Pronunciation City

  Why does it happen? In Spanish, the "s" sound is usually pronounced with a slight aspiration or breathiness, especially at the beginning of a word or syllable. This is known as an "unvoiced" sound, as the vocal cords do not vibrate during its production. On the other hand, in English, the "s" sound is often pronounced without aspiration, and may also be pronounced with a "voiced" sound, which means that the vocal cords vibrate during its production. When Spanish speakers encounter an English word that begins with an unvoiced "s" sound, they may add an "e" sound at the beginning of the word in an attempt to replicate the breathiness that is characteristic of the Spanish "s" sound. This can result in words like "eschool" instead of "school", or "esport" instead of "sport". It's important to note that this is not a universal phenomenon among Spanish speakers, and that many S...

  Why does it happen? It's important to note that not all Spanish speakers necessarily mispronounce the "th" sound in English words. However, for those who do struggle with this sound, it is often due to the fact that the "th" sound is not present in the Spanish language, and therefore may not be familiar or easy to produce for native Spanish speakers. In Spanish, the closest sound to the English "th" sound is the "s" sound, which is produced by placing the tongue against the alveolar ridge (the bony ridge behind the upper teeth) and pushing air through the narrow opening between the tongue and the ridge. This sound is used in words such as "siete" (seven) and "salsa" (sauce). On the other hand, the English "th" sound is produced by placing the tongue between the teeth and pushing air through the narrow opening. This sound is used in words such as "think" and "this". For Spanish speakers who a...

  Why does it happen? Spanish speakers may confuse the "v" and "b" sounds in English because these sounds are not distinguished in the same way in the Spanish language. In Spanish, both the "v" and "b" sounds are pronounced with the lips touching, producing a similar sound. As a result, Spanish speakers may have difficulty hearing the difference between the "v" and "b" sounds in English, which are pronounced differently with the lips and teeth. Additionally, the "v" sound in English is produced with the lower lip and upper teeth, while the "b" sound is produced with both lips. In Spanish, the "b" sound is produced with both lips as well, so Spanish speakers may have difficulty articulating the "v" sound correctly in English. This can lead to confusion and mistakes in pronunciation when speaking English, as the "v" and "b" sounds are distinct and important for proper c...

  Why does it happen? Spanish and English have different systems of stress placement. In Spanish, stress is generally placed on the second-to-last syllable of a word, whereas in English, stress can be placed on any syllable within a word, depending on the word's context, meaning, and function within a sentence. This difference in stress placement can cause difficulties for Spanish speakers when learning English pronunciation, as they may not be accustomed to identifying and producing stress patterns in English words and sentences. Additionally, Spanish has a relatively predictable stress pattern, whereas English has many exceptions and irregularities. In Spanish, stress is typically determined by the word's spelling and accent marks. In English, however, stress can be influenced by factors such as the word's part of speech, the number of syllables in the word, and the emphasis placed on certain words within a sentence. Furthermore, in English, sentence stress is an importan...

Throughout this blog, we have learned that errors in pronunciation are pretty common. The most important part of it is recognizing them and trying to correct them; there are many different techniques that we can use to do it, it's just a matter of finding the ones that fit us. This would be helpful for everybody learning a second language, but it is especially relevant to us as current students and future teachers because we will already know what types of errors students are prone to make and how we can try to correct them.    Some of the difficulties I faced, personally, involved designing the exercises; trying to find a type of exercise that would fit the specific error we were discussing and the different items for each. Nevertheless, I really liked the activity as a whole because it taught me a lot about why we as Spanish native speakers make some errors and how there is always an explanation for every one of them.  - Genesis Munguia