European Spanish Pronunciation, Video 1: Spanish Phonetics and Spelling

This is the first of a three-part series on European Spanish pronunciation. The goal is to get familiar with the sounds of Spanish and the IPA symbols. You'll then be able to learn them faster, either through your own studies or through my pronunciation trainers. More links below:
Flashcard Designs for Teaching Yourself Pronunciation: blog.fluent-forever.com/gallery/
My Pronunciation Trainers: fluent-forever.com/product/fl...
Anki Language Learning: ankilanguagelearning.com
More Anki Decks, including Spanish Pronunciation: speakada.com
Reddit's Anki Language Learning Community: / ankilanguagelearning
A super detailed discussion of the IPA: • Pronunciation Tutorial...

[@ianshotts5294]

Latin america: "hirasol" Spain: *clears throat* "GHXHGXJJirasol"

[@tors17]

JAJAJAJA.

[@Ruben-tg9yc]

JJJJJJJIRASOL 🇨🇱

[@api3122]

In Spain is onda vital

[@GrahamCrannell]

Those lingual/tongue diagrams are absolutely invaluable, thank you. Especially helpful for Americans trying to understand European Spanish.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi Graham, You are most welcome. 😊

[@ChrisNP87]

Yes, I agree! Love that they have the pronunciations for Spanish (Spain) and not just Latin American!

[@alejrandom6592]

why am I watching this I am fluent in spanish

[@santiagocas3683]

Jajaja, estoy igual we, solo para saber como enseñan español en otro idioma

[@jeisson42]

Estoy aquí para ver que sonidos de vocal en inglés es igual en español.

[@arteks2001]

Yo igual, solo viendo que el alfabeto fonético internacional y la escritura en español son casi lo mismo.

[@JuanMoreno-wo5yb]

Quizá estás de Mexico jajaja❤

[@kate_kate_kate]

My god. That explanation about the puff of air in English and the absence if it in Spanish made all the sence for me

[@FluentForeverApp]

We are happy you liked the explanation and found it helpful!

[@thomasrobertson2225]

My brother studied languages at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in California. The pace of study was intense. Students had to master the language course in 36-64 weeks. Psychologically it was very difficult, but fortunately he was helped by Yuriy Ivantsiv's book "Polyglot Notes. Practical tips for learning foreign languages”. The book " Polyglot Notes" became a desk book for my brother, because it has answers to all the problems that any student of a foreign language has to face. Thanks to the author of the channel for this interesting video! Good luck to everyone who studies a foreign language and wants to realize their full potential!

[@FluentForeverApp]

An amazing resource - thank you so much for sharing!

[@dainealoraghallaigh3118]

How did he even find out about the book and the author?

[@dainealoraghallaigh3118]

Who is the author? The Facebook group has 10 friends and there isn’t even a rating if his book on Amazon much less a review

[@Goracykabanos]

Very good video! One thing that would've been worth mentioning though is that in Castilian Spanish the s is often apical, giving it more of a piercing hiss

[@DjAngelloFerreira]

European Spahish has two consonan sounds that Latin-American Spanish do not have. The first consonant sound is /z/ as in the word ''Esmeralda'' and the second one is /0/ as in ''Zapato''. We only have /s/ for both. The rest of the sounds we have it. Thanks for the video Mister Gabriel Wyner and your partner. It is amazing!

[@ThePassingVoid]

A lot of Mexicans use /z/ a lot

[@iosusito5683]

Dunno men, I'm Spanish and we don't say the z sound, maybe not in my dialect (basque) but I never heard it

[@ramzy-6566]

Thank you for Spanish Phonetics and Spelling.

[@c.e.1039]

I've never heard a Spaniard pronouncing [z] "Esmeralda", with a voiced "s" ?? 🤔 Except for that, I found this video excellent 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@margaretbanksviroga9104]

Wonderful videos! I teach American accent classes to many Spaniards, plus I study Spanish, and these three videos help me with both! Thank you for making them.

[@FluentForeverApp]

It's our pleasure Margaret! We're so happy to hear they are helping!!! 😊

[@ramzy-6566]

great video for spanish.

