How To Pronounce Letters In Spanish * Lesson 1*

I'll allow you to establish a really good phonetic foundation. Well, guys, today what I want to do is review the alphabet with you and I want to start with vowel sounds. Here's the thing and in Spanish, 90% of the pronunciation in reading. is knowing the vowels and the best thing is that in English we know that an a sounds like aah sometimes it sounds like a sometimes it sounds like sometimes we don't have that problem in Spanish and a has a sound and e has a sound each vowel has a sound, so we want to start with you real quick and talk about those vowel sounds, so the letter A right here, the letter A will always sound like ah, it will always be hello if you ever hear someone say something with Sound AA you know it's the letter A it will never be different now look at this this is the letter E is

pronounce

d ah yes it's like eh almost in Spanish ah and the letter I you this is a little confusing sometimes because the letter AI actually sounds like e-okay so every time you hear the sound and it's an eye.

I want to go ahead and tell you that a Y we'll talk about what a Y is called in Spanish in just a minute, but in context if you want. As you read, you see the letter Y, it's also

pronounce

d e and it means and apart from that, more or less an e sound, it will be an AI and don't confuse E and the letter E because remember it ascends like a good until now. it sounds like aah it sounds like a and I sound like e now we get to the letter O and I have to tell you something really important about the letter O because this is where we can sound like non-native speakers, okay? when you say the letter O in English we do exactly what I just did, we say o and we put our lips together, you know, they do that rounding thing and sometimes we say hey, what are we having tacos for dinner? and we put those lips together, that makes We don't sound like we're Spanish speakers when we speak Spanish, so what we want to do is keep our mouth straight and not move our lips and just say "try it," just say "oh, okay," and that's the same for you when we say u we want to press those lips don't do it just say ooh okay very quickly I want to pronounce the vowels one by one and just say it out loud what you think the vowels intellect oh here comes the a it's ah you have it now the e a and now I remember that it's different okay, it's e okay good and we're not going to confuse the E and the E the letter e good now the oh oh good and then the U is ooh good great now let's go over the entire alphabet Spanish and I'll tell you that these are the names of the

letters

, okay, so remember that sometimes we don't apply our rules in our way of thinking to other languages, but I just want to remember something.

When we talk about the alphabet, now I tell you what those

letters

are called. Well, then I'll tell you the names of the real letters. If you're going to spell something, this would be what you said, but again in context. we just use the letters as they are used here's an example of what I'm talking about, you know, if we spell the word baby in English, we spell it be a B Y, okay, so those are the names of the letters B to B Y, but in context I don't say oh, that's very cute B to B And right, we actually use the letters as they are used, baby, same thing, so what I'm telling you today in the alphabet is that the names are the names of the letters.

Well, here we go, so we should learn the a, which is aa. Now a lot of the consonants go ahead and have this sound in your mind, the S sound, because a lot of those consonants are going to use that sound, look what I'm doing. talking about here we go, the B is called bad, bad and the C is called let's say set and the D is called you're probably already guessing dad, now I want to go ahead and tell you to push that tongue forward a little bit. Well, we don't want to put our tongue back here on that ridge right behind our teeth that goes up because that's where we make the D in English and that sound will make us sound like a person trying to speak Spanish, so push it. your tongue advances a little and you say ok and then the e that we already learned is a and the F is fa fa now the G the G is going to be a little different in Spanish we will use it in the same way that we do in English in context , but the G is actually I always tell my students what they remember the name of the letter G because you always say this, you always say hello, okay, so the GTA a word with H doesn't say the H, there's no sound of breathing or anything, it's just silent so you just ignore it, but it's part of spelling, so if you want to be a good speller, make sure it's there if you're writing it, but don't say it in the handwriting.

