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?

Rule #2, Spanish vowels are PURE

Did you know that the 5-vowel system is the most common vowel system in the world? The next two are the 6 and the 7-vowel systems. Now, you can count English vowels in whatever way you like, but there will be only one result: the English vowel system is by far one of the less common and more complex types. Amazingly, babies acquire the complete vowel system earlier than the consonant system, usually by the age of 2. Regrettably, I´m assuming we´re all a bit older than that, and learning the English vowels, for me, was a pain in the butt, just like learning the Spanish vowels will be a pain in the butt for you. Let´s recap those Spanish vowels rules:

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

So, what do we mean by "pure"? When asked to describe the Spanish vowels, one of my students said: "Suenan igual a como se escriben". Well... not very technical, but true nonetheless. I´ll give you some definitions, you pick the one that suits you the best:

Pure vowels are monophthongs.
Pure vowels have one and only one tongue position.
Pure vowels do not glide from one vowel sound to another.
Pure vowel´s initial and final articulations are relatively fixed.

And yes, Spanish vowels are pure, while, according this Wikipedia article, "In the English language, there are in practice relatively few monophthongs". Still, what does this mean?

It means that whenever you say "no", you´re producing a vowel glide, the quality of which pretty much depends on the type of English accent you´ve got. A vowel glide, again according this Wikipedia article, is "a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement, or glide, from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme".

Switching back to Spanish, what does this mean? Well, it means that if, when saying "mono", the two /o/ sounds do not come out with the same quality, you´re probably sounding like a tourist.

Every vowel in Spanish is produced with one and only one vowel sound.

And that´s what we mean when we say that Spanish vowels are pure.

It´s not that hard, really, but it does involve some work. What kind of work exactly? I´m glad you asked, because that means you haven´t read this blog much. To produce the Spanish vowels properly, you just have to apply stronger tension to the muscles around your mouth (one of the main features of the Spanish base of articulation, remember?).


So... what about diphthongs, you ask? Of course there are diphthongs in Spanish, silly! But that´s a story for another post.-

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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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Nuevas normas de acentuación, o Know how to stress a word just by reading it

Hi everybody, just finished a report about word stress, hope you find it useful.

Acentuación

El objetivo del acento es enfatizar un sonido o grupo de sonidos. En español, y también en inglés, el elemento más importante del acento es la intensidad, que depende de la amplitud de las vibraciones del sonido. En español, una palabra sólo tiene una sílaba acentuada, llamada también tónica. El resto de las sílabas de la palabra son llamadas inacentuadas o átonas.

Características principales de la sílaba acentuada

1-más energía articulatoria.
2-una mayor abertura de la boca para las vocales.
3-una mayor tensión articulatoria para las consonantes (con un mayor cierre de los órganos articulatorios).
4-una mayor sonoridad.

Clasificación de palabras dependiendo de la posición del acento

1-agudas; la sílaba acentuada está al final de la palabra: papel, reunión, cortar.
2-graves; la sílaba acentuada está en el penúltimo lugar en la palabra: hermano, mesa.
3-esdrújulas; la sílaba acentuada está en el antepenúltimo lugar de la palabra: célebre, bolígrafo.
4-sobresdrújula; la sílaba acentuada está aún antes del penúltimo lugar de la palabra: tomándoselo, cómetelo.

Reglas de acentuación, o Know how to stress a word just by reading it

1-todas las palabras terminadas en n, s o vocal son graves.
2-todas las palabras terminadas en cualquier otra letra son agudas.

Cualquier palabra que viole estas reglas será multada con una tilde, o acento gráfico (á, é, í, ó, ú), que se escribe sobre la sílaba tónica.

Ejemplos:

Regla nro 1

esta: no lleva tilde, entonces cumple con la regla, es grave.

hombres: no lleva tilde, entonces cumple con la regla, es grave.

comen: no lleva tilde, entonces cumple con la regla, es grave.

está: lleva tilde porque viola la regla, entonces se acentúa la sílaba donde está la tilde.

canción: lleva tilde porque viola la regla, entonces se acentúa la sílaba donde está la tilde.

sábado: lleva tilde porque viola la regla, entonces se acentúa la sílaba donde está la tilde.


Regla nro 2

Salvador: no lleva tilde, entonces cumple con la regla, es aguda.

albañil: no lleva tilde, entonces cumple con la regla, es aguda.

árbol: lleva tilde porque viola la regla, entonces se acentúa la sílaba donde está la tilde.

hábitad: lleva tilde porque viola la regla, entonces se acentúa la sílaba donde está la tilde.


Por qué el sistema de acentos del español es simple y lógico

Un diccionario tiene aproximadamente 85.000 palabras, y la mayoría son graves. Sin tomar en cuenta los verbos conjugados y los plurales, aproximadamente 68.000 terminan en terminan en n, s o vocal. Entonces, solamente el 18,7% de las palabras del español precisan tilde (aproximadamente 15.000). De las palabras que precisan tilde, sólo 382 no terminan en n, s o vocal.


