As a native speaker i can say that it is the best video i have seen correctly explaining these differences, I'm surprised myself because i am not aware of all these rules that are natural to me when i speak. I learn english watching your videos because i solve doubts i have about some differences in pronunciation. Congrats and thank you.
I think what you said about "solving doubts I have about some differences in pronunciation" is both fascinating, and highly effective. It's the same as how English speakers would need to learn *that they are* pronouncing a glottal stop between vowels, just to learn how to pronounce Spanish words without accidentally adding it. Very cool psychologically.
@@tenminutespanish it’s interesting to note that like modern Spanish, the pronunciation of Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (both influenced by Aramaic) have the same allophonic consonant pair pronunciations for b/β, d/ð, g/ɣ, but also for p/ɸ, t/θ, k/x. The weak allophonic forms are pronounced intervocalically and across word boundaries, as was the case in Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, but this has been lost in modern Hebrew where they have become phonemic, and are no longer truly allophonic. Plus the Hebrew β now is pronounced v, ð has reverted to d in all positions, ɣ has reverted to g in all positions, but also ɸ has evolved into f, θ has reverted to t in all position (except among Ashkenazi Jews were it evolved it into an s), and the x of the k/x pair evolved into χ. Like Early Spanish, the pronunciation of Early Biblical Hebrew and pre-Biblical Hebrew only had one pronunciation of B, G, D, K, P, T each, but languages keep evolving, sounds keep splitting and merging. The different dialectal pronunciations of Spanish dialects are a testament to that. For Spanish-speaking learners of Hebrew, they have an advantage learning Hebrew. Often it is very difficult to know when to pronounce a ב (Bet/Vet) as B or V unless it is marked with a pointing system know as Neqqudot which are rarely used except in children’s books or religious books, but a Spanish-speaker should be able to do it intuitively because he already does it in Spanish without even trying or realizing it. The only problem is that ð and ɣ no longer exist in modern Hebrew, so a Hebrew-speaker of native Spanish-speaking background will end up pronouncing D and G a bit too correctly with the soft allophones in the correct positions in a way that native modern Hebrew-speakers no longer know when, where, or how to do 😂
You are absolutely the most precise and accurate expert on Spanish pronunciation on the Internet. Watching other RUclipsrs explaining this just makes me confused, watching you explaining this makes everything a piece of cake.
Perhaps I am the only one, but when I get a notice that you have posted a new video - I get excited. I am a little concerned about myself. Thanks for all the excellent content you provide us.
Tom N. you are not alone and no need for concern :D These videos have done more for my Spanish than most. I hated phonetics when I studied them for french but somehow here... I find it fascinating. The videos on voseo changed my world, since I live in a country where it is used exclusively and could never understand what all the "vos" was about until discovering that explanation.
PURE GENIUS, your diagram with 2 circles. It is now SO clear that the approximate/fricative allophones are the most frequently occurring, instead of the opposite manner that I have always seen these phonemes explained. And WONDERFUL set of examples. THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree with your explanation as a native-Spanish-speakers I noticed that because the G is softer in Spanish, Sometimes in my dialect the G turns into a W for example, Agua I pronounce it as Awa, Or this infamous word Guey I realized I pronounced as Wey, I belive it happens because when you have the G and then the U next to each other you have to round your lips and because the G is soft sometimes it can sound as W
I reckon 'gu' + vowel might be a special case in most accents that I've heard. Many Spanish native speakers pronounce 'wow', 'Western' and 'Will Smith' with a soft G sound, even when speaking English but especially when speaking Spanish. So no matter how it's written, 'gua' and 'wa' is realized phonemically the same (with the optional G stop or fricative depending on dialect and speaker). But even if you don't enunciate a G-like consonant, you wouldn't pronounce it with a normal 'u' up front at the beginning, the 'u' would come from the back (maybe uvular region?). Sooo: since 'gua' is neither pronounced as G in other positions, nor as a normal 'ua' diphtong, it deserves in my opinuon to be a phonetic thing of its one and thus a third allophone of the letter G.
Interesting to note that like modern Spanish, the pronunciation of Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (both influenced by Aramaic) have the same allophonic consonant pair pronunciations for b/β, d/ð, g/ɣ, but also for p/ɸ, t/θ, k/x. The weak allophonic forms are pronounced intervocalically and across word boundaries, as was the case in Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, but this has been lost in modern Hebrew where they have become phonemic, and are no longer truly allophonic. Plus the Hebrew β now is pronounced v, ð has reverted to d in all positions, ɣ has reverted to g in all positions, but also ɸ has evolved into f, θ has reverted to t in all position (except among Ashkenazi Jews were it evolved it into an s), and the x of the k/x pair evolved into χ. Like Early Spanish, the pronunciation of Early Biblical Hebrew and pre-Biblical Hebrew only had one pronunciation of B, G, D, K, P, T each, but languages keep evolving, sounds keep splitting and merging. The different dialectal pronunciations of Spanish dialects are a testament to that. For Spanish-speaking learners of Hebrew, they have an advantage learning Hebrew. Often it is very difficult to know when to pronounce a ב (Bet/Vet) as B or V unless it is marked with a pointing system know as Neqqudot which are rarely used except in children’s books or religious books, but a Spanish-speaker should be able to do it intuitively because he already does it in Spanish without even trying or realizing it. The only problem is that ð and ɣ no longer exist in modern Hebrew, so a Hebrew-speaker of native Spanish-speaking background will end up pronouncing D and G a bit too correctly with the soft allophones in the correct positions in a way that native modern Hebrew-speakers no longer know when, where, or how to do 😂
The /d/ that makes the English voiced /th/ sound can also be an approximate, right? I'm thinking of how I pronounce it as a non-native speaker with an accent I guess is close to native Mexican, and my tongue goes forward and hovers just beneath my teeth as I pronounce the vowel (as along as I'm speaking normally and am not being careful to enunciate). And that would make sense because even that is further approximated, if I'm using that term correctly, in Caribbean accents where you see the /d/ on a continuum between barely pronounced to not pronounced at all. By the way, I really enjoy your videos. Like too much. I had been looking for a channel like yours for the last two or three years to compare to the advanced Japanese videos I was seeing. I'm so glad I happened upon you and I hope you soon get the recognition your work deserves.