[@AndreiGonzalesIturri]

Esmeralda Pronounced with [z]??? that only happens if you allow the influence of the following voiced [m], same happens with [n] (in fast speech) becoming [ŋ] if there is a following [g] or any other soft palate voiced sound; the uses of hu [w] in huerta and hie [j] in hierba are modern pronunciation, in the past, it was pronounced like [ue] and [ie] respectively. In my South American dialect, I don't use particularly the following: [β ʝ ɣ ŋ z x] which for me adds more complexity to the system.

[@wagnerjunior6524]

Is the /x/ sound like a /h/ sound??? How is it different from the /h/ as in HE, HIM, and HOPE?

[@birdseyetarot]

this is useful thanks

[@FluentForeverApp]

Happy to help!

[@Raharf_Ash5550]

i admired the translation of sidi into arab chief its so accurate

[@elchami743]

Ll has different pronunciations, there are people who pronounce it like the Lh in portuguese (gl in italian)

[@user-lh1ef3cb3x]

The "l" sound is actually palatalised and not velarized in both english and spanish words, so the word "lease" is not a good exemple of english dark l

[@birdseyetarot]

/ɾ/ exists in English between vowels in unstressed syllables. I would expect this would make it easier for some to know just make the same sound as tt in pretty and t in party.

[@ChrisNP87]

Are there Anki pronunciation decks or resources specific for Castilian (European) dialect & pronunciations (Distinción)? Thanks!

[@FluentForeverApp]

We do offer Castilian Spanish pronunciation trainers and word lists in our store and in-app: fluent-forever.com/shop/ As for the other dialects, we do not have resources for these currently but we'd appreciate you sharing some if you locate some!

[@ChrisNP87]

@@FluentForeverApp Thanks! Looking forward to getting them! :)

[@henhaooahneh]

Good video, are the girl from Spain? her vowels sound a little bit too open to be a native speaker.

[@115DELDE]

She is native. She is just exagerating a little bit to make all phonemes clear as possible.

[@juandiegovalverde1982]

Most Catalans, Galicians, Valencians and Basques still pronounce ll.

[@pilartrujillo3790]

Esmeralda with z? Z in Spanish sounds different from the one in English and French.

[@FluentForeverApp]

Yes, the sounds are different!

[@la_lavanda]

The spanish "d" is like the voiced dental fricative, or that "th" sound in "that."

[@alejrandom6592]

not at the start of a word

[@andrewwilliams9580]

That's how my Spanish teacher taught me too. She's native English and Spanish was ONE of her many other languages.

[@theophonchana5025]

/b/ is bilabial

[@diegoandresespinozabueno7576]

ñ

[@andrewwilliams9580]

The consonants are harder than vowels. Can I just learn the vowels and use the English consonants and be understood by native Spanish speakers? I've done it before. Would ALL speakers understand me?

[@115DELDE]

We will be able to understand you, but if your purpose is to actually learn how to speak like a native, you kinda need to learn how to pronounce all consonants.

[@andrewwilliams9580]

@@115DELDE in response to sounding like a native, when I speak Spanish, the Spanish know I'm British. The British think I'm Spanish when I speak it. I say my accent is halfway there. I'm happy to have a non-native accent. This way, people know I am not native but they also think I speak very well in spite of that.

[@andrewwilliams9580]

There are some consonant sounds that I make correctly. For example the Ce and Ze, and Ci and Zi. The Ge and Gi sound, I make correctly, the r and rr sound, the ll and the ñ sound. There was a section of letter d and t. This was more difficult.

[@margaretbanksviroga9104]

Actually, if you use the English version of the consonants, you'll sound a little ridiculous. Better to put the extra effort in to learning correct pronunciation. It feels strange at first, but eventually it becomes very normal to you. I thought my mouth and tongue would never make the sounds I hear in Madrid, but with practice those sounds became natural. Put in the extra effort. You'll be glad you did!

[@arteks2001]

Yes, we would understand, except that j must be pronounced as an h.

[@theophonchana5025]

/x/ is velar

[@juandiegovalverde1982]

It is frequently uvular.

