Catriona: ¡Hola, amigos y amigas! Les damos la bienvenida a un nuevo episodio de A Zero to A Hero…

Héctor: Saludos a todo el mundo ¿Cómo estás, Catriona?

Catriona: Excelente, ¿tú?

Héctor: De lujo.

Catriona: ¿Qué significa “de lújo”?

Héctor: “De lujo” can be literally translated as “of luxury”, but it means “I’m doing great”.

Catriona: “De lujo”, I like it

Héctor: As a matter of fact, now that we are in 2020, I wanted to ask you about your resolutions for this year! Last year you decided to jump into learning Spanish and you have been making progress ever since. What are your resolutions regarding your Spanish learning?

Catriona: Well, of course I want to continue learning Spanish and I would now like to put special emphasis on improving my pronunciation, improving my pronunciation.

Héctor: Pronunciation is one of my favorite topics! I should be able to help.

Catriona: ¡Muy bien! I would really like to improve rolling my r’s and brush up all those tricky sounds.

Héctor: Great, I think it’s a good idea to go through the most difficult sounds for English speakers. What do you think?

Catriona: ¡Me gusta!

Catriona: The main difficulty English speakers face is that the English language just has way more sounds than Spanish, which sometimes does cause problems when you're trying to recognize different sounds and in consequence, how to produce them.

Héctor: I completely agree with you, sometimes when we are learning a language we forget that one of the challenges that we have is that we cannot even differentiate one sound from the other, or even if we do, we don’t really know how to position our mouth to produce the sound at hand.

Catriona: Agreed. My main issues are there are sounds that are not available in English, and on the other hand those which are somewhat similar but not quite the same. I think that's even more confusing. The English vowel system makes everyone include sounds that aren't even in the words or the sentences to be read easily so things that are not written, that look on paper. 

Héctor: And that’s what we’ll be talking about in this episode…

Catriona: Yes, I ran a short survey among some of my English-speaking friends that have studied Spanish throughout their lives and I already have a list of sounds I would like to go through if you don’t mind, Héctor.

Héctor: Good idea!

Catriona: Let’s start with the differences in pronunciation of the vowel sounds. I remember that on one of our previous episodes you mentioned that it is important to keep the same mouth position when pronouncing vowels in Spanish.

Héctor: Indeed, vowels in Spanish are less dynamic than in English and there are only 5 vowel sounds, I will say the sound isolated and then a well-known city or country as an example.

Catriona: Perfect.

Héctor:
The first sound is:          /a/ - Atlanta
The second one:          /e/ - Edimburgo
                                         /i/ - Italia
One more:                 /o/ - Orlando
And the last one:  /u/ - Uruguay

Catriona: One other difference that I've notice between the sound systems in English and Spanish is the intonation patterns.

Héctor: Indeed, in English, the duration of some vowel sounds is shortened.

Catriona: For example, in the word “Atlanta”.

Héctor: Yes, the sound of the first and last “A” is not the same as the one in the middle.

Catriona: Yeah, true: Atlanta. 

Héctor: In Spanish, vowels are not reduced in the same way, so you produce the same sound every time. A-tlan-ta.

Catriona: Atlanta

Héctor: That is also a good way of dealing with long or difficult words, separate them into syllables and then put them back together, first as a single word and then in a sentence. We’ll practice a few sentences during our challenge.

Catriona: OK, so to summarize the vowel section so far, we covered 5 vowel sounds: /a/ as in Atlanta, /e/ as in Edimburgo, /i/ as in Italia, /o/ as in Orlando, and /u/ as in Uruguay.

Héctor: That's correct. Remember, dear listeners, that the letter “h” in Spanish does not have a sound, so in words such as “Hamburgo”…

Catriona: Hamburg…

Héctor: Or “Honduras”

Catriona: Honduras

Héctor: You jump directly to the vowel and pretend as though the “h” does not exist.