Yes, you're 100% right. The fricative d can be reduced and further softened and be pronounced as an approximant. This is very much the same thing we English speakers do when we reduce the voiced "th" when we're speaking quickly. That's a great observation on your part! And thank you for the compliment on the videos. I really appreciate it.
Man you're so awesome! This should be attached to every beginner spanish lesson, just the way you did it: a simple rule explanation and then a read-along exercise getting it right. Love it
I wanted to point out that in Colombian Spanish, these sounds are pronounced like their "hard" variants when in contact with any consonant. I mention it not so people will do it, but so they will not be confused if they hear it. I'm not Colombian and this pronunciation is very marked, I immediately notice what to me is a foreign accent when I hear Colombians speak this way.
Yes, these occlusive pronunciations of /b d g/ after any consonant or semivowel are also reported to exist in the middle of Central America, especially in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
This is excellent. There is so much bad information on youtube about Spanish pronunciation, this video finally explains everything completely and correctly. A slightly less technical version (with less linguistic jargonn) could be useful for beginners. Thanks.
6:12 - When n meet with b pronounce son buenos as [som buenos], it is like Arabic that words end with consonants nun (ن) and tanwiin will be pronounce as "mim (م)" when meet with words start from consonant ba (ب).
Amazing video, you blew my mind because a lot of the things you said when you pointed them out I was like I don’t do that and then I slowed down a couple words and I realise I had been subconsciously following all these rules. Also amazing pronunciation.
A very useful video! It is sometimes difficult for me to contrast the Spanish pronunciation with the English pronunciation because while I am fluent in English, I am not a native speaker of either language and have a noticeable foreign accent in both, so for example the picture at 3:26 was very useful for me. Having seen many of your videos, I have seen many letters of the phonetic alphabet. However, if I may offer an idea for a future video, it would be really nice to have a single video summarizing this alphabet, and to have a text sample written in the standard alphabet and the phonetic alphabet, such that we check ourselves if we know all of the pronunciation rules. Thanks for making these amazing videos!
Thank you! Can you please describe your suggestion again. I don't quite understand what you're asking for. But if I can understand, I'll be happy to make a video on it.
@@tenminutespanish Actually, looking through your videos, the "Study plan for learning Spanish pronunciation" video already comes very close to what I was looking for, so nevermind the suggestion. Sorry about that, I should have double checked your videos before asking. Anyway, thanks again for all of your videos, they are super helpful
Excellent clarification! Clear, concise, you took what can be a somewhat confusing topic and made it quite clear. Thanks for spending your time putting together these excellent tip videos to help others speak Spanish as a native speaker :-)
Hi Dan! Do you provide coaching or classes? If the answer is yes (or potentially yes), I'd love to learn more. I'm an intermediate Spanish learner with aspirations to specifically develop my accent to a high level.
Apart from my RUclips channel I don't offer classes. I have a couple students who I coach privately, but I don't really have time to take any more right now. If you were interested in an evaluation of your pronunciation, I'll be starting round 2 of that project in a month or two. Keep your eyes open for that announcement and submit a recording, and I'll evaluate your pronunciation as I have done for other viewers of this channel.
Thank you for all the proper pronunciations. Great channel. Can you help with my the speed of my diction. When I repeat spanish sentences, my mouth cannot move quickly enough to follow. Even though I know the words and how to pronounce them.. Are there any exercises I can do to learn to speak quicker? Thank you
Interestingly, acoustic studies have found that some native speakers occasionally use the non-occlusives for /b d g/ in positions where occlusives are normally expected. I suspect this is due to a very relaxed or lazy enunciation.
I’m a beginner Spanish language learner. Are these types of pronunciation rules of any importance to a beginner such as myself? Let me clarify-of course correct pronunciation is vital, but should that be something I focus on only after I’ve learned, say, basic conversation skills?
I firmly believe that everyone should learn pronunciation before they learn anything else. It just isn't that hard, and if you wait to learn pronunciation until after you've learned basic grammar and vocabulary, then you've spent all that time internalizing incorrect pronunciation.
@@tenminutespanish Thank you very much for your reply. You should make some beginners videos, I realize it would probably be boring for someone at your language level, but you could be a huge help to all the beginners out there, that are getting incorrect information.
3:27 hey I discovered that my native tongue pronounces a spanish d already😃,even if I speak english 😅 Further: I notice that I did not learn these in spanish courses I took, and thus did tend to ignore them when speaking spanish, although somtimes I may produce that mentioned soft b vw bebida (bevwida) sound,but it's not consistent, moasstly I use b and sometimes v ,vw.
I have studied the spanish "e" for a long time. Maybe I am becoming a bit OCD. . The vowel has an "eh" sound like in pesto, but sometimes it has a stronger sound almost like ay". For example in jefe, the first e is softer than the last e. How should the spanish word DE be pronounced... deh or day?. Thank you
Spanish /e/ is never pronounced like the long ā in "day". There are two possible /e/ sounds in Spanish, but they are highly variable from dialect to dialect and speaker to speaker, and linguistics disagree on when they are used. Most authors teach that there is only one Spanish /e/ sound, although this isn't strictly true.
Maybe it's because I'm too much of an English monoglot, but I don't hear much of a difference between the G and B approximants from their English counterparts. My ear hears them almost identically the same. It seems extremely subtle to me. D vs "dth" is definitely easier to hear and say for me than the B and G combos. Maybe because they're more different and distinct from one another.
Another way to think of [β] is that it's like English [v], except that instead of pronouncing it with your upper lip and lower teeth, you pronounce it with upper lip and lower lip. So, it's like a [v] sound with your lips. That is a very different sound from a normal English b. And the [ɣ] sound is analogous. The back of the tongue merely comes close to the soft palate, but it doesn't touch. Imagine pronouncing the word "very" like "berry'. "I'm berry happy to meet you." Someone who isn't a native English speaker might say that the difference is subtle, but it would be very obvious to you.
@@tenminutespanish I don't think they were saying that the sounds are same, just that they were having trouble distinguishing them while listening. That is normal if they don't have a lot of experience with the sounds. For me I had a lot of trouble distinguishing the sounds of 그 and 끄 in Korean. I knew mechanically the difference, but the distinction is in the aspiration which we don't differentiate in English.