Diferencias entre la acentuación en ingles y en español

En inglés, muchas vocales no acentuadas reciben el sonido genérico llamado schwa, representado por este símbolo: /ə/. Por ejemplo, en palabras como photOgraph y photOgraphy. Entonces, en inglés, la contraposición entre vocales acentuadas y no acentuadas no se basa solamente en la acentuación, sino que las vocales no acentuadas se debilitan, lo que altera también el ritmo de la oración. En español hay que tener especial cuidado de no debilitar las vocales no acentuadas.

Cómo pronunciar la R (II)

Buenas días queridos lectores. El tema de hoy: la R.

Doy por sentado que ya todos saben la diferencia entre este famoso sonido vibrante múltiple: PERRO; y este otro famoso sonido vibrante simple: PERÓN. Sobre el simple ya escribí. Hoy, le toca al múltiple.

De pequeños borregos, aprendimos a hablar imitando los sonidos de nuestros papis, que, en español, se caracterizan por una alta tensión de los músculos bucales. La r es uno de los mejores ejemplos. Este sonido exige un tono muscular particular, y si ni siquiera podés hacer RRRRRRR, como si estuvieras andando en moto, entonces te espera un mes de entrenamiento bucal. Si vas al gimnasio, tu lengua se merece lo mismo (sacarle afuera mientras corrés no cuenta).


Supongamos que sí pueden hacer ese sonido tan primitivo y sensual, entonces es momento de refinarlo hasta que suene como una ERRE correcta. Lo importante es la lengua. Con la boca entreabierta, lean las siguientes instrucciones. Lo que sigue tiene mucha información, les conviene leerlo varias veces, cada vez van a encontrar cosas nuevas.

Cómo articular la R, user´s guide

1 Con la boca apenas entreabierta, levante la lengua. Apoye la punta justo atrás de los dientes de arriba, y aplique presión.

2 Los costados de la lengua tocan las muelas superiores (the upper side teeth), ¡que el aire no se escape por ahí! Poner la lengua en forma cóncava (concave shape).

3 Dentro de la boca, junte aire. Mucho más y con más presión que para otros sonidos. La presión del aire vence la resistencia de la punta de la lengua, que se separa del paladar en forma intermitente.

YOU MAY FORGET EVERY SINGLE WORD EXCEPT THIS:
It’s the air what makes your tongue vibrate. The tip of your tongue should be pressed on the palate, almost but without touching your upper teeth. Take a deep breath and then just let the air do all the job.

Ejercicio de la semana

You might know this TV ad, feel fry to shadow it, you got the script down there.



"El terrateniente Ramón Pueyrredón Aguirre arreaba rumiantes en su remoto rancho. Se aburría Ramón encerrado en su recurrente rutina. Resuelto a romperla, arrancó rumbo a tierras rimbombantes.

¡¡ARRE!!

Recorriendo Recoleta Ramón reparó en un rodaje. Y de repente, una revelación:

¡¡RAYOS!!!

Resolvió arrimarse al reconocido realizador Rasputín Romanof, y correr el riesgo de requerirle un rol de reparto en su relato. Romanof sonrió, "eres atorrante... ¡y churro!". Ramón, zorro, le regaló un riquísimo Navarro Correas recelosamente reservado que recordaba el terruño y el ruso regodeándose respondió: rendirás.

¡¡A RODAR!!!

Y resultó que en la remake Romance Río Arriba Ramón representó a un terrateniente que arreaba rumiantes en su remoto rancho. Ramón, realizado, recuperó su sonrisa.

¿Cuantas erres tiene su vino?"

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.-

Cómo pronunciar la ere - tapping

El fonema linguoalveolar, vibrante, simple, sonoro y bucal, o sea, la ere, es uno de los sonidos que presenta más dificultades para los angloparlantes. A partir de hoy voy a publicar, bajo este tag, diferentes consejos prácticos para los que lo quieran dominar.

El primer paso es olvidarse del sonido que tiene la R en inglés, no se parecen en absoluto. Un sonido del inglés que sí les puede ayudar es el de la T, cuando se da en una sílaba no acentuada y entre vocales, por ejemplo, kitty. Si repiten la palabra rápido, se van a dar cuenta que no es la misma T que dicen en palabras como time (posición inicial, sílaba acentuada). Si no tienen gato, pueden probar con batter batter batter, hit it!, o lo que se les ocurra.

Ese sonido se produce con un golpe, tap en inglés, y se parece muchísimo a la ere española. Se da con más frecuencia en dialectos como el inglés irlandés y el galés, aunque también es muy común en el General American y en lo que se conoce como cockney. Pruébenlo, y cuéntenme cómo les va.



Tengo que confesar que prefiero escribir en español, es mi idioma y disfruto reinvindicándolo; pero como el curso está orientado a angloparlantes, me dejé llevar por la tentación de escribir en inglés. Pero como el curso está orientado a angloparlantes que hablan español, poder leerlo entra entre las aptitudes requeridas. También voy a tratar de alternar posts más cortos, por ejemplo, consejos sobre cómo articular sonidos especialmente difíciles.

Bibliografía
Gimson A.C. (2001), Gimson´s Pronunciation of English, Arnold, London, pp. 29, 82, 164, 165