Monday 25 October 2010

Pronouncing Spanish - start at the beginning (C)

This letter is just the third in the Spanish alphabet - yes, and almost every other one, too. But here's something: "The “C” symbol is associated with two phonemes in Spanish alphabet pronunciation. If the letter is accompanied by A, O or U, the sound is /K/ which is plosive, velar and voiceless. If accompanied by E or I, the sound produced is /θ/ which is fricative, dental and voiceless." Hmmm. So cama (bed) is pronounced kama, como (how or what?) is komo and culo (ar**e, or behind, bottom) is kulo. And cielo (sky) is thielo, and Celio (one of the Cuenca brothers) is Thelio. This last phoneme is not available in sound, so trust us. Remember: there is only one way to pronounce the vowels a e i o u (with a couple of exceptions we'll come to). BUT HOLD ON! There's another letter -actually, a digraph or two successive letters that represent a single sound. Look for CH this evening.

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