Hello, Hope all is well? I have an issue at around 2.32 in the video, and need some clarification, as to avoid using the incorrect sound when speaking Castilian. As you may know in British English, the old english letters [and their sounds]: Eth (Đ,đ with the IPA being đ) and Thorn (Þ/þ with the IPA being θ) are represented by the digraph 'th', but representing two different sounds, such as: Eth: They Thorn: Thing On the video you are using the IPA and sound for eth, however, at times I am hearing you use the thorn sound. Would it be the td sound we get from the english word 'they', or the Vf sound we get from the english 'thing', and if it is the latter, that would create the same sound as the Spanish letter zeta in the castilian with distinction dialect. Many thanks in advance. Skot.
In standard pronunciation, Spanish interdental d is eth, not thorn. There are some dialects (such as north central Spain) that pronounce interndental d as thorn in some positions (such as at the end of words). If I pronounce interdental d as thorn I am not doing it on purpose. Can you tell me where in this video you hear d as thorn?
@@tenminutespanish Hey, Thanks so much for replying. It was around the 2.32 mark from what I remember, and I think towards the end when you did the recap. However, I do have an imbalance in my left ear, so I may have misheard and got confused in the moment, rather than you mis-pronouncing the sound, and if that is the case, my sincerest apologies. Genuinely appreciate the clarification, I find Castilain such a wonderful language, and only what to do it justice when I speak it. Many thanks once again, have a great day. Skot.
At 3:18 you talk about the stop version of Spanish / d / being on the back of the teeth and not on the alveolar ridge. Wouldn’t this make the spanish / d / a labiodental stop - but this isn’t listed on the IPA chart anywhere? Is it correct to classify the spanish / d / as a labiodental stop and if so why is it not listed on the IPA consonant chart?
Spanish [d] is not labiodental. "Labiodental" means "lip" and "teeth". The English [f] and [v] are labiodental, pronounced with the lower lip and upper teeth. Spanish [d] is dental. I'm unaware of any necessity to specify that the tip of the tongue is involved. I think that is understood.
@@tenminutespanish Thanks for the response! Yes I suppose “dental” was the word I was looking for (not sure why I added the “labio-“ part). It seems that the IPA distinguishes between the voiced dental fricative [ð] and the voiced alveolar fricative [z], but it appears that the voiced dental plosive and the voiced alveolar plosive both share the [d] symbol. If that’s correct, is there a reason why the IPA does not distinguish between these two [d] sounds? It seems to me that there should be different symbols given that the fricatives have different symbols.
@@kalculateai Linguists take shortcuts with all the little symbols that may appear under and around letters to specify their exact articulation. Spanish phonoticians don't specify the dental point of articulation, as opposed to alveolar, because there is only one occlusive /d/ in Spanish, and it's dental. No need to specify. You only need to specify if you're comparing and contrasting Spanish with some language where the /d/ is articulated somewhere else. I believe the symbol for voiced dental occlusive is "d" with a sideways bracket under it, like this: [d̪]. Nobody I know worries about that kind of detail, though.
Can we pronounce the soft /b/ the way we pronounce/v/ in english by the upper teeth and the back of the lower lip (but don't make it voiced) just make it voiceless to pronounce soft or vibration/d/ ??
Spanish /b/ is bilabial. It is pronounced with the upper lip and lower lip. This is true of both the occlusive (hard) version and the approximant (soft) version. It should not be pronounced with lip and teeth, as English [v]. It should not be voiceless. There are Soanish dialects that sometimes pronounce the approximant version of /b/ like English [v]. I do not recommend that students of Spanish do this.
@@tenminutespanish thank you for replying and for your very useful videos. I didn't mean that I will use the upper teeth and the lower lip to pronounce the /v/ sound. I meant that I tried to pronounce the soft voiced /b/ in that way and I heard it as the same b Try to pronounce soft voiced/b/ with the upper teeth and the back of lower lip , don't say /v/ just say /b/ and you will understand what I mean. I thought it may be right. I read some comments of native Spanish speakers saying that . But if it's wrong, it's okay. Thank you SO MUCH.
Remember that in Spanish words flow together as if they were a single long word. So, how letters are pronounced at the end of a word sometimes depends on the word that follows. But let's assume that in this case, "Madrid" isn't followed by anything. Let's assume it is the last word in an utterance, so the "d" sound is really the last sound you pronounce in that utterance. In standard Spanish pronunciation (European and Latin American) it is pronounced as a voiced interdental fricative [ð]. But in some dialects, especially north central Spain (where Madrid is located), it is pronounced as a voiceless interdental fricative [θ]. This isn't standard pronunciation, but millions of people do it. But in many dialects, "d" in lots of positions is reduced, just like "th" is reduced in lots of dialects of English. And lots of native Spanish speakers pronounce "d" very softly or not at all in lots of positions. One of the positions where "d" is most often reduced, and most dramatically reduced, is at the end of words/utterances. So, lots of people don't pronounce the final "d" in Madrid, verdad, etc.
@tenminutespanish thanks for your reply! I think that's because you have an unusually clean voice and your sentences are flawlessly written, articulated and enunciated (and yes, your style of narration is also a bit monotonous but that's ok for this purpose, it reminds me of those didactic TV shows before narrators had to sound excited about every little thing :D). So my first thought was AI voice.. Now I've watched more of your videos and realized that there's a lot of effort in your videos! It's a shame this channel hasn't 10x more subscribers.. Thanks for your work!! Glad I found you, greetings from Europe ✌️
I'm a native English speaker learning Spanish. All of the phonetic (?) terminology and symbols you use in your videos are completely foreign to me. Can you point to resources introducing the basics of these terms? Hearing these without an example of the sound in English makes them almost meaningless if not studied separately (fricative, dentals (sp?), stops, etc.).
I include those symbols and terminology for people who are interested and who understand them, but they're not at all necessary in order to understand what I'm saying. I use enough examples and describe and pronounce the sounds clearly enough that you should be able to pick up the meaning just by watching the video and paying attention. "Dental" is when the tongue touches the teeth. "Interdental" is with the tongue between the teeth. Etc. "Fricative" is when friction is produced, an approximant is when organs come close but don't quite touch. In the video I explain these terms as I pronounce the sounds and display the symbols. I'm unaware of any Spanish phonetics texts written in English that would explain all this. But my videos should be simple enough for beginners.
