Hispana/Prononcado

La hispana prononco estas tre simila al tiu en Esperanto. Ĝi estas preskaŭ fonetika kaj tute ne komplika. Preskaŭ ĉiuj sonoj en la hispana lingvo estas facilaj por la parolantoj de Esperanto, tamen, kelkaj sonoj praktikendas por bona prononco.

La hispana alfabeto

Litero	Prononco	IPA	Esperanta ekvivalento
Aa	a	/a/	kiel esperanta a.
Bb	be, be larga, be alta	/b/	kiel esperantab.
		/β/	inter vokaloj, ne devas esti kontakto inter la lipoj kiam vi prononcos ĉi tiun sonon.
Cc	ce	/s/θ/	antaŭ la vokaloj e kaj i, kiel s en la vorto sed (Latinameriko) aŭ kiel th en la angla vorto thin (Hispanujo).
		/k/	en ĉiu alia loko; kiel esperanta k.
Dd	de	/d/	kiel d en la vorto dek. Inter vokaloj la lango devas descendi sed ne tuŝi la dentojn (kiuj restas tre proksimaj). La sono estas tre simila al angla th.
Ee	e	/e/	kiel esperanta e.
Ff	efe	/f/	kiel esperanta f.
Gg	ge	/x/	antaŭ la vokaloj e kaj i, kiel la hispana j (v. malsupren).
		/g/	en ĉiu alia loko, kiel g en la vorto gitaro, but between vowels (where the second vowel is a, o or u), the tongue should not touch the soft palate (no similar sound in English, but it's somewhat like Arabic ghain).
Hh	hache	sensona}}	sensona, krom kiam konviniĝas kun c (vidu malsupren). Usata ankaŭ en fremdaj vortoj kiel hámster, kie sonas kiel la hispana j (vidu malsupren).
Ii	i	/i/	kiel esperanta i.
Jj	jota	/x/h/	kiel esperanta ĥ, en latinameriko kaj aliaj dialektoj sonas simile al esperanta h.
Kk	ka	/k/	kiel esperanta k. Nur estas uzata en fremdaj vortoj, aŭ en la vorto kilo (kilogramo).
Ll	ele	/l/	Does not have an exact English equivalent. It is similar to the English "l" in line, but shorter, or "clipped." Instead of the tongue touching the roof of the mouth behind the teeth, it should touch the tip of the teeth themselves.
Mm	eme	/m/	kiel esperanta m.
Nn	ene	/n/	like n in the word no. Before p, b, f and v (and in some regions m) sounds as m in the word important. For example un paso sounds umpaso. Before g, j, k sound (c, k , q), w and hu sounds like n in anchor: un gato, un juego, un cubo, un kilo, un queso, un whisky, un hueso. Before y sound (y or ll), it sounds like ñ, see below.
Ññ	eñe	/ɲ/	kiel itala kaj franca gn, portugala nh, pola ń aŭ serba њ. Palatala n.
Oo	o	/o/	kiel esperanta o.
Pp	pe	/p/	kiel esperanta p.
Qq	cu	/k/	kiel esperanta k. Nur povas ekzisti antaŭ u, en la kombinoj que kaj qui, kie la litero u estas ĉiam sensona, ekzemple: líquido //'li.ki.δo//). La kombinojn qua kaj quo oni neniam uzas en la nuna hispana, ekzemple: cuando (kiam).
Rr	ere, erre	/r/	This has two pronunciations, neither of which exist in English. The 'soft' pronunciation sounds like American relaxed pronunciation of tt in "butter", and is written r (always written r). The 'hard' pronunciation is a multiply vibrating sound, similar to Scottish rolled r (generally written rr). 'Hard' r is also the sound of r at the start of a word or after l, n or s.
Ss	ese	/s/	like s in six. In many places it's aspirated in final position, although in Andalusia it is not itself pronounced, but changes the sound of the preceding vowel. (See regional variations).
Tt	te	/t/	kiel esperanta t.
Uu	u	/w/	before another vowel (especially after c), like w in the word twig.
			in the combinations gue and gui', it is silent unless it has a diaresis (güe, güi), in which case it is as above: w.
		/u/	everywhere else, like oo in the word pool, but shorter.
Vv	uve, ve, ve corta, ve baja	/b, β/	identical to Spanish b (see above).
Ww	uve doble, doble ve, doble u	/b, β, w/	Used only in words of foreign origin (Spanish prefers u). Pronunciation varies from word to word: watt' is pronounced like bat, but kiwi is pronounced like quihui.
Xx	equis	/ks/	like ks (English x) in the word extra.
		/ʃ/	in words of Amerindian origin, like sh in she.
			(Note that x used to represent the sound of sh, which then evolved into the sound now written with j. A few words have retained the old spelling, but have modern pronounciation. Most notably, México and its derivatives are pronounced like Méjico.
Yy	i griega, ye	/i/	Technically, it is simply the prefered spelling of i + vowel at the beginning of a word or vowel + i at the end of a word (yeso rather than ieso, hay rather than hai), and should be pronounced exactly as i. However, in some places it is identical to English y. In Argentina is pronounced similar to the English sh in the word she, or English j in the word jump, and in Chile is pronounced //ʒ// (like English si in the word vision).
Zz	zeta, ceda	/θ, s/	Always the same sound as a soft c i.e. either //θ// (most of Spain) or //s// (elsewhere). See c for details.

