10 Pronunciation Mistakes Spanish Speakers Make | Pronunciación en inglés para hispanohablantes

Hey, it's Hadar. And this is the accents way. And today we're going to Talk about the 10 pronunciation mistakes Spanish speakers make. These pronunciation mistakes happen because of patterns or sounds that exist in English but don't exist in Spanish. And sometimes we know it, but we don't know what we need to do in order to change it. And sometimes we don't even recognize that we are making these substitutions or making these mistakes. So this video is here to help you, first of all, understand what are the common mistakes. And. And I'm also going to give you tools to overcome these challenges and improve your pronunciation. Sounds are dropped at the end of words. For example, instead of saying text, you may say tex. Instead of saying mind, you may say mine. In Spanish, there are no words that end with more than one consonant. Where there is a sequence of a few consonants, like in texts or worked or mind, right? Where you have a consonant sound and then another consonant sound right after. So people, without even noticing, they may drop the last consonant because it's very difficult to pronounce. If you concentrate, you may pronounce it well, but then when you go into conversation, you may drop those N sounds, because that's how it is in Spanish. And we always want to go back to the comfortable place, right? Go back to old habits, the way we pronounce it in our native tongue. So this is how you should practice it. First of all, make a list of words that have two, three, and even four consonants at the end, and then practice them slowly, making sure that you're hitting every single sound, even if it sounds exaggerated. Mind work script, right? Exaggerate every single sound until you teach your tongue to pronounce all consonants without taking any breaks, without adding vowels in between, and without dropping any sounds. Now, this is a good place to remind you that if you want a list of those top 10 mistakes made by Spanish speakers and also a list of words to practice with, click on the link below and download the practice sheet I prepared for you. M turns to N at the end of words. In Spanish, there is the M consonant sound, but it never appears at the end of words. So when it does in English, for example, in the word game, Spanish speakers often turn it into an so game will sound like gain. Because that does happen in Spanish, you do have words that end with n. So it turns to n. And it happens usually automatically, without even people noticing it. Some turns to sun. Comb turns to cone. Beam turns to bean. Does that sound familiar? So here's what you need to do. First of all be aware of it. And when you have words that end with M, make sure that your lips are closed. Because for the M, you close the lips and release air through the nose. For the N, the tip of the tongue goes up and touches the upper palate, and still you release air through the nose. N, M, N. So first of all, practice these two sounds. Go back and forth from M to N, M, N to gain control and to be more aware of your articulation organs. M, N. And then practice words that end with M. And make sure that you close your lips every single time. Seam, comb, ham. And use a mirror if you need to. A Z sound in the middle of words turns into an S. In Spanish, there is no Z in the middle of the word. So again, the common substitution would be to turn it into the closest sound that does exist in Spanish, in this case, S. So a word like husband that needs to have a Z sound in the middle will be pronounced as husband. Reason will sound like reason. When you speak with a lot of S sound instead of Z, it may affect your clarity and overall quality of speech. You want to make sure that you pronounce those Z's correct. The difference between an S and a Z is whether your voice is activated or not. So, for example, let's try this. Put your hands here and pronounce an S sound. S. Now, just activate your voice and keep on doing whatever you're doing. You want to feel vibrations here, and then keep this sound as you pronounce words with a Z is was. And yes, I know all of these words have an S in the spelling, but you have to remember that an S represents a Z sound a lot in many of the cases in the middle of words at the end of words. So you need to be aware of it, and you need to make sure that you know what these words are. So make a list of words that have a Z sound and repeat them over and over again, making sure that you feel those vibrations and that you're actually pronouncing the Z sound. And if needed, record yourself and listen to it. Because sometimes we think that we're pronouncing a certain sound, but we don't really, and only if we listen to ourselves from the outside. If we listen to our recording, then we can tell whether or not we're pronouncing the right sound or not. The J sound is pronounced as J. And then a word like years may sound like years, and young may sound like jung. The difference between the J sound sound and the is the placement of the tongue for the J, the back of the tongue goes up and almost touches the soft palate in the back. You feel the sides of the tongue touch the insides of your teeth. So you need to bring the back of the tongue back. And so again, in order to be able to master this challenge, you have to first control your pronunciation. And the best way to do it is to shift from one sound to another. So do it with me. Y, Y, J. Young. And you want to make sure that you don't hear that sound year U and not Jew. You make sure it's a little cleaner than the J sound and yellow. And it shouldn't sound like Jello, because jello is a different word. And on the other hand, make sure that words that begin with the J sound like job and just are not pronounced with a Y sound like yab and yust. Okay? So this substitution can go back and forth. So be aware of these two sounds. And remember that the Y sound is usually represented with the letter Y. Similar vowels are pronounced the same. And then leave and live will sound the