That would not be entirely accurate, though, since /l/ isn't a nasal. /d/ is a stop after /n/ and /l/. Also, they're stops at the beginning of utterances.
@@tenminutespanish I didn't say anything about not addressing the l, nor about ignoring the beginning of utterances. I was talking about a stop after a nasal. Sorry for not being more explicit about not including what I wasn't addressing.
@boricuafrican1 suena bìen . Una vez dije...ven pa'ca. Todo me extendiò. Everyone has an accent from New York to Puerto Rico to wherever. No problem. I love my poor Spanish accent. My novia says sound sexy.
The Spanish d (and also t) is not a dental fricative, its a dental plosive. Both alveolar and dental plosives are considered and written with the letter's d and t. English has an alveolar plosive while spanish and most other language that has a d has a dental plosive. I could be wrong but this is how it works, many other languages pronounce the d in the same way as Spanish. So you are correct that the spanish d is different from an English d, but the spanish d isnt a dental fricative, like in the words "The, Feather, Mother", its a dental plosive. Your video wasnt fully accurate Note: There isnt a seperate symbol for the dental plosive, both alveolar plosive and dental plosive is categorised into one for some odd reason.
The Spanish /d/ phoneme has TWO allophones. One is a dental stop, which is usually represented in Spanish studies with a simple [d], but which if we were being more accurate should probably be represented like this [d̪]. (Texts often leave out diacritics unless comparing/contrasting comparable sounds from two different languages.) The other allophone of Spanish /d/ is an interdental fricative [ð]. This symbol is called "eth". I have accurately described the pronunciation, distribution, and phonetic contexts of those two allophones. The interdental fricative [ð] arose as a historical phonological process in the evolution of Spanish from spoken Latin called "lenition". In that process, voiceless geminate stops became simple stops ([tt] > [t]), simple stops became voiced stops ([t] > [d]), voiced stops became voiced fricatives ([d] > [ð]), and voiced fricatives sometimes, then, disappeared ([ð] > [∅]).
@@tenminutespanish Sure, you are you are correct that the Spanish d becomes a fricative in certain contexts of words. However the fundamental nature of the Spanish d is a dental plosive or stop. The Fricative is only an allephone of the Spanish d and not the primary phoneme of the Spanish d. What you just stated below proves my point that it's an allephone that occurred due to historical processes like Lenition rather then being the primary phoneme of the Spanish d
@@hughson9229 Phonemes don't have a "fundamental nature". They are abstract concepts. Allophones, not phonemes, are concrete real world things. And there is no such thing as a "primary allophone". Spanish /d/ has two allophones, [d] and [ð]. [d] is pronounced at the beginning of utterances and after [l] or [n]. [ð] is pronounced in all other contexts. Because "all other contexts" is more than 90% of appearances of /d/, BY FAR the most common pronunciation of Spanish /d/ is [ð], which is an interdental fricative. If you'd like, I can do a quick statistical analysis and give an estimate of the prevalence of [d] and [ð]. I'll be happy to do that if you like.
@@hughson9229 Ok, so I did a quick statistical analysis of two short chapters of a book. In that text, /d/ appeared 391 times. Of those 391 instances, /d/ is likely to be pronounced [d] (after [n], [l], or a pause) 43 times. That's about 11%. Of those 391 instances, /d/ is likely to be pronounced [ð] (all other contexts) 348 times. That's about 89%. Now, native speakers don't speak exactly like written Spanish text. In fact, they don't even read text the way it's punctuated. So, there might be more pauses than this analysis indicates, and there might be some /d/ in natural speech that can't be accounted for this way. So, being generous, we could adjust those numbers a couple percent, say [d] 13% and [ð] 87%. So, it looks like my original estimate was wrong. [ð] is not over 90%, it's a little under. Still, it's the large majority of incidences of /d/.
@@tenminutespanish OK, that is a valid perspective, but it's not a widely agreed viewpoint. While you may state that there is no such thing as a "Primary phoneme", that is debatable. The allophones of a letter are not considered the sounds of what that letter makes for most linguistic experts. For example in English an aspirated allophone of P exists but the "primary phoneme" of P is the voiceless bilabial plosive. Its not that the p makes 2 sounds. You also stated that in most contexts the Spanish d is an interdental fricative, which is likely not true because its very unlikely Spanish speakers even distinguish them and it likely differs from region to region with each dialect. The analysis you did is also composed of only 2 short chapters with only 391 words. First of all thats a very short amount of words and you did state that Spanish speakers likely don't differentiate them but in that case what was the methodology you used to move it from 11% to 13% if that was accurate?
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As a native speaker i can say that it is the best video i have seen correctly explaining these differences, I'm surprised myself because i am not aware of all these rules that are natural to me when i speak. I learn english watching your videos because i solve doubts i have about some differences in pronunciation. Congrats and thank you.
Thank you so much for this kind and encouraging comment.
I think what you said about "solving doubts I have about some differences in pronunciation" is both fascinating, and highly effective. It's the same as how English speakers would need to learn *that they are* pronouncing a glottal stop between vowels, just to learn how to pronounce Spanish words without accidentally adding it. Very cool psychologically.
@@tenminutespanish it’s interesting to note that like modern Spanish, the pronunciation of Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (both influenced by Aramaic) have the same allophonic consonant pair pronunciations for b/β, d/ð, g/ɣ, but also for p/ɸ, t/θ, k/x.
The weak allophonic forms are pronounced intervocalically and across word boundaries, as was the case in Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, but this has been lost in modern Hebrew where they have become phonemic, and are no longer truly allophonic. Plus the Hebrew β now is pronounced v, ð has reverted to d in all positions, ɣ has reverted to g in all positions, but also ɸ has evolved into f, θ has reverted to t in all position (except among Ashkenazi Jews were it evolved it into an s), and the x of the k/x pair evolved into χ.
Like Early Spanish, the pronunciation of Early Biblical Hebrew and pre-Biblical Hebrew only had one pronunciation of B, G, D, K, P, T each, but languages keep evolving, sounds keep splitting and merging. The different dialectal pronunciations of Spanish dialects are a testament to that.
For Spanish-speaking learners of Hebrew, they have an advantage learning Hebrew. Often it is very difficult to know when to pronounce a ב (Bet/Vet) as B or V unless it is marked with a pointing system know as Neqqudot which are rarely used except in children’s books or religious books, but a Spanish-speaker should be able to do it intuitively because he already does it in Spanish without even trying or realizing it.
