E-Sharp Won’t Get You An F In Spanish

Written by: Foreign Native

Published: Monday, July 26, 2010 | Comments 6

One thing that makes Spanish quite easy for the beginner is that there are basically only five vowel sounds.

Even when two vowels together join to make a single sound, that sound is essentially a combination of the two vowels’ individual pronunciations.

Amainar – to wane or diminish – has the regular ‘a’ sound, (a as in cat) in the first syllable, while the ‘ai’ is pronounced like the long i in English, as in high. If you join the short ‘a’ and the Spanish i (prounounced as the long ‘e’ in English – like the first ‘e’ in Peter) you get a sound very similar to the English long i. It requires a bit of squashing them together as two vowels are made to fit the space of one, but the basic sounds are kept.

The ‘au’ in Spanish is pronounced like the ‘ou’ in the English ‘out’ and is a similar combination of the Spanish ‘a’ sound and the Spanish ‘u’ – which is like the English ‘u’ in flute.

This holds true for other combinations of strong and weak vowels joined to form a single syllable.

By themselves, Spanish vowels never really alter their sound, unlike English vowels, which, to the native Spanish speaker can be quite baffling. Pronunciation of words like determine, waffle, sausage, and names like Ian and Graham, as well as wind (the kind that blows) and wind (as a watch), read (present) and read (past), and differences in the pronunciation of words such as rough, bough, though, thought and thorough, are almost anathema to the logical Spanish mind.

There is, however, one subtle variation in the sound of the Spanish ‘e’, which is slightly sharper at the end of a word than at the beginning or in the middle. While the correct pronunciation of the Mexican currency – the peso – is closer to PE’-soh than PAY’-soh, the sound of the ‘e’ at the end of a word (i.e. not followed by a consonant) is slightly closer to ‘ay’ without being quite the same.

Perderé – (I will lose) – is approximately pair-de-RAY’

Depende – (it depends) – roughly de-PEN-day

Impenetrable – (like the title of this blog entry) – EEM-pe-ne-TRA-blay.

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Comments about “E-Sharp Won’t Get You An F In Spanish”

chipito wrote:

The initial “a” in “amainar” is pronounced “ah”, not like the “a” in “cat.

Posted on 26-Aug-10 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
Allen wrote:

Thank you, chipito. I was wondering what was going on there. I’m not fluent & will never lose my “accento Norteamericano” but I try to get it right. And Friends, it is “tee-wanna” for Tijuana, ok?

Posted on 26-Aug-10 at 10:55 pm | Permalink
mishee wrote:

There is no variation in the sound of the “e” because of its placement in the word. It continues to have the “eh” sound as in “egg” the example used “perderé carries an accent over the final “e” which means that that is where the accent falls in the pronunciation of the word. The “e” sound does not change unless it is combined with another vowel as in the word “noviembre” or “peine”. The same “eh” sound applies to the words “depende” and “impenetrable”

Posted on 26-Aug-10 at 11:00 pm | Permalink
Marcy wrote:

The easiest way to learn the Spanish vowel sounds is just keep repeating:
AH – A -E – OH – OOO (AEIOU)

And, realize you already know them because there are so many Spanish words we use every day in America….mainly names of our cities…
San Antonio
San Diego
Capistrano
San Jose
Tucson
El Paso

C

Posted on 27-Aug-10 at 2:56 am | Permalink
Profe wrote:

What I tell my high school Spanish students is that the ‘e’ can be a little ‘flojo’ or ‘lazy.’ While what it is called and normally says is the hard ‘a’ sound in English, if that is really hard to pull off in the spot it is, it takes the ‘eh’ sound — thus demonstrating it’s ‘flojo’ tendency.

Posted on 27-Aug-10 at 4:47 pm | Permalink
Martha wrote:

Sorry folks… As a former Spanish teacher I assure you that “e” is eh, is eh, is eh. The vowels´sound in Spanish NEVER changes. The sound “AY” is the Americanized sound we hear as when Hispanics say “I dun´t espeek eenglish” as Ricky Ricardo of “I Love Lucy used to say. And I am really dating myself now. HA!

Posted on 28-Aug-10 at 1:16 am | Permalink