Plosive Epenthesis. Yes, it does sound complex.

Guy goes to the doctor and says, Doc, I've got a problem! One day I feel like I'm a teepee, the next day I fee like I'm a wigwam. Teepee! Wigwam! Teepee! Wigwam!

Doctor says, Relax! You're two tents! (too tense!)

Behind this rather stupid joke (thanks Kid's Turn Central) you will find a device utterly common in English pronunciation. This very same device sounds utterly horrible when speaking Spanish. 


I'll give you a clue. Plosive means 'sound produced by a total closure of the oral passage' (that would be your mouth). Epenthesis means 'insertion of a sound'. Second clue: there's no name for that thing in Spanish.

Theoretical mumbo jumbo will arrive in some post soon. In the meantime, I've entrusted one of my students with a little poll: 

-Do the words 'tense' and 'tents' sound alike when said by a native English speaker?

-Do the words 'tense' and 'tents' sound alike when said by a native Spanish speaker?


What do you think? 




If you don't want to miss the answer to this week's mystery riddle, subscribe to the Spanish 101 RSS feed. If you want to insult me for abusing bold letters, send me a mail, or leave a comment below.

The no voiced fricatives rule

Last week, Eleena, from Voces en español, released a podcast we recorded together, you can listen to it here. It deals with the base of articulation: the main differences between the overall "feel" of the two languages. You can find out more about that here and here.

The base of articulation is not a new concept, I´ve first read about it in a book edited in 1937. But, for some unknown reason, it´s been neglected in recent Spanish phonetic books. To those four rules Eleena and I discussed, I´d like to add a new one, it´s really simple: there are no voiced fricatives in Spanish, as opposed to the relatively complex series of English fricatives.

Too much too fast? Don´t panic. If you want to understand why you sound so gringo when saying words like manzana, jueves or calle, just keep on reading. One step at a time, I promise you will get it at the end.


So, what is a fricative again?

If I ask any of my students what a fricative is, he or she will probably say it´s a sound produced by friction. Now you know too, congratulations! So which are the sounds produced by friction? It´s easy, try to make any sound, if you can make it really really long, chances are it´s a fricative. For example, /s/. Try it, say ssss, you could go forever -if you had air enough.

Now you know what a fricative is. There are more, can you guess which ones they are? If you guessed /n/ or /m/, you are wrong! You can produce a really long nnnn, but /n/ and /m/ are nasals (the air escapes through the nose), so think about the other sounds that can be really really long. Nothing? Ok, I´ll help you.

English fricatives

/f/ as in leaf AND /v/ as in leave
/θ/ as in thing AND /ð/ as in this
/s/ as in soup AND /z/ as in zoo
/ʃ/ as in station AND /ʒ/ as in vision
/h/ as in heal

Now, the following are the Spanish fricatives, tell me if you see a pattern. It should be noted that I´m talking about the Spanish used in Argentina.

Spanish fricatives

/f/ as in fácil
/s/ as in sol
/ʃ/ as in coyote
/x/ as in joder

If you don´t see a pattern, don´t worry, bear with me just a bit more.


Voiced vs. voiceless

If I ask any of my students why I wrote those fricatives in pairs, he or she will say that the sounds from each pair share the same place of articulation, but the one of the left is voiceless and the one on the right is voiced. Let´s translate that: to make the sounds from the pair /f/ /v/, your mouth and tongue are in exactly the same position, but the difference is that when you say /v/, your vocal folds vibrate, when you say /f/, they don´t. If you still don´t know what the hell I´m talking about, just do this: put your hand on your throat, and say ffff. Now say vvvv. Which one produced a vibration? If you guessed /v/, congratulations, you´ve just discovered what a voiced sound is! If you´re not sure yet, this may also work: put you hands on your ears, and say ffff, then vvvv, noticed any vibrations? (Thanks Charlotte for the tip!)

Now that we know what a voiced sound is, why don´t we rewrite those lists?

English fricatives

voiceless------------voiced
/f/ as in leaf AND /v/ as in leave
/θ/ as in thing AND /ð/ as in this
/s/ as in soup AND /z/ as in zoo
/ʃ/ as in station AND /ʒ/ as in vision
/h/ as in heal

Spanish fricatives

voiceless------------voiced
/f/ as in fácil
/s/ as in sol
/ʃ/ as in coyote
/x/ as in joder

Seeing any patterns now people? Nothing yet?! We´re almost over.


The no voiced fricatives rule

In English, almost every letter "z" is pronounced as the sound /z/, like zoo, zip or quiz. But, how will you pronounce the letter "z" from Spanish words like zapato or azul?