The only problem is that ð and ɣ no longer exist in modern Hebrew, so a Hebrew-speaker of native Spanish-speaking background will end up pronouncing D and G a bit too correctly with the soft allophones in the correct positions in a way that native modern Hebrew-speakers no longer know when, where, or how to do 😂
You are absolutely the most precise and accurate expert on Spanish pronunciation on the Internet. Watching other RUclipsrs explaining this just makes me confused, watching you explaining this makes everything a piece of cake.
Thank you so much for the kind compliments! Comments like this are what keep me going!
Perhaps I am the only one, but when I get a notice that you have posted a new video - I get excited. I am a little concerned about myself. Thanks for all the excellent content you provide us.
I'm so happy you like my videos! Thank you!
This has become one of my most watched channels lately. I should probably be concerned too.
@@bhall Thank you!
Tom N. you are not alone and no need for concern :D These videos have done more for my Spanish than most. I hated phonetics when I studied them for french but somehow here... I find it fascinating. The videos on voseo changed my world, since I live in a country where it is used exclusively and could never understand what all the "vos" was about until discovering that explanation.
@@FemmedeStone I'm so happy you like my channel.
PURE GENIUS, your diagram with 2 circles. It is now SO clear that the approximate/fricative allophones are the most frequently occurring, instead of the opposite manner that I have always seen these phonemes explained. And WONDERFUL set of examples. THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You make me blush! I'm so happy you liked the video.
I agree with your explanation as a native-Spanish-speakers I noticed that because the G is softer in Spanish, Sometimes in my dialect the G turns into a W for example, Agua I pronounce it as Awa, Or this infamous word Guey I realized I pronounced as Wey, I belive it happens because when you have the G and then the U next to each other you have to round your lips and because the G is soft sometimes it can sound as W
Thank you for this contribution!
this explains how William became Guillermo
I reckon 'gu' + vowel might be a special case in most accents that I've heard.
Many Spanish native speakers pronounce 'wow', 'Western' and 'Will Smith' with a soft G sound, even when speaking English but especially when speaking Spanish.
So no matter how it's written, 'gua' and 'wa' is realized phonemically the same (with the optional G stop or fricative depending on dialect and speaker).
But even if you don't enunciate a G-like consonant, you wouldn't pronounce it with a normal 'u' up front at the beginning, the 'u' would come from the back (maybe uvular region?).
Sooo: since 'gua' is neither pronounced as G in other positions, nor as a normal 'ua' diphtong, it deserves in my opinuon to be a phonetic thing of its one and thus a third allophone of the letter G.
This takes me right back to my college courses as a Spanish major that I failed miserably. I feel like I have a much better understanding now!
Interesting to note that like modern Spanish, the pronunciation of Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew (both influenced by Aramaic) have the same allophonic consonant pair pronunciations for b/β, d/ð, g/ɣ, but also for p/ɸ, t/θ, k/x.
The weak allophonic forms are pronounced intervocalically and across word boundaries, as was the case in Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, but this has been lost in modern Hebrew where they have become phonemic, and are no longer truly allophonic. Plus the Hebrew β now is pronounced v, ð has reverted to d in all positions, ɣ has reverted to g in all positions, but also ɸ has evolved into f, θ has reverted to t in all position (except among Ashkenazi Jews were it evolved it into an s), and the x of the k/x pair evolved into χ.
Like Early Spanish, the pronunciation of Early Biblical Hebrew and pre-Biblical Hebrew only had one pronunciation of B, G, D, K, P, T each, but languages keep evolving, sounds keep splitting and merging. The different dialectal pronunciations of Spanish dialects are a testament to that.
For Spanish-speaking learners of Hebrew, they have an advantage learning Hebrew. Often it is very difficult to know when to pronounce a ב (Bet/Vet) as B or V unless it is marked with a pointing system know as Neqqudot which are rarely used except in children’s books or religious books, but a Spanish-speaker should be able to do it intuitively because he already does it in Spanish without even trying or realizing it.
The only problem is that ð and ɣ no longer exist in modern Hebrew, so a Hebrew-speaker of native Spanish-speaking background will end up pronouncing D and G a bit too correctly with the soft allophones in the correct positions in a way that native modern Hebrew-speakers no longer know when, where, or how to do 😂
I think this content is great for English learners as well it gives insights into English articulation.
The /d/ that makes the English voiced /th/ sound can also be an approximate, right? I'm thinking of how I pronounce it as a non-native speaker with an accent I guess is close to native Mexican, and my tongue goes forward and hovers just beneath my teeth as I pronounce the vowel (as along as I'm speaking normally and am not being careful to enunciate). And that would make sense because even that is further approximated, if I'm using that term correctly, in Caribbean accents where you see the /d/ on a continuum between barely pronounced to not pronounced at all.
By the way, I really enjoy your videos. Like too much. I had been looking for a channel like yours for the last two or three years to compare to the advanced Japanese videos I was seeing. I'm so glad I happened upon you and I hope you soon get the recognition your work deserves.
Yes, you're 100% right. The fricative d can be reduced and further softened and be pronounced as an approximant. This is very much the same thing we English speakers do when we reduce the voiced "th" when we're speaking quickly. That's a great observation on your part!
And thank you for the compliment on the videos. I really appreciate it.
Man you're so awesome! This should be attached to every beginner spanish lesson, just the way you did it: a simple rule explanation and then a read-along exercise getting it right. Love it
@@trinitysun9856 Thanks! Glad you liked it.
I wanted to point out that in Colombian Spanish, these sounds are pronounced like their "hard" variants when in contact with any consonant. I mention it not so people will do it, but so they will not be confused if they hear it. I'm not Colombian and this pronunciation is very marked, I immediately notice what to me is a foreign accent when I hear Colombians speak this way.
Thank you for this contribution!
Yes, these occlusive pronunciations of /b d g/ after any consonant or semivowel are also reported to exist in the middle of Central America, especially in Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador.
@@davidcrandall3643does it only happen before other consonants? I'm pretty sure I've heard this occur also after those consonants..
Unbelievably helpful!👍🏽
So glad you found this helpful.