Duoblaj konsonantoj

Litero	Prononco	IPA	Esperanta ekvivalento
Ch ch	che	/tʃ/	kiel esperanta ĉ.
Ll ll	doble ele, elle	/ʎ/j/	historie kiel itala gl. La sono ne ekzistas en Esperanto, representas palatalan l. En preskaŭ ĉiuj dialektoj sonas: //j// (esperanta j).
Rr rr	erre		vidu la priskribon de la litero r supren.

Official letter status

Until recently, the combination letters chand ll were considered letters in their own right, and were alphabetised after c and l, respectively (i.e. after cz and lz). They are now alphabetised "normally": words beginning with ch come between words beginning with ce and ci, and so on.

One letter, one sound

Pronunciation in Spanish is much simpler than in English. Each vowel has only one sound. Most consonants also have one sound, with some exceptions. Many of them sound very similar to their English counterparts. There is also a (written) consonant that only exists in Spanish: the ñ (pronounced like the "ni" in "onion"). For an "English" way of thinking about it, the ñ may be replaced by "ny". For example, when pronouncing "años", think of it as "anyos", or an-yos. A great practice is trying the onomatopoeia of chewing: "ñam, ñam, ñam"

Notice that although the Spanish language is quasi-phonetic, in reality consonants can be pronounced in slightly different ways. E.g. when occurring single the letter l should be pronounced similar to the l in the English word late. But in reality four ways of pronouncing the Spanish l can be distinguished and a fifth when it is written as ll. Which of the four pronunciations is valid at a certain time depends on the word being pronounced. But don't let this disencourage you, the pronunciations are so close that a misspronunciation will be noticed merely as a slight foreign accent. The University of Iowa has a very visual and detailed explanation of the Spanish pronunciation.

Local pronunciation differences

Just like in English, different Spanish-speaking countries and areas have different accents when they speak. The main difference is that in the Americas two sounds were lost in comparison to Spain: z sounds like s, and ll sounds like y. In Bolivia and Peru, z is lost but ll is kept. In Argentina and Uruguay ch and ll have a characteristic hard sound. In Mexico, vowels are reduced to schwa (like in English about, celestial, gorilla). In Puerto Rico and Cuba they confuse r and l. In many countries j is not hard but it's like an English h (as in hot). A Chilean is heard as saying mujier instead of mujer. Also, in most parts of Spain, speakers pronounce z's and soft c's as th's. For example, cinco (in Americas pronounced like sinko), would be pronounced as "thinko".

In spite of this differences, two Spanish speakers from different places wills always understand each other, provided they speak the cultivated versions of their respective cities. If fast colloquial speech is used, comprehension may be impaired.

The Accent

In Spanish, as in English, there are two tones when pronouncing a syllable: stressed and unstressed. In the English word "thinking", "think" is pronounced at a higher tone than "ing". If both syllables are pronounced with the same stress, it sounds like "thin king". The accent in Spanish (explicit and implicit) marks the stressed syllable. It is very important to pronounce correctly the stress, as there are many words that are written with the same letters, being the only difference between them the presence of the accent. For example: esta, that has an implicit accent in the letter e , means "this (feminine)"; and está, that has an explicit accent in the letter a, means "is"; also inglés means English, but ingles means "groins". A stress in the wrong syllable will also give a hard time to the listener, as it will be difficult for him/her to understand what he/she hears. Recognizing the explicit accent is very easy, as it's written with a ´ over stressed vowel. The implicit one can be mastered when the rules are followed.

Rules for pronouncing the Implicit Accent

There are only two (or one) rules for pronouncing the implicit accent, The syllable with the high tone is in bold letters:

• If a word has no accent, and ends with a vowel, n or s , pronounce the accent in the last but one syllable.
  Examples:
  • cara (ca-ra> = face
  • mano (ma-no) (hand)
  • amarillo (a-ma-ri-llo) (yellow)
• If a word has no accent, and ends with a consonant, except n or s, pronounce the accent in the last syllable.
  Examples:
  • farol (fa-rol) (street lamp)
  • azul (a-zul) (blue)
  • español (es-pa-ñol) (Spanish)
  • salvador (sal-va-dor) (savior).

La dierezo (¨)

In the clusters gue and gui, u is not pronounced unless it has the diaeresis mark (¨). This mark is somewhat rare, however.

Examples:

• pingüino = penguin
• agüéis (2nd person plural, present subjunctive of the verb aguar). Here it's quite clear that the diaeresis helps preserve the u sound in all the verb tenses of aguar.