In English, almost every letter "v" is pronounced as the sound /v/, like vine, savage or love. But... how will you pronounce the letter "v" from Spanish words like voz or avión?

You taking the hint? In Spanish, the letter "z" will always we produced as the sound /s/. If you still don´t know what´s the diffeerece between /z/ and /s/, I must ask: have you even read this whole thing, or have you just skeemed through the headlines? One last time: /z/ is produced with vibrations of the vocal folds, /s/ has no vibrations whatsoever! And what´s more important: there is no /z/ in Spanish!

As you can see, there is not one voiced fricative in Spanish. We´ll say ssss in words like cazar, zápate, corazón, we´re are so crazy we´ll even say ssss in zoológico. If you don´t, you will sound like a tourist, sorry! What about the letter "v", you ask? Just pretend it´s a "b", because we´re out of our minds, we don´t care if we write jueves, vaca, violín or nieve, we will say juebes, baca, biolín and niebe, don´t you dare us!

Now, the philosophical part of the blog, why is it there are no voiced fricatives in Spanish? We can simply guess, or study philology, but I´d rather guess, is funnier and doesn´t take as much time. I guess it´s connected with the relatively strong muscular tension that characterizes the Spanish language, as opposed to the rather relaxed English pronunciation. These voiceless sounds are all fortis, which means that they require more tension around the mouth. But it´s just my very personal guess. You got any better?

The other side of the /l/

Buenos días a todos. Hoy me sumo a la postmodernidad: quiero una solución rápida y momentánea para un problema complejo. Si quisiera resumir la clase de hoy en tres oraciones, eligiría éstas:

1. En inglés, la letra “l” tiene dos variantes: /l/, como en let; y /ɫ/, como en well, aka the dark /ɫ/.

2. En español, la letra “l” tiene una sola variante, como en lonja o gol (la misma de let, por si no lo notaron).

3. La dark /ɫ/ no existe en español; se debe usar el mismo sonido de let para palabras como gol y sal.


Creo que es una regla simple. Uno la lee, y la entiende enseguida. Pero lo más probable es que se la olviden en no más de diez minutos, o la recuerden pero sin ponerla nunca en práctica. En definitiva, el sonido que le damos a cierta letra es un hábito, algo en lo que no pensamos, algo sale automáticamente… ¿cómo se cambia un hábito? Sabemos que no alcanza con leer tres oraciones, pero… ¿qué es lo que hacemos entonces?


1. Theoretical background


Hay gente a la que le encanta leer teoría. A mi me encanta, siempre y cuando pueda conectarla con la realidad. Si describimos los dos sonidos, y los comparamos, nuestro cerebro va a estar mejor preparado para escucharlos… suena lógico, ¿no? Entonces, ¿qué es esto de que existen dos “l”?

Clear /l/ [the one you have to do all the time]

The front of the tongue is raised, the tip of the tongue touches the area just behind the upper teeth. It happens [a] in the beginning of a syllable, like in leave or look, [b] following another sound in the same syllable, like in placebo or flow, or [c] at the end of a word following /j/, like in feel it or will you.

Dark /ɫ/ [the one you must never do (in Spanish)]

The front of the tongue is somewhat lowered, the back of the tongue is raised, and the tip of the tongue touches the area right behind the upper teeth. It happens [a] after vowel before consonant, like in feel or help, and [b] when the “l” is syllabic, as in table or middle.

Ya está, ya sabemos qué tenemos que cambiar… ¿alcanza?

2. Ejercicios prácticos

Estamos cambiando un hábito: años y años de usar la dark /ɫ/. Les propongo balancearlo, practiquemos mucho tiempo la otra /l/. La dark /ɫ/ se da al final de la sílaba, pero como no existe en español, las siguientes palabras se van a decir con la clear /l/:

final de palabra ágil azul cal canal débil fiel gol hiel

igual mal miel piel riel sol sal

final de sílaba palco polca talco alto esbelto multa

almirante Peralta álgido hilvanar sultán

colcha malta palta calco

¿Cómo practicar? Primero, en inglés. En voz alta, digamos las palabras let y well. Si tenés a un amigo cerca, llamalo y pedile que te las diga. Si tu amigo no tiene un acento muy bueno, es muy probable que escuches la clear “l” en las dos palabras. Supongamos que no tenés un amigo cerca, y leés las palabras solo. No me vas a decir que se trata del mismo sonido, ¿o si? No, no es el mismo sonido, es bastante diferente. Observá atentamente tu boca, y mentalizate en hacer el sonido de let mientras repetís las palabras de la lista de arriba. Yo creo que si las leés todas las palabras, una vez por día, a los siete días va a ser de lo más normal usar la clear /l/ siempre. O, al menos, cada vez que uses la dark /ɫ/, te vas a dar cuenta de lo horriblemente ajena al español que suena.