Catriona: That's true we've had some other examples of this is in phrases that we have already learnt such as “hola” or “hasta pronto”.

Héctor: Yes exactly. It’s always good to have these words in your pocket to illustrate how letters are pronounced in a language, so you can always refer back when needed.

Catriona: True and I think it's a good idea. I think it's also sometimes good as well as repetition and speaking out loud to have some words written down. I guess it depends what kind of learner you are visual or not but I think having a list of basic phrases that you can look now and again is also a big help. 

Héctor: That's correct. That also helps you to practice with your tongue in moving differently. Very good, so what consonant sounds would you like to review, Catriona?

Catriona: Well, I was just thinking about what we just said about the letter “h”. In Spanish you do have a similar sound of the “h” in “Honduras”, don’t you?

Héctor: We do! It is represented by the letter “j”. So, instead of “Jamaica”, in Spanish you say “Jamaica”.

Catriona: Jamaica.

Héctor: Exactly. The sound is similar to the sound of the letter “h” in “house”, but by stressing the back of your throat a little but more: Jamaica.

Catriona: Jamaica.

Héctor: You can also find this sound when the letter “g” combines with the letter “e” as in the name “Gerardo”.

Catriona: Gerardo.

Héctor: And with the letter “i” as in the city of Gibraltar.

Catriona: Uf, quite hard. Gibraltar.

Héctor: Very good.

Catriona: And I guess the same can be said for different cities, so there is Japan, would be “Japón” and Jordan, “Jordania”. As well is Georgia, “Georgia”. 

Héctor: Wow you've been doing some homework.

Catriona: Yes I have. 

Héctor: Shall we go on to the next sound?

Catriona: We should and I can imagine this might be an issue for a lot of English people becuase in English a single or double  “l” has exactly the same sound. 

Héctor: Good, let’s start with the single “l”, shall we?

Catriona: Yes, so in English you use different parts of the tongue to produce the “l” sound, in Spanish you only use the tip of the tongue. Correct?

Héctor: That's correct. And the sound is the same regardless of where the “l” is, for example at the beginning “Líbano” or in the middle in the word “Colombia”.

Catriona: “Líbano, Colombia”. OK, even though they are not entirely the same, they are close enough to be understood so, people should not have a problem understanding.

Héctor: Totally.

Catriona: And at Babbel, we do love language diversity!

Héctor: We do! Now, regarding the double “l”, the sound changes. For example, the city of Seville is “Sevilla” in Spanish.

Catriona: Sevilla.

Héctor: The sound is very similar as that you find with the letter “y” in yellow .

Catriona: Yellow - Sevilla. Is the sound of the letter “y” in Spanish the same as “yellow” too?

Héctor: Yes, at the beginning of words, both. The double “l” and “y” are very similar, although in some regions, like in Argentina or Uruguay, they produce a sound that is more similar to the “s” found in the word “vision” or the “sh” in “show”. Let’s listen to an example. “Me llamo Yonathan”.

Catriona: Wow that is quite different. So the letter “y”, nonetheless, has the sound “i”, the same we find in the word “Italia” when it appears isolated or at the end of a word, doesn’t it?

Héctor: Yes, let’s listen to an example of this. “Soy Eloy y soy de Jujuy”.

Catriona: Soy Eloy y soy de Jujuy.

Héctor: Exactly.

Catriona: OK, I think we can take a look at another sound. In the last episode, we went through the conjugation of the verb “vivir” and when I put it into practice, I was told that “vivir” was actually pronounced “bibir” with a /b/ sound. Is that true?

Héctor: Strictly speaking, the Spanish language does not have the sound /v/, so it is true that the verb “vivir” is commonly pronounced with the /b/ sound. Although language contact between English and Spanish, mainly within the hispanic community in the US, has blurred the lines a lot and it is also not so uncommon to hear this sound, especially in songs. Even me, as a native speaker, I mix them. Although normally, any ambiguities become clear in context.

