Rule#3, part II, Spanish vowels end differently from English vowels

I took some time off. Off blogging actually -I turned in some papers, started some group pronunciation workshops and sat for a couple of midterms, including a German pronunciation Klausur. Chaos seems to be over now, so back with our Spanish vowels.

Some time ago I posted an overview of the Spanish vowel system, and told you there were three general rules you should follow:

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

Last post was about how Spanish vowels started, with a slow vibration, as opposed to English vowels, which usually start with a glottal stop. But, how do they end? It´s fairly simple, and it´s also connected with the two other rules we´ve previously discussed.

When an English word ends with a vowel, our vocal folds stop vibrating slowly. This gives the vowel that extra length, along with that extra sound quality, a sort of diphthong that is produced as the vowel slowly fades out. Just try it yourself, the vowel sound from "not" has not the same length as the vowel sound from "no".

In Spanish, if you say "no" with that long, diphthongized vowel sound, well, you won´t be speaking Spanish at all. When a Spanish word ends with a vowel, that vowel is short, and the vibration of the vocal folds ends sharply, the completely different from the ending of English vowels. Actually, it resembles the way English vowels begin, and if you think it doesn´t, you should be reading the previous post.

This happens with every vowel sound, but is specially noticeable for the sound /o/. Just below you´ll find a clip from the movie "Take the lead", featuring Antonio Banderas. I didn´t like the movie at all, but I just love the way Antonio Banderas seems to be completely unable to produce English vowels properly. Pay special attention at 0:30, when he says "no". He mimics the diphthong, he does says /nou/, but the vowel ends way too sharply to sound English.



Now I don´t know if he´s faking the Spanish accent or just can´t help it, and I actually don´t care much. This same clip would be very useful to discuss the Spanish base of articulation, those general rules that govern the whole of the phonetic system -what makes Spanish sound Spanish. I´ve already told you about the vowels, can you hear anything else?