A common mistake Spanish speakers make when learning English is the incorrect pronunciation of the vowels sound /i ː / and / ɪ / . In English, these two phonemes are clearly different, but in Spanish there is only one similar vowel sound, /i/ . As a result, many learners struggle to recognize and produce the contrast between the long and short sounds in English. Look the following comparison: Although these sounds are similar, each one is produced slightly differently. For example: /i/ (Spanish): The front of the tongue is positioned high in the mouth, close to the hard palate. /i ː / (English): The front of the tongue is raised to a position near fully close and fully front. The lips are spread. / ɪ / (English): The tongue is slightly lower and more central than for /iː/. This vowel is short and lax. When Spanish speakers hear words like field and filled , or other minimal pairs, they often do not recognize the differences between the sound /iː/ or /ɪ/ . This is because S...
There are many words in English that are spelled using the letter s but end up making the z sound such as cousin, has, and season. These words should be pronounced like cuzin, haz, and seazon, but since there is no z sound in Spanish, Spanish speakers end up pronouncing the words as they are written. Since there’s no Z (as in zoo) in Spanish, the Z sound is often misplaced with an S, especially when it appears in the middle or end of words. The Z is the voiced pair of the S consonant sound. Basically, they are pronounced the same, except that for the fact that with the Z sound, the vocal cords are vibrating. It’s very easy to make this mistake since both sounds look and feel the same, except for the vibrations of the vocal cords . This is also a result of the orthography. Since English, unlike Spanish, is not a phonetic language, many times the Z sound is represented by the letter ‘s’. In Spanish, the letter ‘s’ always represents an S sound. That creates an additional chall...
The extra “e” This error is called epenthesis : adding an /e/ sound at the beginning of words. Since many Spanish words start with “es,” Spanish speakers often add an unnecessary “e” at the beginning of English words. For example, in Spanish we write especial, específico, España, etc., while in English the words are special, specific, and Spain. That’s why it’s common to hear an extra sound added to English words like esport, eschool, or estreet—but they should be sports, school, and street! It is very common among Spanish speakers because in Spanish there are no words that begin with S + consonant without an initial vowel. Examples: student → “estudent” street → “estrit” school → “eschool” Why does this happen? In Spanish, all S + consonant clusters are written with a vowel in front: escuela, especial, estrella The Spanish-speaking brain automatically applies the same rule to English. How should it sound? The S is pronounced dir...
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