From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Spanish language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles.
See Spanish phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Spanish.
| IPA |
Examples |
English approximation |
| Consonants |
| b |
bestia; embuste; vaca; envidia |
best |
| β |
bebé; obtuso; vivir; curva; ovni [1] |
between baby and bevy |
| d |
dedo; cuando; aldaba |
dead |
| ð |
dádiva; arder; admirar; amistad [1] |
this |
| f |
fase; café; nafta [2] |
face |
| ɡ |
gato; lengua; guerra |
got |
| ɣ |
trigo; amargo; sigue; signo [1] |
between a light go and ahold |
| ʝ |
ayuno; poyo [1] |
between beige and due in RP English |
| k |
caña; laca; acto; bloc; quise; kilo |
scan |
| l |
lino; calor; alhaja; principal |
lean |
| ʎ |
llave; pollo [3] |
roughly like million (merged with /ʝ/ in most dialects). |
| m |
madre; comer; campo; anfibio; convertir [4] |
mother |
| n |
nido; anillo; anhelo; sin; álbum [4] |
need |
| ɲ |
ñandú; cabaña [4] |
roughly like canyon |
| ŋ |
cinco; venga; conquista; enjambre [4] |
sink |
| p |
pozo; topo; apto |
spouse |
| r |
rumbo; carro; alrededor; enrollar; desraizar; subrayar; amor eterno [5] |
trilled r |
| ɾ |
caro; bravo; amor eterno [5] |
ladder in American English |
| s |
saco; casa; deshinchar; xerocopia; espita [6] |
sack |
| θ |
cereal; encima; zorro; enzima; paz [7] |
thing (in central and northern Spain only; elsewhere merged with /s/) |
| t |
tamiz; átomo; ritmo |
stand |
| tʃ |
chubasco; acechar |
choose |
| x |
jamón; eje; general; México; reloj [8] |
loch (pronounced /h/ in many dialects; like ham) |
| z |
isla; mismo [9] |
prison |
| Marginal phonemes [10] |
| ʃ |
Kirchner; Xirau; xola; sherpa |
shack |
| tɬ |
tlapalería; cenzontle; Popocatépetl |
somewhat like catle |
| ts |
Ertzaintza; abertzale; Pátzcuaro |
cats |
|
| IPA |
Examples |
English approximation |
| Monophthongs |
| a |
azahar |
Barack Obama; father |
| e |
vehemente |
bed [11] |
| i |
dimitir; mío |
see |
| o |
boscoso |
code |
| u |
cucurucho; dúo |
food |
| Diphthongs |
| ai |
aire; hay |
pint; eye |
| au |
pausa; auto |
house; trout |
| ei |
peine; rey |
slave; vein; ray |
| eu |
eucalipto; neutro |
"eh-oo" or "ey-oo" [12] |
| oi |
boina; hoy |
coin; poison; boy |
| ou |
estadounidense; bou |
broke; floating; blow |
| ja |
aliada; hacia |
"yah"; yonder; embryonic |
| je |
tierra; fiel |
yellow; Juliet |
| jo |
dios; amplio |
audio; embryo |
| ju |
viuda; ciudad |
you; beauty; mute |
| wa |
cuadrado; ardua |
quality; wad |
| we |
fuego; cacahuete; desagüe |
way; when; sequential |
| wi |
fui; Huila; lingüista; muy |
"wee"; sweet; weep |
| wo |
cuota; monstruo |
quote |
| Other symbols used in transcription of Spanish pronunciation |
| IPA |
Explanation |
| ˈ |
stress (placed before the stressed syllable),
viuda [ˈbjuða] |
| ˌ |
secondary stress (placed before the stressed syllable),
léelo [ˈleeˌlo] |
| . |
syllable marker (generally used between vowels in hiatus),
mío [ˈmi.o] |
|
- Other than in loanwords (e.g. hámster; hachís; hawaiano), the letter ‹h› is always silent in Spanish except in a few dialects that retain it as [h] or [x] (halar / jalar; Sáhara).[13]
- ^ a b c d /b/, /d/, /ʝ/ and /ɡ/ are approximants ([β̞], [ð̞], [ʝ˕] [ɣ˕]; represented here without the undertacks) in all places except after a pause, after an /n/ or /m/, or—in the case of /d/ and /ʝ/—after an /l/, in which contexts they are stops [b, d, ɟʝ, ɡ], not dissimilar from English b, d, j, g.(Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté 2003:257-8).
- ^ The phoneme /f/ is often pronounced as [ɸ], with the lips touching each other rather than the front teeth.
- ^ In metropolitan areas of the Iberian Peninsula and some Central American countries, /ʎ/ has merged into /ʝ/; the actual realization depends on dialect. In Rioplatense Spanish, it has become [ʃ] or [ʒ]. see yeísmo and Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:258) for more information.
- ^ a b c d The nasal consonants /n, m, ɲ/ only contrast before vowels. Before consonants, they assimilate to the consonant's place of articulation. This is partially reflected in the orthography. Word-finally, only /n/ occurs.
- ^ a b The rhotic consonants /ɾ/ ‹r› and /r/ ‹rr› only contrast between vowels. Otherwise, they are in complementary distribution as ‹r›, with [r] occurring word-initially, after /l/, /n/, and /s/, before consonants, and word-finally; [ɾ] is found elsewhere.
- ^ For many speakers, /s/ may debuccalize or be deleted in the syllable coda (at the end of words and before consonants).
- ^ In Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America /θ/ has merged into /s/; see ceceo and Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:258) for more information.
- ^ For many speakers, the ‹j› is silent at the end of a word, in which case reloj is pronounced [reˈlo].
- ^ Allophone of /s/ before voiced consonants.
- ^ The marginal phonemes are found in loanwords, largely from Basque, English, and Nahuatl
- ^ The Spanish /e/ doesn't quite line up with any English vowel, though the nearest equivalents are the vowel of pay (for most English dialects) and the vowel of bed; the Spanish vowel is usually articulated at a point between the two.
- ^ In English, something similar to /eu/ is sometimes heard for "oh" in exaggerations of the Queen's English by American comedians such as Carol Burnett.
- ^ "Grapheme h". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas. Real Academia Española. http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?lema=h.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