Catriona: True, everybody understands when I say “yo vivo” but then taking an example from our previous episode, then the correct pronunciation would be “yo vivo en Berlin”?

Héctor: Yes, again, strictly speaking there is a difference in how you articulate both sounds. The letter “b” requires you to actually put your lips together some examples will be Baltimore, Berlín, Bulgaria and in comparison to the English /b/, the sound is softer, not as explosive Berlin - Berlín. And in English would be Berlin.

Catriona: Yeah it does sounds much more explosive feeling.

Héctor: Yeah. Definitely. Where as with the letter “v”, the air flows through a tiny opening between your lips /v/.

Héctor & Catriona: Vivir.

Héctor: Exactly. We can contrast these two sounds with the phrase “yo vivo en Berlín”.

Catriona: Yo vivo en Berlín.

Héctor: Very good!

Catriona: It really does make a difference when you try to put the sounds together.

Héctor: Yes, as we did with conjugations, in pronunciation, it is important to put those sounds into context. Isolating them will help us practice the correct articulation and train our mouth how to move, and putting them together will help us emulate the characteristic melody of the language we are learning.

Catriona: This is a very good point. I think it's also important to point out that at the beginning these pronunciations sounds can be quite tricky, to get your head around to get them all correct and the main goal is still conversation. So if you're understandeable with some practice and some correction over time I think there's nothing to be ashamed of. Everybody has slight bits of accent and hangover from our native language that are not actually awful points to carry onto a new language.

Héctor: We all have accents. Yes.

Catriona: I know as well a lot of English speakers out there would like to learn how to roll their r´s correctly, but before we jump into the hottest pronunciation topic, let’s review a few other sounds of the letters “c”, “s” and “z”.

Héctor: ¡Hasta luego!

Héctor: I have noticed that you go more for a European pronunciation in Spanish. For example, I say “zapato” and you say…

Catriona: Zapato.

Héctor: So in European Spanish, the letter “z” always takes that sound.

Catriona: We also have that sound in English, for example in the word “think” that’s why it is easier for me and it helps me remember how the word is written.

Héctor: This sound is also pronounced when the letter “c” combines with the letters “e” or “i”.

Catriona: As in “cerveza” and “gracias”.

Héctor: Indeed, in most parts of America those letters and their combinations have been unified under one sound.

Catriona: One sound to rule them all.

Héctor: And that is the sound /s/.

Catriona: So in Latin America I would say “cerveza” and “gracias”

Héctor: That is correct.

Catriona: And in these circumstances, what is more recommendable, Héctor?

Héctor: As a learner, always aim for intelligibility. Whatever makes your message more comprehensible depending on the communicative situation you are in.

Catriona: I would agree. When I first moved to Italy, my Italian was shockinly awful but I was living in Florence and there is a very distinct accent there that I haven't been aware of before and I picked up a lot of it by accident just by living there and speakers of Italian, italian native speakers of different regions of the country would make fun of me in a nice way for adopting the florentine accent. But it was actually a nice conversation opener, so it was a good way of making friends, talking about languages, talking about the differences, helps you to learn much more about culture in different areas of any country. 

Héctor: And then everybody could understand you, nonetheless.

Catriona: Of course. So intelligibility was still there and communication wasn't a problem. 

Héctor: So, don't be afraid of having an accent. 

Catriona: One other sound that we do not have in English is the letter “eñe”… 

Héctor: As you said this is a sound that is not in the English language it is pretty nasal, very similar to the sound you find in “canyon”.

Catriona: ¿Cómo se dice “canyon” en español?

Héctor: Cañón.

Catriona: Un cañón español.

Héctor: Very good!

Catriona: OK and now the time has come to address the pronunciation of the dreaded letter “r”.

Héctor: Let’s jump into it! The Spanish “r” can be pronounced in two different ways. To illustrate this we are going to use two different words that vary in just one sound.

cero (zero) - cerro (a hill)
coro (choir) - corro (I run)
caro (expensive) - carro (car)
 
As we can see in the examples, the double “r” has a stronger sound.

