the region and the position in the word (for example, in the beginning of a sentence it tends to be stronger). As far as the final "d", that also depends alot on the region. In Catalonia, it's mostly pronounced like a "t", in central Spain it tends to be a voiceless "th", and in other parts it can be the typical fricative "d", but it can be very weak. I've also heard some people from Aragon pronouncing it very similar to "s". I hope this helps, and I hope others will correct any mistakes I've made. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 3 of 16 11 June 2009 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Again, I'm not a native, but I've had a lot of input from natives on this. Many say LL is just like Y, but others say it's not. What they all agreed on, though, was that it's not LY.
You already know about DZH sound, and that's actually very useful -- do you know how to pronounce it? The trick is not to use the tip of the tongue. Try to say L by pushing the middle of your tongue against the roof of your mouth and dropping the tip. Try saying Y the same way. Now try saying DZH. Your tongue will need to move fractionally between these three sounds. Do you see how similar they are? They're also very similar to something else: Ñ. LL is to L what Ñ is to N: it's exactly the same process. "Palatisation", they call it -- because you squeeze the sound out across the hard palate at the roof of your mouth. Despite what some books might claim, it's really not unique to Spanish -- it happens to varying degrees in Italian (N->GN, L->GL), Portuguese (N->NH, L->LH), French (iL->iLLe), Gaelic [Scottish/Irish] (aNa->iNi->iNNi, aLa->iLi->iLLi), not to mention the massive number of palatal consonants in the Slavic languages (Polish, Russian, etc) -- so it's well worth spending a little bit of time on now because it is a transferrable skill. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5909 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 16 11 June 2009 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not a native speaker either but lived near Barcelona for a time and studied/picked up both Spanish and Catalan. Like Cainntear said LL is not LY, many Spanish speakers will pronounce it simply as Y (I guess. I hate describing a sound in one language using letter combinations from another), though Catalans (who still palatalise LL in their own language) may or may not transfer that into Spanish. I've personally never heard them do that, but then again the Catalans I know don't really speak Spanish in front of me much anyway, and Catalans are apparently known for speaking Spanish well (I imagine if they mucked up a sound like that, it would detract from that view somewhat). I've never heard a Spanish speaker palatalise their LL anywhere close to the way the Catalans do it, or at all come to think of it, though it's possible I may have heard it but just didn't care enough to remember about it, lol. Anywho, the Catalan view generally seemed to be that Castilian speakers suck at palatalising their LL :-) Apparently many of them never get it right even after years of living in Catalonia and speaking Catalan.
The word-final D is pretty soft but still there. I heard the lispy D was pretty much used to make fun of people from other parts of Spain who pronounced it that way - you'd occasionally see "p**a Madriz" (spelled out fully of course) written on road signs and such... Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lord Jim Tetraglot Newbie Spain Joined 6660 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Italian Studies: Dutch | Message 5 of 16 25 June 2009 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm a native speaker of Spanish (European variety, but what I'm going to say should be valid as well for American Spanish).
Also, the rule that you'll find in a textbook, and what I was taught in school, is that 'll' is a palatal sound. Try saying "liuvia" instead of "lluvia" and then press the top of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, as Cainntear has already explained. Anyway, I am unable to pronounce it, as most Spaniards (and Americans) are. Most people would just pronounce 'y'. But there is an idea of how 'good' Spanish should be, and is very strict. Anything that does not conform with the rules of this standard is not considered 'good Spanish' ("está mal dicho") If you can receive the International Channel of the Spanish public television, for example, everybody will stick to the norm, and pronounce carefully all his 'll's. Whoever says 'y' instead of 'll' on TV will be considered as having an accent. (The standard variety of Spanish heard on TV is not thought to be an accent, but just 'good' Spanish) As for the final 'd' (as in 'Madrid'), it should be pronounced as 'd'. But as final consonants (or at least, final oclusives) are difficult for us, many people will tend to pronounce something easier (z or s, mostly in the south, 't' in Catalonia).But this is considered a characteristic of the Andalousina accent, or the Catalan accent. Standard Spanish is 'd'. If not, we would not write a 'd'. There is another thing with 'd', as well as with 'g' and 'b'. These should be occlusive sounds, and they are indeed at the beginning of a word. But when they are in an intervocalic position, they become fricative. So 'd' becomes 'th' (as in the English 'this'), and 'g' and 'b' become sounds that I find hard to describe (there is plenty of information about this phenomenon in the net that will be more claryfing than my clumsy attempts at description) Most Spaniards are not aware of this (we are all taught at school that there is only one letter for each sound, except the naughty h's and the b/v problem) But foreigners (specially if they are English-speaking) often sound a bit strange because they do all their occlusives. According to this, "Madrith" would just be fine. But if you asked a Spaniard, he would not be able to tell the difference between "Madrith" and "Madrid". For him or her, it would be the same sound (as they are indeed two allophones of the same phoneme). And he (or she) would still say "The correct pronounciation is 'd', and that's why we write a 'd'." 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5981 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 6 of 16 26 June 2009 at 12:16am | IP Logged | ||
I can't hear any difference between y and ll, so I can't help you with that, but in respect to the final d, I've noticed several pronunciations: In the North you can hear it pronounced as t, soft d, th or not pronounced at all. In the South it is aspirated or not pronounced. So th is not a new norm, just one option. Edited by Javi on 26 June 2009 at 12:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5981 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 7 of 16 26 June 2009 at 12:26am | IP Logged | ||
You must be mistaken, because the final d in not pronounced neither as th nor as s in Southern Spain. Madrith is said in places like Madrid and the Basque Country, but not in Andalusia. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 16 26 June 2009 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||
Have to nitpick about this a little. "ll" is never pronounced as LY anywhere, now or ever. I believe that LY has been taught as an approximation to foreign learners and it can help you get close, but it's not exact. It can be pronounced in different ways but it is always just one sound, never an L followed by a Y. As far as I can tell, in most parts of Spain it is pronounced exactly the same as Y. In some areas, especially some parts of northern Spain they make a distinction, but I can't really describe the sound. It's something between L and Y, maybe that is where the LY myth came from (?). EDIT: Actually, see Cainntears explanation of this sound a few posts up. He did quite a good job of explaining it. In some parts of Latin America "ll" is pronounced like a very strong DZH (ie. like the Frensh J in "je", only even stronger), so funnily enough they too make a distinction between Y and LL, but in a different way. On the other hand, in some of those areas they use this same sound for RR as well. I once came across a South American person (from Bolivia I think) who was talking about having an "ellor". I was totally confused at first until I remembered reading about that pronunciation of rr. Final d is never pronounced as an English D. It is similar to English "th" in "the" (NOT as "th" in "thing"), but not quite as strong. In some areas it is weaker than in others, and in some it is even left out. In some others the "lisping" quality is slightly stronger so it almost comes close to a z "Madriz". (that would be the "th" in "thing"). Edited by Hencke on 26 June 2009 at 4:13am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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