European Spanish Pronunciation, Video 2: Spanish Vowels

This is the second 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...

[@musashi584]

I'm pretty sure that it is extremely easy for Japanese speakers to actually grasp the vowels of Spanish since we have slightly different but almost identical vowels in the language.

[@larsbreumhansen7516]

I hated language class in school - pronounciation never made sense. With the IPA learning to pronounce actually have a system! Awesome

[@pablo12250]

Short of my Spanish Phonetics university class, this is the best explanation of Spanish pronunciation I have ever seen, Especially about the Spanish "A lip position. You described in a few minutes what it took me years to learn. Thanks so much.

[@FluentForeverApp]

We're really happy to hear that it was helpful!

[@ramzy-6566]

Great video.

[@ramzy-6566]

Thank you so much for amazing videos.

[@FluentForeverApp]

So happy you enjoy them and that you find them useful!

[@conqueringleo]

well done

[@jackpaulryan1211]

I love this video so much! This is the most comprehensive Spanish pronunciation guide I can actually understand! I have a question about the "a" sound. So I know that [a] usually represents the low front unrounded vowel (more unambiguously written as æ̞) and [ʌ] represents a low-mid back unrounded vowel. Since the are on opposite sides of the mouth, where exactly is the Spanish a? I think some English speakers front the [ʌ] sound to the low-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ] or to the near-open central unrounded vowel [ɐ̜]; based on the fact that you used [e] and [o] instead of [e̞] and [o̞], I am assuming you're not using super narrow transcription, so does [ʌ] represent one of these central vowels? Wikipedia claims "Some scholars, however, state that Spanish has eleven allophones: the close and mid vowels have close [i, u, e, o] and open [i̞, u̞, ɛ, ɔ] allophones, whereas /a/ appears in palatal [a], central [a̠] and velar [ɑ] variants" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology). but all three of those a sounds are lower/more open than anything [ʌ] represents. Some of the information is from Wikipedia so it might not be completely accurate. Some sources say it is the low central unrounded vowel which can't be written unambiguously using the International Phonetic Alphabet but I still don't understand how it is a less rounded version of [ʌ]. Thanks for taking the time to read my comment! I have been looking for a video of this quality about Spanish for years and I have yet to find one about Latin.

[@jackpaulryan1211]

Gabriel Wyner Thank you for clearing that up! I really appreciate your work!

[@Aditya-te7oo]

@@jackpaulryan1211 I'd say Spanish 'a' is like the a in the English word father.

[@daniellemccowan1192]

Thank you Gabe for the videos! I studied Spanish in Spain 7 years ago and have since lost quite a bit that I learned. I'm hoping to pick it back up and learn new words. I recently read through all of your book and am now starting to work on pronunciation to fix any mistakes that are integrated into my Spanish. So thank you for your book and great resources! I didn't hear you talk about the sound that the ü makes in Spanish. In the video for the consonants, did you cover the sound that the j makes in Jorge? I was surprised when I met someone in Spain named Jorge and the j was made from deep within the throat (or something like that!) instead of a puff of air (if that makes sense.) Thank you for the help!

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hello Danielle! We're happy to know that the Fluent Forever method is helping you get back on track with your language learning. These are quick videos for you to get familiar with the sounds of Spanish and the IPA symbols, so there might be some that are not mentioned there. However, all of these can be learned through the Fluent Forever app, where you have all the information compiled in one place.

[@ranapenh2376]

It really good video 🎉👏

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi there! We are happy you liked it! 😊

[@nettyg2554]

This just makes me even more confused..so now i need memorize more stuff😥

[@irenepereira3521]

hahahahah I am a native Spanish speaker and that was confusing even to me! speaking should be learned by speaking not by these things.

[@Luca-he3tg]

how to say ( that's true, but so insulting. and, understand, you better understand ) in Spanish

[@FluentForeverApp]

Hi Lucas! Please know that we offer both European Spanish and Latin American Spanish. So the request to translate may come with different results depending on which version you are using as your target language.

[@Luca-he3tg]

@@FluentForeverApp🇪🇸 Spain's Spanish version

[@asusenalopez270]

Tienes toda la razón, pero me estás insultando. más te vale que me entiendas bien lo que te digo.