You might have noticed I could finaly write some phonetic symbols. If you want to add phonetic symbols to your webpage, you may find this link useful: IPA transcription in Unicode. Thanks, University College London! I´m reading the About Us page, and just found out that A. C. Gimson himself was Head of the Linguistics Department in 1971, WOW! Thanks for the great phonetics books Gimson!

5 Spanish Consonant Sounds that do not exist in English

You guys got it easy, they’re only a few, and if you have no clew about how they sound, then you could probably use some coaching. Or just pay some extra attention, some of the words you never understand the first time you hear them probably have some of these sounds, which can get a bit tricky to articulate when combined. If you want to hear a sample, just open that “Sounds of English and Spanish” animation that the University of Iowa so kindly made available for us all, here’s the link.


/x/ as in ajo, genio, reloj
Phonetic description: voiceless velar fricative

Whenever an English speaker says any of those words, chances are he is producing the /h/ of behave rather than the Spanish /x/. Those two sounds are pretty similar, the main difference is the friction –the Spanish /x/ has a lot, the English /h/ has very little. Note also that the English /h/ is glottal, this means the friction is slightly deeper, on the glottis, than the Spanish /x/, which articulated on the velum.

“aspirated s” as in espacio, costa, mosca
Phonetics description: voiceless glottal fricative

This sound is tricky. If you’ve just started learning Spanish, you probably think we do not say the “s” in those words, but we do! It is hard. I’d say it’s even harder than the “r”. English speakers have a similar sound, the /h/ of words like behave or have. But, the /h/ never happens at the end of a word or syllable (I dare you come up with a word finishing with that sound). The “aspirated s” never occurs at the beginning of a word or syllable, it’s just air expelled almost without any tongue movement. Don’t worry about it if you’re going to Spain, over there they only have one /s/, pretty much the same as the English /s/.

UPDATE: if you scroll down, you´ll see Peggy´s comment about the aspirated s. Turns out it is used in Spain, apparently in the south. Mexicans, on the other hand, don´t have this sound. There´s going to be a post about this in the near future.

“b” as in Evo, “d” as in hada, “g” as in ego
Phonetic description: voiced bilabial/dental/velar espirante

Yes, those three sounds do not exist in English. I’ve already written about them, click here to read the post. I will probably write about them again, in the meantime, can anybody tell me what those three sounds have in common?

English consonant sounds that do not exist in Spanish

This post is intended for people who have just recently started studying Spanish. Most probably, you do not realize much of what’s going on in your mouth, you just open and shoot -which is alright for beginners- but if your own gringo accent is driving you crazy, or absolutely nobody understands what the hell you’re saying (nobody except teachers, we are so nice), then it’s likely you are using English sounds which do not exist in Spanish. They are just a few, so take a look, and remember, whenever speaking Spanish, avoid them like socks with sandals.


Sound: "z", as in zoo, cheese, exit
Phonetic description: voiced alveolar fricative

Whenever we say azabache, zoológico, azar or any word with "z", we make the same sound as we would when saying "s". So, asar (as in asar la carne) and azar (as in suerte en el azar) sound exactly the same, there is no phonetic distinction between them. The difference between the two sounds, /s/ and /z/, is that in /z/ there is vibration of the vocal folds; try to produce the sound in isolation, sounds like a bee hu? (it should) The /s/ sounds like a hiss, and that’s the sound we Spanish speakers produce whenever there’s a "s" "z" or "ce" "ci" (in Spain it’s a bit different, see below).
Now, the same goes for "x". In English, if the "x" is in between vowels, you say /gz/, as in exit. In Spanish there is no /z/, so whenever there’s an "x", we say /ks/, as in axe or éxito.


Sound: "th" as in think, anthem
Phonetic description: voiceless dental fricative

No, we don’t have it, unless you go to Spain. Here in America we dropped it, but in the old continent they make a distinction between "s" and "z" "ce" "ci". For the last three, they make the same sound you make when saying think, so you save yourself the trouble of finding out whether they meant casar or cazar (pretty big difference).


Sound: "th" as in the, with
Phonetic description: voiced dental fricative

No, we don’t use that either... forget about it.


Sound: "v", as in vase, cover
Phonetic description: voiced labio-dental fricative

When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that vaca and burro did not start with the same sound. Twenty years later, the world’s changed, turns out, they do start with the same sound! So vaca, bacán, boca and vocal, they all start with the same sound, which is pretty similar to (but not exactly like) the English /b/. In Spanish, the sound is not very easy, as it has two variants (for more info on that click here).

