A:
The Spanish "a" is pronounced like the "a" in the word "father."
nada = nothing
cama = bed
hasta = until
papa = potato
mama' = mom
papa' = dad
E:
The Spanish "e" is most often pronounced like the "a" in the word "date," except that it is shorter and crisper.
bebe' - baby
tendre - I will have
lentes - glasses
sede - headquarters
cereza - cherry
leche - milk
I:
The Spanish "i" is pronounced like the "ee" in the word "see," except that the sound is shorter.
idioma - language
ti'mido - timid
italiano - Italian
bi'blico - biblical
diffi'cil - difficult
finito - finite
O:
The Spanish "o" is pronounced like the "o" in the word "no," except that the sound is shorter.
loco - crazy
poco - little
como - like
ocho - eight
coco - coconut
roto - broken
U:
The Spanish "u" is pronounced like the "ue" in the word "due," except that the sound is shorter.
tu - you
rubio - blond
anuncio - advertisement
mucho - much
musica - music
cultura - culture
D:
The Spanish "d" has two separate sounds, hard and soft. At the beginning of a word and after "n" or "l", the hard Spanish "d" closely resembles the "d" in the word "dog." The difference is that when pronouncing the hard Spanish "d", the tongue touches the back of the front teeth (rather than the gum ridge, as in English). In other situations (particularly between vowels) the "d" is softer, closely resembling the "th" sound in the word "this."
dar - to give
cuando - when
dos - two
dia - day
donde - where
falda - skirt
adios - goodbye
estudiar - to study
vida - life
lado - side
ciudad - city
delgado - thin
debido - due
decidido - decided
dedal - thimble
dudar - to doubt
descarado - brazen
R:
The Spanish "r" has two separate sounds, depending on whether or not it is the first letter of a word. Neither one of these sounds even remotely resembles the English "r" sound. When the "r" is the first letter of the word, it is trilled like the "rr", which is covered in the next lesson. Otherwise, the "r" sounds much like the "dd" of the word "ladder." (It's not exactly the same, but it's much closer to this "dd" sound than to the English "r" sound.)
pero - but
caro - expensive
cero - zero
hablar - to speak
comer - to eat
triste - sad
rr:
The Spanish "rr" is a vibrating, or trilling sound. The single "r" is also pronounced this way when it is the first letter of a word.
perro - dog
carro - car
zorro - fox
cerro - hill
aburrido - bored
arriba - above
raro - rare
romper - to break
carrera - race
correr - to run
cerrar - to close
carretera - highway
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