Chapter I  Alphabet, Phonetics and IPA

The pronunciation of Spanish is much simpler than that of English. If we take the letter a of English as an example, we can see that it can be pronounced in quite different ways like hat [hæt], amaze [ə´mez], and yacht [jɑt]. In Spanish, almost each letter represents a phonetic sound, except these two letters c and g followed by vowels a, o, u, i and e, in which c and g are pronunced differently. It is true that a Spanish learner can start to speak Spanish after a short time training. But to pronunce Spanish correctly, it is still indispensable to practice by reading aloud every sentence, every word, and even each letter of alphabet. Also, it is necessary to master the rules of pronunciation and apply them correctly without interference from the mother tongue.

In the following sections, first we introduce the capitalization and small letters. Secondly, we list the Spanish alphabet and its correspondent IPA. 

2. Spanish letters of the alphabet

In Spanish, there are some words of the same pronunciation but different spelling, for example, botar (which means ‘jump’) / votar (which means ‘vote’).  Another case is that, when we are speaking Spanish, especially on a phone call, sometimes it is not easy to recognize a voiced sound like /b/ from a voiceless one /p/, for instance, Palencia / Valencia. Palencia is the city situated in the north of Spain, and Valencia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, if you want to take a vacation at this port by the Mediterranean Sea, you have to  pronounce V (of Valencia) clearly as a voiced sound [b]. To avoid misunderstanding these letters or phonemes, first people will tell you they are going to the city Valencia, then say that the letter V of Valencia is the one of Venezuela, a country in South America. People use this way to make sure (that) what they say won´t be misunderstood.

In the following list, we use the names of some countries or cities to help you identify Spanish letters, of which its first letter is represented as the letters of Spanish alphabet.

   A a       A de América  B b       B de Barcelona  C c       C de Ceuta CH ch     CH de Chile

   D d       D de Dinamarca   E e       E de España F f        F de Francia G g       G de Ginebra

   H h       H de Honduras I i        I de Italia J j        J de Japón K k       K de Kuwait

   L l        L de Londres LL  ll       LL de Lleida M   m      M de México N n       N de Nicaragua

   Ñ ñ       Ñ de España O o       O de Óscar P p       P de Perú Q q       Q de Quito

   R r       R de Rusia S s       S de Sevilla T t        T de Taiwán U u       U de Uruguay

   V v       V de Venezuela W   w      W de Washington X x       X de xenófilo Y y       Y de Yugoslavia

   Z z       Z de Zambia 

3. Phonetic Symbol / A Comparative Study of Spanish and English Spelling Correspondences

In the following tables, we use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent the spelling correspondences for Spanish and English vowels and consonants. By this way, these sound correspondences can help us relate the orthography of both languages to their sound systems, and these tables can show a phonetic comparison between these two languages, which is useful for Spanish beginners to avoid the intereference from English.  

Every language has its own phonemes to represent its phonetic sound. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish two words. For example, in these two sentences ＜He beat his brother for lying＞ and ＜The dog was pulling the newspaper to bits＞, beat [bit] and bit [bɪt] differ only in their vocal sounds /i/ and /ɪ/ but semantically they are different in their meanings.

The number of phonemes varies from one language to another. Spanish has 5 vowels and 19 consonants. English in our study is considered to have 14 vowels and 24 consonants. In English, vowels can be distinguished according to their length, i.e., short vowels and long vowels, known as phonetic features lax and tense. In Spanish, those 5 vowels are distinguished from each other in their positions in the oral cavity. That is why the word isla can be pronunced as [í:sla] or [ísla], both of which are of the same meaning.

Another term needs to be introduced is ‘allophone’, which is a variant of phoneme. We can take these two consonantal sounds [d] and [ð] as an example. In English, both of them represent two different phonemes. If we pronunce [de] and [ðe], a native English speaker can understand as day [de] and they [ðe], but to a native Spanish speaker, there is no difference in the meaning between these two sounds [de] and [ðe]. Pronuncing this Spanish preposition word de [d] with a fricative [ð] does not make it into another word, but it does in English as we see /d/ in day [de] and /ð/ in they [ðe] are two separate phonemes.

3.1. Phonetic Comparison of Vowels

Vowels can de described according to these phonetic features:  tongue height, tongue backness, roundedness of lip articulation, velum position and vibration of vocal cords. Please see the following phonetic description of each phoneme.

