Rule #1, Spanish vowels are SHORT

Last post was about vowels, remember? If you haven´t read it, don´t worry, here´s the gist of it:

1.- Spanish vowels are short
2.- Spanish vowels are pure
3.- Spanish vowels start differently from English vowels -and end differently as well!

For those of you who think the rules are not self explanatory, I´ll write a post on each of them separately, starting with rule #1.


Long vowels and short vowels


In English we have long vowel sounds, like /i:/ from feel, and short vowels, like /ɪ/ from fill. We all agree on that, right? The same with the long /ɑ:/ from bard and the short /ʌ/ from bud. Long vowels seem to last more, don´t they? You can´t possible think that these vowels last the same:

bid and bead
good and food
cad and card
cod and cord
(for)ward and word

(Scottish readers out there, yes: maybe some of those vowels have the same length, but only when YOU say them!)

(Really picky readers out there: yes, the opposition between these vowels is not only the length, it´s actually a complex of quality and quantity, and of those two factors it is likely that quality carries the greater contrastive weight. Nevertheless, today´s topic is duration, so bear with me)

Now, suppose that long /i:/ from feel lasted 1 second (I know it doesn´t last that long, just play along for pedagogical reasons), and suppose that short /ɪ/ from fill lasted 0,5 seconds, how long would you say a Spanish vowel sound like the /i/ from sí lasts? No idea? Let´s consider this:

There are no long vowels and short vowels in Spanish, they all last roughly the same. If you grab a recorder and start measuring sound waves, surely they will not all measure exactly the same, but the thing is, those Spanish vowels that are a bit shorter, are longer than short English vowels, and those Spanish vowels that are a bit longer, are shorter than long English vowels. Not easy to follow, so back to the example:

If a long English vowel lasted 1 second and a short English vowel lasted 0,5 seconds, every single Spanish vowel would last about 0,6 seconds. And most importantly, the difference in duration between Spanish vowels is so subtle, that you should aim at keeping them not only short, but also as similar in duration as possible.


Short vowels and shorter vowels (aka prefortis clipping, for us phonetic geeks)


Now you know why I say Spanish vowels are short, but there´s a lot more to say about vowel length, specially if your mother tongue is English. Let´s see an example using a diphthongs: play, payed and plate. Don´t be shy, say them out loud. It is the same vowel sound, but does it have the same length every time?

Prefortis clipping is the name for this "shortening" of vowel sounds, and it occurs when a vowel is followed by a voiceless (fortis) sound.

Prefortis clipping: the phenomenon we´re talking about
shortening: when something gets shorter, like the diphthong in plate, compared with the diphthong in played
voiceless (fortis) sound: those sounds produced without any vibration of the vocal cords, in Spanish, [p t k f s ʃ x].

So why the hell would you care about this? Bottom line: English vowels change their duration all the time, Spanish vowels do not! You guys tend to lengthen stressed vowels, and it sounds horrible. You guys tend to shorten unstressed vowels, and it sounds horrible. You guys tend to lengthen vowels when they´re followed by a voiced consonant (like /r/), and yes, it sounds horrible.

If you´ve read this till the very end, congratulations!You deserve the golden rule:

EVERY SPANISH VOWEL HAS THE SAME DURATION, SHORT!

Bonus link: Pronunciación de las vocales, by Bárbara Kuczun Nelson

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