[@ThePassingVoid]

How do you know when you say /s/ or /z/?

[@pezos5]

Don't worry about it, it just happens...you should always try to pronounce /s/ and sometimes you'll just pronounce it as /z/ without noticing. Like in English in the word 'kids' you simply cannot pronounce /s/ after /d/ and your result is ki/dz/. Spanish speakers are unaware of this sound (in their language).

[@ThePassingVoid]

What about the letter e? I sometimes heard it as /e/ or /ε/

[@pezos5]

Well that is because the IPA sometimes simplifies its own symbols, the real Spanish E is /e̞/ (or /ɛ̝/). That is a mid vowel, while /e/ is a close-mid vowel. They just use this simplified version because it is easier to write. On the other hand /ε/ is an open-mid vowel. The /e̞/ (ɛ̝) is halfway between a close-mid and an open-mid vowel. So sometimes it may sound to you as /ε/.

[@ThePassingVoid]

Is it bad to pronounce it as e or ε?

[@chriswunder5420]

@@pezos5 I'd be careful there. I do pronounce kids with an s rather than z if I'm not paying attention because I'm german. So it depends on where you are from.

[@Naharror]

This video also helps a loooot! > kzbin.info/www/bejne/qoOxeJmXpdOpY7M&ab_channel=SpanisHolidays

[@niccolowadia3761]

What happened to the letter " V " ??

[@marianoflorezabraca1184]

b and v are the same. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. English speakers keep convincing themselves they sound different. THEY ARE THE SAME.

[@niccolowadia3761]

@@marianoflorezabraca1184 THANKS / Gracias

[@lem1738]

@@marianoflorezabraca1184 who told you that 🅱️ullshit lol

[@cleydyr]

@@marianoflorezabraca1184 I had to ask twice for wine in Madrid probably because I asked for bino instead of vino.

[@arteks2001]

In Spain they sound the same. In certain regions of Mexico they do sound different (in Mexico we speak old Spanish in some ways).

[@user-tg9hk6wc6q]

They said [pis] Pee.

[@jeffthewells7404]

We'll I learned I've been pronouncing english wrong my whole life

[@chadparalosamigos1887]

WTF!!!! Yo hablo español y no tenemos z, tampoco nos importa pronunciarla, y en caso de que sí, es por que la pronunciacion es casi identica a una fonetica estandar de mexico o perú. A B,v S D E F G I H" K M N O P R R" T U W Lo demas en fonetica es una variante comoda de la pronunciacion, miren si ni siquiera uso acento en las vocales y soy chileno!

[@Hugh1714]

Sí que la tenemos, pero no todos la hacemos. Este video está centrado en el español europeo, y en el centro de la península es muy común pronunciar un 'z' inglesa cuando la s va seguida de una consonante sonora, como en esmeralda. Los hablantes no se dan cuenta de eso, en simplemente un alófono de la 's'.

[@pallieterbeer168]

As for the Dutch pronunciation this video makes things overly complicated and makes no sense to me. You may not like the Bon-jour way of representing sounds but I have, for the record I am 61, never gotten to grips with the IPA as it is just as arbitrary as the other made up systems. Just listening to native speakers one can often tell from which country or even region in a country they are. That is the same for any language be it Lingala, Swahili, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, French, German, Bahasa Indonesia, English, etc... So to claim there is a 'standard' pronunciation is in fact laughable. After 22 years in Taiwan people in Taiwan could point out I learned most of my Mandarin in the south of the country. And when travelling to other places where Mandarin is spoken most of the time they heard I has a Taiwanese accent. In Taiwan the Taiwanese can also often figure out from which country a foreigner is by the way he speaks Chinese. I was often pegged as South African. For people that know Afrikaans that should not be a surprise. Anyway learning the pronunciation is important but I find it is the easiest of all things to do when learning any language, just by listening to it and listening to as many different people as possible.

[@13101s]

Jesus, I like fast videos, but this is waaaaay too fast. Where is the "j"?! And s OK me Spanish people say ll at the beginning of a word differently!!