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Pronouncing Spanish

Spelling and pronouncing Spanish are easy once you know the few basic rules. This book has been designed so that as you read the pronunciation of the phrases, you can follow the Spanish. This will help you to recognize the different sounds and give you a feeling for the rhythm of the language.

In Spanish, vowels have only one sound. When you find two together, pronounce both of them in quick succession, as in aceite a-they-te (see note below about pronouncing ce).

You can use this as a guide to pronouncing vowels:

a sounds like a (as in apple)

e sounds like e (as in ever)

i sounds like ee (as in even)

o sounds like o (as in shop)

u sounds like oo (as in zoo)

The syllable to be stressed is marked in bold in the pronunciation. Here are a few rules you should know:

Spanish	sounds like	example	pronunciation
au	ow	autobús	ow-to-boos
ca	ka	cama	ka-ma
co	ko	con	kon
cu	koo	cubo	koobo
ce	the	cena	the-na
cer	thair	cerca	thairka
ci	thee	cine	theene
cia	thya	Escocia	es-ko-thya
ga	ga	gato	ga-to
go	go	algo	algo
gu	goo	algún	algoon
ge	khe	gente	khente
gi	khee	giro	kheero
j	kh	jueves	khwe-bes
ll	ly	llamo	lya-mo
ñ	ny	señor	se-nyor
ua	wa	cual	kwal
ue	we	vuelva	bwelba
v	b	vuelva	bwelba
z	th	Zaragoza	tha-ra-go-tha

h is silent: hora o-ra, hola o-la.

r is rolled and rr even more so.

Note that the th sound in ce and ci is pronounced like in the English word thing. Similarly, the sounds for ge and gi can be tricky to grasp. You can think of kh as in the English words her and he, with strong emphasis on the h.