Spanish Pronunciation: Vowels
Welcome to Spanish Blog 365!
This is where you can Start, Refresh and Expand your Spanish
It’s where we learn about language and all that that includes:
Vocabulary, Grammar – Yes, Grammar! Culture, travel, Workplace and Social Spanish
Today is Post 6 of 365
Es sábado – It’s ‘Silly Saturday’ and this is the Part I of Spanish pronunciation: vowels
Parte I de la Pronunciación española – las vocales
But, before we start, I just have to say, ‘You’ve done a great job this whole week learning and repeating new vocabulary without having had any pronunciation instruction.
I threw you into the deep end!
Today is the first pronunciation lesson. We’re going to learn vowels.
Next week we’ll get into consonants.
Spanish is a phonetic language which means, what you see is what you get.
In Spanish, letters have just one sound.
Once you learn that sound, you’ll be able to pronounce words correctly from the start. Even new words that you’ve never seen before.
English is not a phonetic language!
My Spanish-speaking students who are learning English often ask me…
…Why is it Nike, but not bike (bikie)?
…If this is cough and this is rough, why isn’t this through (throuf)? Great question!
…How do you pronounce these 2 words in English? Polish / polish ;-/ read / read
Spanish vowels just have one sound, and every letter in a word is pronounced, including the final “e”. clase, leche, permanente
(the “h” is the only silent letter in Spanish – Hola)
Today, let’s start with Spanish vowels
a – mañana, jalapeño, banana
e – tengo, bueno, chile
i – sí, cita, bien, vida
o – poco, ocho, otro,
u – mucho, gusto, pregunta, pura
Let’s have fun and get silly with some vowel-working tongue twisters.
In Spanish these are called trabalenguas, which means to work the tongue!
Say them slow or despacio/lento at first then try to say them más y más rápido.
1.
a, e, i, o, u, el burro sabe más que tú*
2.
Pepe Pecas pica papas con un pico. Con un pico pica papas Pepe Pecas.*
3.
Carlos come caldo en la cocina con una cuchara. Con una cuchara come caldo Carlos en la cocina.*
* You’ll find a translation of these below.
Your Action Step for today is to practice these vowel-rich-trabalenguas.
If you have kids at home, engage them in saying these as fast as they can. No kids? Practice with your partner or friends.
Enjoy! – ¡Disfruta!
Gracias por pasar por el Spanish Blog 365,
Hasta mañana,
Carolina – Audio by Kevin from La República Dominicana