This is excellent. There is so much bad information on youtube about Spanish pronunciation, this video finally explains everything completely and correctly. A slightly less technical version (with less linguistic jargonn) could be useful for beginners. Thanks.
I'm a beginner in Spanish and your videos help me a lot in properly pronouncing words. Muchas gracias!
I'm so happy you find them useful
Best best best! Thank you for saving my energy and time to look for the accurate info of how to pronounce Spanish correctly :)
I'm so happy you liked the video.
6:12 - When n meet with b pronounce son buenos as [som buenos], it is like Arabic that words end with consonants nun (ن) and tanwiin will be pronounce as "mim (م)" when meet with words start from consonant ba (ب).
Thank you I'm studying for a test I was so confused 🤔 thank you 👏
Amazing video, you blew my mind because a lot of the things you said when you pointed them out I was like I don’t do that and then I slowed down a couple words and I realise I had been subconsciously following all these rules. Also amazing pronunciation.
Thank you so much!
A very useful video! It is sometimes difficult for me to contrast the Spanish pronunciation with the English pronunciation because while I am fluent in English, I am not a native speaker of either language and have a noticeable foreign accent in both, so for example the picture at 3:26 was very useful for me. Having seen many of your videos, I have seen many letters of the phonetic alphabet. However, if I may offer an idea for a future video, it would be really nice to have a single video summarizing this alphabet, and to have a text sample written in the standard alphabet and the phonetic alphabet, such that we check ourselves if we know all of the pronunciation rules. Thanks for making these amazing videos!
Thank you! Can you please describe your suggestion again. I don't quite understand what you're asking for. But if I can understand, I'll be happy to make a video on it.
@@tenminutespanish Actually, looking through your videos, the "Study plan for learning Spanish pronunciation" video already comes very close to what I was looking for, so nevermind the suggestion. Sorry about that, I should have double checked your videos before asking. Anyway, thanks again for all of your videos, they are super helpful
@@RQFLS I'm so happy you're finding what you're looking for on my channel.
Excellent clarification! Clear, concise, you took what can be a somewhat confusing topic and made it quite clear. Thanks for spending your time putting together these excellent tip videos to help others speak Spanish as a native speaker :-)
Thank you! I'm very happy you liked the video!
So that is why I sometimes pronounce g like “alguno,” and “pregunta,” different than “gana,” and “algo.” And I thought I was mispronouncing it.
So good. Thank you. Appreciate your work.
Glad you liked it!
Very impressive. Thank you 🙏🏽
You're welcome! I'm so happy you liked the video.
This is great! Very detailed
Thank you!
Hi Dan! Do you provide coaching or classes?
If the answer is yes (or potentially yes), I'd love to learn more. I'm an intermediate Spanish learner with aspirations to specifically develop my accent to a high level.
Apart from my RUclips channel I don't offer classes. I have a couple students who I coach privately, but I don't really have time to take any more right now. If you were interested in an evaluation of your pronunciation, I'll be starting round 2 of that project in a month or two. Keep your eyes open for that announcement and submit a recording, and I'll evaluate your pronunciation as I have done for other viewers of this channel.
Thank you for all the proper pronunciations. Great channel. Can you help with my the speed of my diction. When I repeat spanish sentences, my mouth cannot move quickly enough to follow. Even though I know the words and how to pronounce them.. Are there any exercises I can do to learn to speak quicker? Thank you
Read out loud to yourself in Spanish 20-30 minutes every day.
Interestingly, acoustic studies have found that some native speakers occasionally use the non-occlusives for /b d g/ in positions where occlusives are normally expected. I suspect this is due to a very relaxed or lazy enunciation.
What a clear and complete explanation!
Thank you!
I’m a beginner Spanish language learner. Are these types of pronunciation rules of any importance to a beginner such as myself? Let me clarify-of course correct pronunciation is vital, but should that be something I focus on only after I’ve learned, say, basic conversation skills?
I firmly believe that everyone should learn pronunciation before they learn anything else. It just isn't that hard, and if you wait to learn pronunciation until after you've learned basic grammar and vocabulary, then you've spent all that time internalizing incorrect pronunciation.
@@tenminutespanish Thank you very much for your reply. You should make some beginners videos, I realize it would probably be boring for someone at your language level, but you could be a huge help to all the beginners out there, that are getting incorrect information.
3:27 hey I discovered that my native tongue pronounces a spanish d already😃,even if I speak english 😅
Further: I notice that I did not learn these in spanish courses I took, and thus did tend to ignore them when speaking spanish, although somtimes I may produce that mentioned soft b vw bebida (bevwida) sound,but it's not consistent, moasstly I use b and sometimes v ,vw.
THANK YOU SO MUCH. THIS IS S SUPERB VIDEO!!!!
I'm really happy you liked it.
German native here, feeling like I have a very long way to go.
Greetings from the land of "Auslautverhärtung" 😂
You’re my new favorite person
Aw.
I have studied the spanish "e" for a long time. Maybe I am becoming a bit OCD. . The vowel has an "eh" sound like in pesto, but sometimes it has a stronger sound almost like ay". For example in jefe, the first e is softer than the last e. How should the spanish word DE be pronounced... deh or day?. Thank you
Spanish /e/ is never pronounced like the long ā in "day". There are two possible /e/ sounds in Spanish, but they are highly variable from dialect to dialect and speaker to speaker, and linguistics disagree on when they are used. Most authors teach that there is only one Spanish /e/ sound, although this isn't strictly true.
Maybe it's because I'm too much of an English monoglot, but I don't hear much of a difference between the G and B approximants from their English counterparts. My ear hears them almost identically the same. It seems extremely subtle to me.
D vs "dth" is definitely easier to hear and say for me than the B and G combos. Maybe because they're more different and distinct from one another.
Another way to think of [β] is that it's like English [v], except that instead of pronouncing it with your upper lip and lower teeth, you pronounce it with upper lip and lower lip. So, it's like a [v] sound with your lips. That is a very different sound from a normal English b. And the [ɣ] sound is analogous. The back of the tongue merely comes close to the soft palate, but it doesn't touch.
Imagine pronouncing the word "very" like "berry'. "I'm berry happy to meet you." Someone who isn't a native English speaker might say that the difference is subtle, but it would be very obvious to you.
