Spanish is a romance language derived from Latin. It is one of the six official UN (United Nations) languages and, after Mandarin Chinese,
is the world's most spoken language by number of speakers that have as their mother language.
Spanish is the official language of Spain plus thirteen countries in the Americas and Equatorial Guinea. Spanish is spoken on five continents.
The phonetics of Spanish is probably the simplest of all languages of the world because it is written as it sounds.
The Spanish alphabet has 5 vowels A, E, I, O, U that always sound the same
and 23 consonants (B C D F G H J K L LL M N Ñ P Q R S T V W X Y Z) that always sound the same, except the C and G.
IRREGULARITIES OF SPANISH PHONETICS
C with the vowels A, O, U has a strong sound (like the sound of K).
Examples: casa (Kasa), coche (koche), cuna (Kuna).C with the vowels E, I has a soft sound (like the sound of Z).
Examples: cerveza (zerveza), cima (zima).G with the vowels E, I has a strong sound (like the sound of J. This sound does not exist in English, (it's like we do when we want to tarnish a glass).
Examples: género (jenero), gimnasia (jimnasia).G with the vowels A, O, U has a soft sound.
Examples: garganta, gobierno, gusano.Q combines with only the vowels I or E, and provided with a U (no sound) in the middle.
Examples: querer (Kerer), quemar (kemar), quimera (kimera), quitar (kitar).In the words with combination GUE, GUI, the U is silent and G has a soft sound.
Examples: guerrero (gerrero), Guernica (gernica), guitarra (gitarra), guinda (ginda).H is silent, except after C: CH, sounds a bit stronger than in English.
Examples:: humo (umo), hacer (acer), hilo (ilo), chimenea, chaqueta, chuleta.R at the beginning of the word and after consonants, sounds like RR (strong sound, like a motor).
Examples: rama (rrama), rincón (rrincón), alrededor (alrrededor), enredo (enrredo).LL is pronounced like the Y, a bit soft.
Examples: llamar (yamar), llanura (yanura), llover (yover), llevar (yevar).