H I like to tell my students to sneeze is what I mark, I mark it, okay, now let's go to the I is e and the J is breathed like our English H the letter is called Jota K is called God, we don't use many caves in Spanish but it is part of the alphabet now I will get to the h i j k l we will get to the L is the la but now we have a double L in Spanish the double L sounds like yes in a sentence so this word is correct here L L AM a s is pronounced yah mas yah mas como in what's your name let's go to Hamas okay, so the double L sounds like this, then the single L is called la, the double L is called EA, okay, let's move on to the M it's called you're probably already guessing ma ma the N It's called n may and may and again I want to push your tongue forward a little bit because you know our n in English is a little bit back and so you push your tongue forward a little bit bite and tell me, now you have the end and it has a little snake wavy on top.

Now first of all, I won't tell you that line is called dealer day, that's what that little snake is called. on top but when you have that at the end it changes it from ma to NEA and yeah, okay, let's see a word that would work with that letter here's a morning like I'll see you tomorrow tomorrow you say my Nana, that's the difference between the simple n and with the tilde at the end yeah, okay, that brings us to oh, that we've already learned, now let's talk about the P real quick, the P is just called pay, but what I want you to do friends, is this, I want you to put your hand in front of your mouth very quickly and say the English word Huff puff.

Now when you say the word puff, you're going to feel a puff of air on your hand and that's because when we do English Erin has that breathing sound, so in Spanish what you want to do is try to get that air out, so put your fingers together. lips and go ahead and try it with me, put your lips together like you're going to say the lyrics. from P but then use that as a starting point and just say hello BAE, she tries to get that air out and once you start to feel significantly less air, you'll get really close, you'll sound like a native speaker. let's talk about the cue the letter Q is called cool and then we get to the R let's talk about they are very fast the single is as if it were in English it does not exist in Spanish they are not actually in English sound that sound does not exist in Spanish So, the only R here we call it a flap and what I want you to do is take your tongue and put it right behind your teeth there and then move your tongue back until you feel that ridge come up nice and then that's where you want your tongue to be when you say that the Spanish are and you're going to push air in and just wave your tongue you're just going to wave it against that part of your mouth and that's why we call it fin now you're a a lot of my students come up and say I can't really do that in Spanish and I say yes, you can because you do it all the time.

I'll give you an example right now. I want you to say this word in English and I want you to think I want you to pay attention where your tongue is say the word butter butter I just tried it a couple of times butter where is your tongue exactly where I told you a minute ago? I don't even realize that the Spanish are okay, so let's put a word on the screen here PE r oh, this is the conjunction, but I want to go but I can't, okay, but in Spanish, let's be together now first of all . let's do that P we're going to take the air out of it, so take the air out use the sound and remember it all YZ sounds like one sound everything or like everything we're not going to round our lips and I'm just going to say this, don't try it all together, battle, battle, battle, there you go, breathe out, flap your wings, you are and sound like a native speaker, very good, now let's talk about the double heart, the double r will be what we call a trio that is a real little unit, like this with your tongue, so PE RR oh now to this word we add an R, it means dog, let's try this one, breathe out, make the vowel sounds, trill and say this Pedro Pedro Pedro there you go, I bet you're selling like a native speaker that's fine, let's move on, we've talked about ours now let's get those last letters, the S, you can probably already guess if it has the same s sound if the T I want you to take your tongue and move it a little bit closer and again you blow it out ok hey hey now the U is ooh we learned that now the V and the W I want to talk to you about those it depends on what country you really are in some people learn by the V, they will say that and others learn who it really depends on where you are, so it's better to know that you can say this, that our movement is and when you reach another. country, you will understand which one they are using, okay, the W also has two ways of saying it, there is Double woo and the dog puts his dog paw.

I bet you can guess it means double so dog Levay if I can say the double V or dog level W well now the what you're saying right and we're finally at the end Z is SATA right so I want you to practice that alphabet just keep going over it and keep practicing and saying those letters while you're driving in your car or whatever you're doing watching TV practice that alphabet Prince, thank you for looking at the language tutor if you have any questions. For me, feel free to leave it in the comments section below the video and hit subscribe and notification bill so you never miss it.