3.2. Phonetic Comparison of Consonants

Consonantal sounds can be distinguished by these three major phonetic features:

(1) Places of articulation include bilaials, labiodentals, interdentals, alveolars, lateral, palatals, velars and glottal.

(2) Manners of articulation include stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, liquids and glides.

(3) ŽVibration of the vocal cords is used to distinguish voiced and voiceless sounds.

4. Speech articulation

In diagram 1, we introduce the names of each organ of  oral and nasal cavities. We also describe how the speech sounds are produced, linguistically which is known as phonetics. 

In Spanish, there are 5 vowels and 19 consonants. From the point of view of phonology, these 24 speech sounds, considered as basic phonemes that form the Spanish phonological system. In addition to these 5 monophthongs, there are diphthongs and triphthongs. Although each phoneme can be represented by its correspondent letter, it is possible that the same letter can be used to pronounce different speech sounds. For example, [d] in día [día] and [ð] in cada [káða] are allophones of the phoneme /d/. [ð] is not considered as a phoneme but an allophone. If you speak these two English words they [ðe] and day [de], a native Spanish speaker would not distinguish any difference between them. He just recognizes it as [de] for both they and day.

In order to realize how the articulators work when speech sounds are produced, we suggest readers consult the web page: http://ocw.stust.edu.tw/tc/node/Learning_Spanish_Pronunciation_through_Illustratio. 

Articulatory organs can be divided into three parts:

• The respiratory system. It is composed of lungs and tracheas. When speech sounds are produced, the air is pushed out from lungs, going through the larynx and flows upwards through the pharynx, and then through the oral cavity or the nasal cavity, which is decided by the velum. If this is raised, the airstream will go out from the mouth. It it is lowered, the airstream passes through the nasal cavity. 

• The larynx. It is composed of two elastic muscles. The opening between the vocal cords is the glottis. When the vocal cords are brought together and vibrated by the airstream, the speech sounds produced are called voiced sounds, such as Spanish phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/. If the airstream passes through the glottis without vibrating the vocal cords, the speech sounds are voiceless, for instance, /p/, /t/ and /k/.

• Oral cavity. Among the nasal cavity and larynx, the oral cavity is the most important resonator, in which the tongue plays an active role in the production of vowels and most consonants.

To know speech organs or articulators is very important as to study the procedure of articulation.

In phonetics, vowel articulation can be classified into tip, front, centro, back and root of the tongue. If we observe the position of the tongue from the oral profile, vowel articulation can be high, mid and low.

As to consonantal articulation, it is observed from four points: places of articulation, manners of articulation, vibration of vocal cords and position of uvula, which will be described as follows:  

(1) Places of articulation. When speech sounds are produced, the air pushed by lungs moves upwards, passes through glottis and reaches the oral cavity, where the airstream will encounter different impediments and then create different shapes of resonator, producing various consonants. Those impediments are caused by movement of the tongue and lips. According to the place of articulation, speech sounds include bilabials, labiodentals, interdentals, alveolars, palatals, velars, etc.

(2) Manners of articulation. When the airstream is obstructed in the oral cavity, the way of eliminating those impediments in order to let the sounds be produced is called manners of articulation. According to the manner of articulation, speech sounds may be stops, nasals, fricatives, affricates, laterals, trills, etc. Stops can be furter divided into aspirated and unaspirated sounds.

(3) Vibration of vocal cords is the factor of producing voiced sounds, such as Spanish phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/. In other words, if the vocal cords are not vibrated, the sounds produced are voiceless, such as /p/, /t/ and /k/. To distinguish a voiced sound from a voiceless one, it is a great difficulty for a Chinese native speaker because in his mother tongue, these stops consonants ㄅ[p], ㄉ[t], ㄍ[g] are voiceless, not voiced.

(4) Position of the velum or uvula. If the velum is raised and comes close to the pharynx, the airstream is blocked to pass through the nasal passage, and oral vowels are produced. On the contrary, if the velum is lowered and comes close to the root of the tongue, the airstream is blocked to pass through the oral passage, and nasal vowels are produced.

As mentioned above, speech organs or articulators can be calssified into two types: passive articulators and active articulators. The former include upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, hard palate, soft palate, uvula, and pharynx. The lowered lip is an active articulator and the tongue is considered as the most important active articulator in the production of speech sounds.