same. Leave, leave, pull, and pull will sound the same. Pull, pull. All right, so here we need to understand that these are two different sounds. There is the tense E as in he we see, and the relaxed I as in sit. Kid list. The tense e is usually spelled with two vowel letters like E, e, e, a, I, e. And the relaxed I is usually spelled with the letter I, not always, but usually. And the relaxed I is somewhere between E and E in Spanish. Okay, kid list. Sit versus he, we, please. And then we have sheep and ship, reach and rich, sheet and shit. Same thing with the pool and pull. The tense oo is pool a little longer in comparison to pull. It's not the same sound. Food should not sound like foot even though it's spelled the same. These are two different sounds. Again, food. It's a longer vowel sound in comparison to foot. If you want to practice more the sheep, ship and the pool pull, then I'll post a link to those videos in the description below. The V turns into a bag in Spanish. When there is a V in the spelling, it is pronounced as a very soft B sound. And then when the V appears in English, they pronounce it the same. And then the word very may sound like berry. Now, these are two different words in English, so this substitution makes you sound unclear. When you pronounce a V sound, you want to make sure that the bottom lip touches the top teeth. A V is a continuous sound, and the top teeth need to touch the bottom Lip V. A B is a stop sound where both lips touch together. Even if they touch really softly. V V, it's still a different sound. It's still going to sound more like a B rather than a V. So whenever there is a word that begins with a V or has a V in the middle, you want to make sure that that the bottom lip touches the top teeth and the air passes. Very video. And to practice it, you have to hold out the sound to make sure that you're able to make it a continuous sound and to recognize that your top teeth touch the bottom lip. V Very video Valentine Vibrations because you want to feel vibrations when you're pronouncing the sound, the American R turns into a short Spanish R instead of R. And then the word boring may sound like boring. Right? Will sound like right. And then what you need to do is first of all understand that the tip of the tongue should not touch anything when you pronounce the R sound. Unlike in Spanish, where the tip of the tongue touches the upper palate, it gives it a high five R. Boring. Right? Right. So you don't want that. You want to pull back your tongue and hold it out. Bo you need to curl your lips and then pull the tongue back. The sides of the tongue touch the insides of the upper teeth. Ring. Right? Ready and not ready. Ready. A good way to do it is to hold out the sound and to make sure you're pronouncing it correctly. And if you want to practice your R a bit more, then click on the link here and watch my video about how to pronounce the American R in Spanish. Whenever there is an H, it is silence. You don't pronounce it. So whenever it appears in American English, people tend to create a different sound for the H, which is instead of a sound, more of a sound. So the word ahead may sound like a head. The word hi may sound like hi instead of. You have to remember that for the H sound, everything needs to be open in the back, and it's like you're just whispering hi, horse, hello and not hello. The H sound happens when the tongue is high up and the body of the tongue almost touches the soft palate. Doesn't leave a lot of room for the air to pass, and therefore you hear this sound. We don't want that whenever there is an H in English. We want a lot of open space. So first of all, practice the sound alone. It's like when you're warming up your hands when it's really cold. Hi ahead, hello. And Yes, I have a video about the h sound when you pronounce it, when you shouldn't pronounce it, and I'll post a link to it in the description below. Adding vowels at the beginning of words that begin with st. So instead of street, you'll hear a street in Spanish. Every time there is a word that starts with st, there is always a vowel before. So what you're probably doing is applying this pattern automatically. And every time there is a word that begins with st, and there are plenty of those in English, you add a vowel before street. Strange stripes. And this is how you should practice it. Start with an s sound, make sure that you know what your tongue is doing for the s, and from there move on to the rest of the word street, stay staff and not a staff estay. And again, I believe that awareness is key, so you'll notice that once you are aware of it, you'll stop doing it. Or at least you'll know that you're doing it and gradually be able to stop doing it. As you speak, the th turns into a t or a d. So think turns to think and they turns to day. In most Spanish dialects, there is no th sound. In American English, you have to stick the tongue out for the th sound theta. In Spanish, people tend to keep the tongue inside and then it sounds like a t. The the think theory. Instead of think and theory, you got to make sure that the tongue sticks out and air passes between the tongue and teeth. Just like with a V, it's a fricative, so you have to feel the air flowing between the teeth and the tongue. Think. That's the voiceless th and it's substituted with a t sound in comparison to v. They the voiced th, which is substituted with with a d sound. They they. So make sure that the tongue is out and it's soft and you allow the air to pass and it can stretch this sound forever. Okay, that's it. Thank you so much for watching. These are the top 10 pronunciation mistakes made by Spanish speakers. Now, of course, these mistakes are common for not only Spanish speakers, but other speakers as well. But the combination of the 10 is very common for many speakers of different dialects of span. Leave a comment below. Tell me if you find yourself making any one of those mistakes, and tell me where you're from. Thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you next week in the next video.