Sound: "j" as in jungle
Phonetic description: voiced palato-alveolar affricate

Seven times no...

Sound: dark /l/ as in well, help, table
Phonetic description: voiced lateral approximant

In English, you’ve got two /l/ sounds, a clear one, and a dark one. In Spanish, we only use the clear /l/. But... what the hell is a dark /l/? Say these words aloud: leave, lock, silly, all over. Now say these words: feel, help, table, apple. Is it the same /l/?
The last batch have the dark /l/. The main difference is that the back of the tongue is raised, which gives a back vowel resonance... It really is not that important, just try not to do that /l/ in words like cal, mal, alto.

Sound: "g" as in genre, gigolo, "s" as in vision, measure, "g" as in beige
Phonetic description: voiced palato-alveolar fricative

This sound is actually French (historians out there remember how much the English language was affected by the French). Even though a few people use it for the letter "y", as in yo, I find it snobbish. Your choice; I don’t use it.

Sound: "h" as in heat, ahead
Phonetic description: voiceless glottal fricative

No dude! When you say ahí, ahora, almohada -remember, the letter h is "mute" in Spanish! Just pretend it’s not there, and it will return the favor.

Sound: "r" as in right, carry
Phonetic description: voiced palato-alveolar approximant

Hold your horses, we do have an "r" sound in Spanish, but who in his right mind would say it’s the same sound as the one used in English?

In the near future, Spanish consonant sounds which do not exist in English, stay tuned.-

This is forbidden!

There is a huge difference between /b/ /d/ and /g/ in English and in Spanish, let’s watch that Nacho Libre flick one more time...




What’s wrong with the Mexican monk’s consonants? Does he sound English or Spanish? We all know he sounds Spanish, but can you tell me why?

Those Spanish consonants are tricky, each of them has two variants, a "strong" one and a "weak" one. The strong one is pretty similar to the English consonant, but only occurs after a pause or after "m" or "n". In all other cases (in most cases actually), in Spanish we use a weaker form.

Listen to the monk again...

This is forbidden!

To say /b/ in English, we put our lips together; the monk doesn’t, he just closes the mouth a bit, but there is no total closure as in English.

The same for /d/. In English, we would touch the roof of the mouth with the tip of the tongue. He does lift the tongue, but there is no contact with the roof of the mouth (alveolar ridge, for the ones who have been reading this bog for any amount of time).

These sounds do not exist in English, and very few English speakers notice them. It’s awfully common to hear them produce those so very strong consonants where they should use the weak variants. Think about it the other way round, why do Spanish Speakers produce such lousy consonants in words with /b/ /d/ and /g/? A word I always hear is about with that weak /b/, and it sounds horrible!

If you teach English, pay attention to your students´ sounds, are they doing it properly, or are they using those weak consonants instead?


Today is the International Translation Day. Next week, as a celebration, I will post some research I’ve been doing on Spanish Dictionaries. I hope it will prove useful for those of you who are planning on buying one any time soon. My regards and salutations to all translators out there.

Shake that /k/ookie /p/api, or how to pronounce the rest of the voiceless plosives properly

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do with this blog. My main concern is: should I explain a basic vocabulary which will be used constantly throughout every post (what I do when I teach), or should I try to keep the terminology as simple as possible, so that anyone entering the site for the first time will understand what I’m talking about right away? I’ll choose option number two, for now, even though I know some explanations will be painfully wordy if I don’t to use the correct terminology.

That being said, let’s talk about the rest of the voiceless plosives. See how easier it is to classify sounds into categories which share the same features? There are six plosives (that sound produced with an explosion), three of them voiceless (because the vocal folds do not vibrate): /t/ /p/ and /k/.

I’ve already talked about the /t/, and to tell you the truth, pretty much the same happens with the /p/ and the /k/. With these sounds, the point of articulation is the same as in English, but there are two main differences:

1 No aspiration

Just like the /t/; when saying /k/ and /p/ try not to expel all that air! I’ve said the difference is that, in English, the air expelled comes from the lungs, while in Spanish the throat is closed and the only air expelled is what had remained inside the mouth. This is exactly what Antonio Quilis, a Spanish phonetician, says about the subject, but... This doesn’t mean that you have to consciously close your throat every time you say /t/ /k/ or /p/, that could actually be a bit dangerous for your throat and vocal folds. Try not to think about your throat, but do apply more muscular energy when articulating those sounds, mostly around your lower jaw and tongue. This is one of the points I mentioned when I wrote about the Spanish Base of articulation. The aspiration is one devise the English speakers have to be able to tell /p/ and /b/ apart, as well as /t/ /d/ and /k/ /g/. I’ll write about that in the next posts, in the meantime, think about how you say bin and pin, and what would happen if you didn’t make any aspiration for the /p/.