Catriona: Oh, dear Héctor so how do we go about practicing this sound?

Héctor: For this episode, we invited one of our experts at Babbel, Todd Ehresmann he is the team lead of the English team and he happens to be a pronunciation expert. Welcome, Todd.

Todd: Hello. Thanks your having me. 

Héctor: What could you tell us about rolling r's from the perspective of an American English speaker? Can you give our listeners some additional tips?

Todd: Well, first of all, I think one of the tricky things is that learning the Spanish rolling “r” is basically like learning a completely different sound. Our “r” in English is so-called retroflex “r” almost like a vowel, whereas the Spanish articulation is a flap of the tongue basically in the front of the mouth. So, I think an important starting point is tongue position. I think the best advice is to really consciously feel where your tongue is located in your mouth because you're learning a new sound, that doesn't exist in English, so you have to kind of start from the absolute basics.

Héctor: OK, so one little test: can you role your r's?

Todd: OK so let's see if I can do it myself here. So first we are going to try touching the tip of the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and blowing the air pass, it sounds something like this; and then I'm going to close the tongue, and then there you can hear the tip of the tongue flapping off the roof.

Héctor: Nice.

Todd: Perro.

Héctor: Very good. OK good, so I think this is going to be very helpful for people to be more aware of how they have to put their tongue in their mouths. How they have to place their tongue and let the air flow so they can successfully produce the sound.

Todd: Sure of it.

Héctor: Thanks a lot, Todd.

Todd: You're welcome, my pleasure.

Héctor: Now, let's contrast these two sounds with those presented previously.

Héctor & Catriona: cero, cerro
                                       coro, corro
                                       caro, carro

Catriona: OK and, here I'd like to add that even if you've got a strong English accent, based on my own experience, you can still definitely make the sounds good enough to communicate. Practicing sounds individually and then putting them together is definitely a help in making yourself understood more easily and more efficiently, but I think is here that you don’t want to be or concentrate so much in being such perfectionist, up to the point that you are not willing to speak or give it a go, just because you don’t feel confident about your pronunciation.

Héctor: That is very true! Be bold when you speak and be humble to keep learning!

Catriona: That’s our motto here at Babbel! We like encouraging people to go out and discover the joy of speaking another language.

Héctor: On this episode we have gone through the fundamentals of pronunciation, this is a topic we could talk about extensively but then we wouldn’t have time for our challenges.

Catriona: Yes it is now time for the challenge!

Catriona: So what do you have for me today, Héctor?

Héctor: Well, as I said, it is important to put these sounds into context, so I have a few phrases here that combine the sounds that we have reviewed today, you can try any of the variations that we discussed in this episode. Are you ready?

Catriona: Ready as always!

Héctor: OK, let's start with the first one and it talks about Scotland.

Héctor & Catriona:
Escocia es parte del Reino Unido.

The second phrase is:
Uruguay está en Sudamérica.

The third one is: 
Logroño es una ciudad de España.

La vida en Berlin es fabulosa.

La Alhambra está en Granada.

Avellaneda está en Buenos Aires, Argentina.

El Cerro de la Bufa está en el centro de Zacatecas.

Barranquilla es una ciudad colombiana.

Héctor: Excelent. OK, so how do you feel?

Catriona: Feel good, that went pretty well, I think we might have cracked pronunciation.

Héctor: We need some victory music. Please! Let the victory music sound. OK enough for the challenge Catriona.

Catriona: OK very good, muy bien, I feel like I might have cracked Spanish pronunciation.

Héctor: I hope we have addressed all your pronunciation pain points, dear listeners.

Catriona: If you do still have any questions or suggestions, remember that you can contact us via email at podcasting@babbel.com.

Héctor: And don’t forget to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform!

Catriona: ¡Gracias por escucharnos!