Unstressed vowels are relaxed only slightly (compare English natural with Spanish natural ).
Spanish vowels are pronounced clearly and quite sharply, and unlike English are not extended to form diphthongs (e.g. 4 Spanish letters and their soundsĪll the examples given below are pronounced as in British English. Note that in cases where IPA transcriptions are given for Spanish words, the stress mark is inserted in the same way as explained for English. Bearing this in mind we can apply four rules:Ī Where there is a combination of weak + strong vowels, forming a single syllable (called a diphthong), the stress falls on the strong vowel: b aila, ci erra, pu esto, p eine, c ausa.ī In a combination of weak + weak vowels, again forming a diphthong, the stress falls on the second element: ru ido, fu imos, vi uda.Ĭ Where two strong vowels are combined they are pronounced as two distinct syllables, the stress falling according to rules A and B in section 2 above: ma/ es/ tro (three syllables), con/ tra/ er (three syllables), cre/ er (two syllables).ĭ Any word that has a combination of vowels whose parts are not stressed according to the above rules is given an acute accent on the stressed part: cre ído, per íodo, ba úl, r íe, t ío. The convention is that a, e and o are ‘strong’ vowels while i and u are ‘weak’. You will have seen in 2 A above that in cases like telefonea and historia not all vowels count equally when dividing and stressing syllables. Only in a few verb forms does the stress fall further back than the antepenultimate syllable: c ántamelo, proh íbaselo.
car ácter, caract eres, and r égimen, reg ímenes. There are a few exceptions to this rule, e.g. The same syllable is stressed in the singular and plural forms of each word, but an accent may have to be added or suppressed in the plural: cr imen, cr ímenes, naci ón, naci ones. There are simple rules for placing stress on Spanish words:Ī If a word ends in a vowel, or in n or s (often an indication of the plural of verbs and nouns respectively), the penultimate syllable is stressed: zap ato, zap atos, div ide, div iden, divid ieron, antiviviseccion ista, telefon ea, histor ia, diluv iaba.ī If the word ends in a consonant other than n or s, the last syllable is stressed: verd ad, practic ar, decib el, virr ey, coñ ac, pesad ez.Ĭ If the word needs to be stressed in some way contrary to rules A and B, an acute accent is written over the vowel to be stressed: hablar á, guaran í, rub í, est é, rococ ó, m áquina, m étodos, vi éndolo, paral ítico, h úngaro. Pronunciation often heard in the Spanish regions, for example Andalusia, has not been covered. The pronunciation described below could be called ‘educated’ Castilian. Any words that do have a phonetic transcription are pronounced in a way that you would not expect, such as reloj for example, or they have been taken from another language and given a Spanish sound, often while keeping the original spelling. Because Spanish pronunciation is so regular you will find that in Part I of the dictionary (Spanish into English) most of the headwords are not transcribed phonetically in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). The pronunciation of European Spanish is generally quite clear from its spelling and the notes below should be sufficient for an English speaker to understand what written Spanish actually sounds like. Skinny synonyms and antonyms.IPA Pronunciation Guide - Spanish Spanish pronunciation and spelling
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