@@tenminutespanish I don't think they were saying that the sounds are same, just that they were having trouble distinguishing them while listening. That is normal if they don't have a lot of experience with the sounds. For me I had a lot of trouble distinguishing the sounds of 그 and 끄 in Korean. I knew mechanically the difference, but the distinction is in the aspiration which we don't differentiate in English.
@@winnablebtw459 I'm sure you're right. I hope they're able to begin to hear the difference.
The way you described pronouncing the soft B as a v, but between your lips (not with your bottom teeth), was very immediately helpful.
Hello,
Hope all is well?
I have an issue at around 2.32 in the video, and need some clarification, as to avoid using the incorrect sound when speaking Castilian.
As you may know in British English, the old english letters [and their sounds]: Eth (Đ,đ with the IPA being đ) and Thorn (Þ/þ with the IPA being θ) are represented by the digraph 'th', but representing two different sounds, such as:
Eth: They
Thorn: Thing
On the video you are using the IPA and sound for eth, however, at times I am hearing you use the thorn sound.
Would it be the td sound we get from the english word 'they', or the Vf sound we get from the english 'thing', and if it is the latter, that would create the same sound as the Spanish letter zeta in the castilian with distinction dialect.
Many thanks in advance.
Skot.
In standard pronunciation, Spanish interdental d is eth, not thorn. There are some dialects (such as north central Spain) that pronounce interndental d as thorn in some positions (such as at the end of words). If I pronounce interdental d as thorn I am not doing it on purpose. Can you tell me where in this video you hear d as thorn?
@@tenminutespanish
Hey,
Thanks so much for replying.
It was around the 2.32 mark from what I remember, and I think towards the end when you did the recap. However, I do have an imbalance in my left ear, so I may have misheard and got confused in the moment, rather than you mis-pronouncing the sound, and if that is the case, my sincerest apologies.
Genuinely appreciate the clarification, I find Castilain such a wonderful language, and only what to do it justice when I speak it.
Many thanks once again, have a great day.
Skot.
At 3:18 you talk about the stop version of Spanish / d / being on the back of the teeth and not on the alveolar ridge. Wouldn’t this make the spanish / d / a labiodental stop - but this isn’t listed on the IPA chart anywhere?
Is it correct to classify the spanish / d / as a labiodental stop and if so why is it not listed on the IPA consonant chart?
Spanish [d] is not labiodental. "Labiodental" means "lip" and "teeth". The English [f] and [v] are labiodental, pronounced with the lower lip and upper teeth. Spanish [d] is dental. I'm unaware of any necessity to specify that the tip of the tongue is involved. I think that is understood.
@@tenminutespanish Thanks for the response! Yes I suppose “dental” was the word I was looking for (not sure why I added the “labio-“ part).
It seems that the IPA distinguishes between the voiced dental fricative [ð] and the voiced alveolar fricative [z], but it appears that the voiced dental plosive and the voiced alveolar plosive both share the [d] symbol. If that’s correct, is there a reason why the IPA does not distinguish between these two [d] sounds? It seems to me that there should be different symbols given that the fricatives have different symbols.
@@kalculateai Linguists take shortcuts with all the little symbols that may appear under and around letters to specify their exact articulation. Spanish phonoticians don't specify the dental point of articulation, as opposed to alveolar, because there is only one occlusive /d/ in Spanish, and it's dental. No need to specify. You only need to specify if you're comparing and contrasting Spanish with some language where the /d/ is articulated somewhere else. I believe the symbol for voiced dental occlusive is "d" with a sideways bracket under it, like this: [d̪]. Nobody I know worries about that kind of detail, though.
@@tenminutespanish I see - thank you!
I think you were my Spanish instructor at FSI :)
I'm sorry, I have never had any association with FSI.
Can we pronounce the soft /b/ the way we pronounce/v/ in english by the upper teeth and the back of the lower lip (but don't make it voiced) just make it voiceless to pronounce soft or vibration/d/ ??
Spanish /b/ is bilabial. It is pronounced with the upper lip and lower lip. This is true of both the occlusive (hard) version and the approximant (soft) version. It should not be pronounced with lip and teeth, as English [v]. It should not be voiceless.
There are Soanish dialects that sometimes pronounce the approximant version of /b/ like English [v]. I do not recommend that students of Spanish do this.
@@tenminutespanish thank you for replying and for your very useful videos.
I didn't mean that I will use the upper teeth and the lower lip to pronounce the /v/ sound. I meant that I tried to pronounce the soft voiced /b/ in that way and I heard it as the same b
Try to pronounce soft voiced/b/ with the upper teeth and the back of lower lip , don't say /v/ just say /b/ and you will understand what I mean.
I thought it may be right. I read some comments of native Spanish speakers saying that .
But if it's wrong, it's okay. Thank you SO MUCH.
When letter D appears at the end of the word, like Madrid. Is it pronounced?
Remember that in Spanish words flow together as if they were a single long word. So, how letters are pronounced at the end of a word sometimes depends on the word that follows. But let's assume that in this case, "Madrid" isn't followed by anything. Let's assume it is the last word in an utterance, so the "d" sound is really the last sound you pronounce in that utterance. In standard Spanish pronunciation (European and Latin American) it is pronounced as a voiced interdental fricative [ð]. But in some dialects, especially north central Spain (where Madrid is located), it is pronounced as a voiceless interdental fricative [θ]. This isn't standard pronunciation, but millions of people do it. But in many dialects, "d" in lots of positions is reduced, just like "th" is reduced in lots of dialects of English. And lots of native Spanish speakers pronounce "d" very softly or not at all in lots of positions. One of the positions where "d" is most often reduced, and most dramatically reduced, is at the end of words/utterances. So, lots of people don't pronounce the final "d" in Madrid, verdad, etc.
Super. Now let's do b and v.
Oh I see, you already did lol. 👏😉
Is this your real voice? It sounds so AI-like but in actually good 😅
@@EvenRoyalsNeedToUrinate Yes, it's my real voice. And you're not the first person to think I'm AI.
@tenminutespanish thanks for your reply!
I think that's because you have an unusually clean voice and your sentences are flawlessly written, articulated and enunciated (and yes, your style of narration is also a bit monotonous but that's ok for this purpose, it reminds me of those didactic TV shows before narrators had to sound excited about every little thing :D).
So my first thought was AI voice..