2 No affrication

Again, affrication is that extra sound we hear when /k/ is in stressed syllables, like in come. If said slowly, we would hear /ks/. And again, avoid this please! Keep those plosives short and clean! I don’t want to hear no extra sounds, nor extra air!


For more info on this, see also:

Shake that gringo accent off, 3 /t/ tips

Base of articulation reloaded - Nacho Libre

Shake that gringo accent off, 3 /t/ tips

Tired of the way your /t/ sounds? Most probably you’re missing one of these 3 key points. Open that Sounds of English and Spanish animation window, and read on.


1 Dental articulation

This goes for English and German speakers alike. You guys articulate the /t/ on the alveolar ridge, which is just behind the teeth. In Spanish, /t/ is articulated on the back of the teeth, just like the "th" in words like think or with. Try to keep your tongue plain, and touch those teeth with the tip.


2 No aspiration

I’ve said something about this on the last post. Remember those plosives? They consist on three stages, 1.- closure of the oral cavity, 2.- air pressure built up in the mouth, 3.-realease of that air in a burst. In English, when we release that air, we push it from the lungs, that’s why there’s aspiration, that extra sound when /t/ is in a stressed syllable, like in twist.
In Spanish, we close our throats just before the third stage, and that’s why we only release the air contained inside the mouth. And that’s why the Spanish /t/ sounds "softer".
If you’re still not sure what aspiration is, think about dialects like Irish English and Welsh English, they’ve got a pretty strong aspiration.


3 No affrication

First of all, what’s affrication? It’s when /t/ is released a bit slower, and we hear an extra sound, much like the "ch" in the word change. This is very usual when /t/ is in a strong accented position, in words like time or two. This never happens in Spanish, and it’s why it’s so hard for Spanish speakers to produce the English /t/ properly. If you ever hear a native Spanish speaker, try to notice how he or she pronounces his or her English /t/. Chances are he’s missing the affrication, and even articulating the /t/ on the teeth (which is what you should do!).

IPA, plus why you sound so gringo whenever you say /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/

If you entered the Sounds of English and Spanish animation, you probably saw that letters were written between bars. If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you might have seen that here too. That’s the way we graphically describe a sound, for example, in Spanish, the letter "p" will always be produced phonetically as the sound /p/. In English, the letter "p" will be /p/ in most cases, but don’t forget about words like "phonetics" or "alphabet".

This system of phonetic notation is called the International Phonetic Alphabet. It was created in 1888 by what in 1897 would be known as the International Phonetic Association (also called IPA). It was a bunch of French linguists who wanted to create a phonetic system that could be applied to any language. The idea was to devise a way to teach a realistic pronunciation. I’d say they were pretty successful; the International Phonetic Alphabet suffered a few revisions, something completely natural considering it was created over a hundred years ago, but the core organization of vowels and consonants remains the same since 1888. You can see the last version here.

At the beginning, this Frenchmen’s idea was to allow sounds to have different articulations depending on the language, but soon they decided a universal alphabet was better. And this is where this useful tool could turn against you if you don’t know how to use it. Of course Peter and Pablo both start with the sound /p/, what there’s no way you’re going to convince me it’s the same sound! (Next paragraph contains same heavy theory, but if you skip it, you’re going to miss one very important revelation)

Both sounds are bilabial; the point of articulation being the upper and lower lips. Both sounds are voiceless; the vocal chords do not vibrate while saying /p/. Both sounds are plosive, or oclusivas, this means they are produced by a burst of air. But that’s the short explanation, the longer one would say plosives consist on three stages, 1.- closure of the oral cavity (closure, oclusivas, get it?), 2.- air pressure built up in the mouth, 3.-realease of that air in a burst (explosion, plosive, get it?). That is the manner of articulation, and the term says a lot about the sound. In Spanish they are called oclusivas, because the most important thing about the sound is the first stage, the closure. In English, on the other hand, they are called plosives, it’s all about the explosion. It’s so much about the explosion, that when the sound is in a stressed syllable, we even write /ph/. There’s so much air coming out, we say there’s some aspiration going on, an extra sound. And that’s the main difference between English plosives and Spanish oclusivas.

And that’s why you sound so gringo whenever you say /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/!

Notice how they’re all created with a burst of air, those are the plosives. I’ll go back to this in some other post, let it sink in, tell me when you’re ready.