It’s all about the vowels. How to improve Spanish pronunciation.

Better pronunciation is within reach for every native English speaker learning Spanish.

“Hoe-law, Sen-YOUR-ah.
I recognized Will’s southern twang before I saw his face. He was a very good student, but his Spanish accent was atrocious. “Hola, Will,” I replied. “¿Cómo estás?”

“When an English speaking student does what comes naturally and relaxes the mouth on Spanish vowel sound, they end up with a bad American accent. ”

“Moo-eee bee-in. GRAH-see-is.

I teach in the American South, and some of my students have distinctive accents. I find this quite charming… in English. In Spanish, however, the drawn-out vowels do them no favors. Over the years, I’ve found some thoughtful instruction can make a big difference in these students’ pronunciation. When delivered early in their study of Spanish, a little bit of phonemic awareness can prevent students from developing bad patterns of pronunciation that can be difficult to break down the road.

Many teachers emphasize the Spanish letters that make different sounds than their English counterparts (letters h, j, and the rolled ‘r’ for example). And while of course these are important, if you really listen to students with bad accents, the problem isn’t really the consonants. It’s not really their inability to roll their ‘r’ that makes them sound terrible.

Here’s the secret to a good accent:

It’s all about the vowels.

In English, we relax our mouth on many vowel sounds. Take the word “Hello” for example. The ‘o’ sound at the end of this word isn’t a pure ‘o’. We close our mouth at the end of the word, letting the sound relax into a dipthong. We do it with a lot of vowel sounds. Take a minute to pronounce aloud words like ‘tree’ ‘my’ or ‘too’ . On each of these words, our mouth relaxes and changes the vowel sound as we speak. You can see your mouth change shape in a mirror. This is good English.

In Spanish, not so. Let’s go back to the English “Hello” example. Compare this ‘o’ sound to the first syllable in the Spanish word ‘hola’. The Spanish ‘o’ stays round and tense; the mouth doesn’t relax and the sound doesn’t mush the way it does in English.

When an English speaking student does what comes naturally and relaxes the mouth on this Spanish vowel sound, they end up with a bad American accent.

I like to share this exact example with students and have them practice. Really pay attention to what your mouth does on ‘hello’ vs. ‘hola’. This is not natural for us as English speakers, but it’s something we can learn to do and can improve on. Every speaker of English can correctly pronounce a Spanish /o/ with attention to detail.

Furthermore, there are only five vowel sounds in Spanish. Just 5. A. E. I. O. U.

How many do we have in English? A lot more than that. (at least 10 and some dialects have as many as 20!)

This means it’s pretty easy to accurately figure out how to pronounce Spanish words. You just have to isolate the vowel sounds, pronounce them correctly, and then add in the consonants.

Here’s how you do it.

Step 1: Delete all the consonants in the new word. You can do this mentally or actually write out the vowels.

Examples:

* refresco → e-e-o

* divertido → i-e-i-o

* anaranjado → a a a a o

* computadora →o u a o a

Step 2: Carefully pronounce the vowel sequence in the word. Be sure you are pronouncing the vowels accurately and crisply – no English relaxing!

Examples:

* refresco → e-e-o → /eh-eh-oh/

* divertido → i-e-i-o → /ee-eh-ee-oh/

* anaranjado → a a a a o /ah-ah-ah-ah-oh/

* computadora →o u a o a /oh-ooh-ah-oh-ah/

Be especially careful to master the vowels on letter combinations that would have a different vowel sound in English (refresco vs. refreshing, divertido vs. divert) and English cognates (like ‘computadora’ which has slightly different ‘o’ and ‘u’ sounds than the English ‘computer’). These are particularly troublesome for Spanish learners who are inclined to transpose English pronunciation rules. However, the correct pronunciation is not difficult – every English speaker can make the correct vowel sounds. Practice and attention to accuracy is critical.

Step 3: Add in the consonants. Of course, consonants should also be pronounced accurately, but it is very important in this step to maintain the crisp, accurate Spanish vowels.

Examples:

* refresco → e-e-o → /eh-eh-oh/ → /Reh fres koh/

note: don’t revert to an English long /e/ sound on the first syllable as in the word ‘refresh’. The Spanish e always says /eh/

* divertido → i-e-i-o → /ee-eh-ee-oh/ → /dee vehr tee doh/

note: don’t relax into an English short /i/ sound as in the word ‘divert’!

* anaranjado → a a a a o /ah-ah-ah-ah-oh/ → /ah nah rahn hah doh/

note: The first four syllables all have the same vowel sound. Maintain that crisp /ah-ah-ah-ah/!

* computadora →o u a o a /oh-ooh-ah-oh-ah/ → /kohm poo tah doh rah/

note: Don’t revert to an English /u/ sound and keep nice crisp Spanish /o/’s.

To make pronunciation practice effective, keep it quick and frequent. If you have a few minutes at the end of class or between activities, pop a few challenging words on the board and ask students to practice pronouncing them accurately. Work through the exercise as a class (isolating the vowel sounds and then adding in the consonants) and model doing this yourself to help students become more attentive to Spanish pronunciation patterns.

Finally, it’s appropriate to hold students accountable for pronouncing vowels correctly. I won’t take points off if you can’t yet roll your ‘R’. However, if you pronounce ‘computadora’ like and English word with ‘-a’ on the end, you will lose points because this is something you can master with attention and practice.

That’s it! Since drawing attention to vowels, even my beginning students’ pronunciation has improved markedly. I don’t hear “Hoe-law, Sen-YOUR-ah.” nearly as often as I used to. And, that’s a good thing!