Mexico

Learn Spanish Free By Practicing Pronunciation

If you want to learn Spanish free, you simply need to practice your pronunciation. It might seem demanding at first, but honestly learning any language can be difficult; all languages use various pronunciation keys to string sounds together to form words.

Spanish is fairly straight forward, and therefore great for self-education. Learning the following rules can go a long way toward helping you learn Spanish free.

Spanish Vowels And How They Sound

All of Spanish’s vowels are associated with strong sounds that will help each word jump off the tongue, like from a diving board. The letter “A” is pronounced like an “uh,” an “e” sounds like “ay,” the letter “i” becomes an “eee” sound and finally a “u” results in an “ooh” noise. The only vowel that retains the same sound from English to Spanish is the “o,” which keeps the “oh” pronunciation.

Let’s take a one Spanish sentence and examine how it is pronounced using these sounds. Our sample will be the easy sentence “I like to eat the cheese.”

Me gusta comer el pollo frito.

The first two words, “Me gusto,” is pronounced “May Goose-toe,” which means “I like” in English. The word “comer” means “to eat” and you say it like “koh-mare.” “El pollo frito” means “the fried chicken” and is pronounced “Eh-l poh-yo free-toe.”

The Sounds of Spanish Consonants

Consonants in Spanish are understated for the most part. Even so, many rules apply to the consonants that can make subtle changes to not only meaning but the very sound of a word. In addition, there are a couple new letters to play with in Spanish. The first new letter is “ch,” which is voiced just as it would be in English.

The letter “c” becomes an “s” sound when used in front of an “e” or “i,” for instance the word “cero,” or the Spanish version of the English word “zero.” A “g” in front of an “e” or “i” produces the “ch” sound, but if it’s used anywhere else it represents a hard English “g” sound, as in “go.”

There are additional hiccups as well. The letter “z” will make a “th” sound. The letter “h” is always silent. There’s a second new letter as well, the “ll,” which is pretty common in Spanish and makes a hard “y” sound like in “you.” That sound is used in the word “llamar” and gives the word the following pronunciation: “ya-MAR.”

A tilde (~) makes frequent appearances in Spanish as well, such as in the word “el nio.” This word imitates that “ll” sound and makes the word sound like “el neen-yo.” These sounds make up 90% of the sounds used in the Spanish language, so by practicing these you’ll be able to say just about anything you would like to.

With enough practice, you’ll be able to say just about any word you’d like — and that’s a great way to learn Spanish free. A bit of patience and perseverance will go a long way in the learning process.

One would be “qu,” which makes a nice “k” sound. Any “r” should be rolled off the tongue if you are capable of dong so. And the “y” letter is pronounced like its English counterpart, except that when it’s alone it becomes an “eee” sound.

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