Now I've watched more of your videos and realized that there's a lot of effort in your videos! It's a shame this channel hasn't 10x more subscribers..
Thanks for your work!! Glad I found you, greetings from Europe ✌️
@@EvenRoyalsNeedToUrinate Thank you so much for your kind words. I'm thrilled you're enjoying my videos.
I'm a native English speaker learning Spanish. All of the phonetic (?) terminology and symbols you use in your videos are completely foreign to me. Can you point to resources introducing the basics of these terms? Hearing these without an example of the sound in English makes them almost meaningless if not studied separately (fricative, dentals (sp?), stops, etc.).
I include those symbols and terminology for people who are interested and who understand them, but they're not at all necessary in order to understand what I'm saying. I use enough examples and describe and pronounce the sounds clearly enough that you should be able to pick up the meaning just by watching the video and paying attention. "Dental" is when the tongue touches the teeth. "Interdental" is with the tongue between the teeth. Etc. "Fricative" is when friction is produced, an approximant is when organs come close but don't quite touch. In the video I explain these terms as I pronounce the sounds and display the symbols.
I'm unaware of any Spanish phonetics texts written in English that would explain all this. But my videos should be simple enough for beginners.
It would be more straight forward to say these sounds are stops after nasals.
That would not be entirely accurate, though, since /l/ isn't a nasal. /d/ is a stop after /n/ and /l/. Also, they're stops at the beginning of utterances.
@@tenminutespanish I didn't say anything about not addressing the l, nor about ignoring the beginning of utterances. I was talking about a stop after a nasal. Sorry for not being more explicit about not including what I wasn't addressing.
I pronounce like the English D and no one has said they don't understand what I'm saying. Of course I have an accent. Don't most foreigners have one?
not sure what you're trying to get across...if you don't want to improve that's fine...no one is going to take the time to teach you how to talk.
@boricuafrican1 suena bìen . Una vez dije...ven pa'ca. Todo me extendiò. Everyone has an accent from New York to Puerto Rico to wherever. No problem. I love my poor Spanish accent. My novia says sound sexy.
The Spanish d (and also t) is not a dental fricative, its a dental plosive. Both alveolar and dental plosives are considered and written with the letter's d and t. English has an alveolar plosive while spanish and most other language that has a d has a dental plosive. I could be wrong but this is how it works, many other languages pronounce the d in the same way as Spanish.
So you are correct that the spanish d is different from an English d, but the spanish d isnt a dental fricative, like in the words "The, Feather, Mother", its a dental plosive. Your video wasnt fully accurate
Note: There isnt a seperate symbol for the dental plosive, both alveolar plosive and dental plosive is categorised into one for some odd reason.
The Spanish /d/ phoneme has TWO allophones. One is a dental stop, which is usually represented in Spanish studies with a simple [d], but which if we were being more accurate should probably be represented like this [d̪]. (Texts often leave out diacritics unless comparing/contrasting comparable sounds from two different languages.) The other allophone of Spanish /d/ is an interdental fricative [ð]. This symbol is called "eth". I have accurately described the pronunciation, distribution, and phonetic contexts of those two allophones.
The interdental fricative [ð] arose as a historical phonological process in the evolution of Spanish from spoken Latin called "lenition". In that process, voiceless geminate stops became simple stops ([tt] > [t]), simple stops became voiced stops ([t] > [d]), voiced stops became voiced fricatives ([d] > [ð]), and voiced fricatives sometimes, then, disappeared ([ð] > [∅]).
@@tenminutespanish Sure, you are you are correct that the Spanish d becomes a fricative in certain contexts of words. However the fundamental nature of the Spanish d is a dental plosive or stop. The Fricative is only an allephone of the Spanish d and not the primary phoneme of the Spanish d.
What you just stated below proves my point that it's an allephone that occurred due to historical processes like Lenition rather then being the primary phoneme of the Spanish d
@@hughson9229 Phonemes don't have a "fundamental nature". They are abstract concepts. Allophones, not phonemes, are concrete real world things. And there is no such thing as a "primary allophone". Spanish /d/ has two allophones, [d] and [ð]. [d] is pronounced at the beginning of utterances and after [l] or [n]. [ð] is pronounced in all other contexts. Because "all other contexts" is more than 90% of appearances of /d/, BY FAR the most common pronunciation of Spanish /d/ is [ð], which is an interdental fricative. If you'd like, I can do a quick statistical analysis and give an estimate of the prevalence of [d] and [ð]. I'll be happy to do that if you like.
@@hughson9229 Ok, so I did a quick statistical analysis of two short chapters of a book. In that text, /d/ appeared 391 times. Of those 391 instances, /d/ is likely to be pronounced [d] (after [n], [l], or a pause) 43 times. That's about 11%. Of those 391 instances, /d/ is likely to be pronounced [ð] (all other contexts) 348 times. That's about 89%.
Now, native speakers don't speak exactly like written Spanish text. In fact, they don't even read text the way it's punctuated. So, there might be more pauses than this analysis indicates, and there might be some /d/ in natural speech that can't be accounted for this way. So, being generous, we could adjust those numbers a couple percent, say [d] 13% and [ð] 87%.
So, it looks like my original estimate was wrong. [ð] is not over 90%, it's a little under. Still, it's the large majority of incidences of /d/.
@@tenminutespanish OK, that is a valid perspective, but it's not a widely agreed viewpoint. While you may state that there is no such thing as a "Primary phoneme", that is debatable. The allophones of a letter are not considered the sounds of what that letter makes for most linguistic experts. For example in English an aspirated allophone of P exists but the "primary phoneme" of P is the voiceless bilabial plosive. Its not that the p makes 2 sounds. You also stated that in most contexts the Spanish d is an interdental fricative, which is likely not true because its very unlikely Spanish speakers even distinguish them and it likely differs from region to region with each dialect. The analysis you did is also composed of only 2 short chapters with only 391 words. First of all thats a very short amount of words and you did state that Spanish speakers likely don't differentiate them but in that case what was the methodology you used to move it from 11% to 13% if that was accurate?
This might be the video he was talking about ruclips.net/video/lDVzVji_VJc/видео.htmlsi=r_SD2XqR0rlM9FQ9
1. two different d sounds. 2. Neither is pronounced like that.
Exactly.
I know you talking about Rickie lol