Guide To The Spanish Language
An introduction to Spanish without the grammar - A new and fresh perspective with some interesting items on
language and the similarities between Spanish and English
Learning Spanish - The 146 Most Used Words in Spanish
These have to be understood if you are to speak Spanish at a reasonable level, not many words but they are very important words and very important
sounds. We have to be able to read them and make the right Spanish sounds. Written letters and words are ways to communicate a message.
When you read silently you make a sound in your mind without using your
mouth or vocal chords, like when we think. But if we are making the wrong sounds in our minds then when we do read them aloud we will make the
same mistakes. It is therefore important that as soon as possible we learn the correct pronunciation otherwise we will just cement into our brain the incorrect
sound.
We need to learn how to make the right sounds so others can hear us and understand us. The human voice can make an incredible variety of sounds.
Although we do not generally think of it the fact is that all languages are just
mouthfuls of air producing sound. Each different tongue or language will have certain characteristics that will utilize different parts of the mouth and throat.
How we use the tongue and vocal chords to produce different sounds will give us our unique accent. English and Spanish sounds are relatively similar with
some notable exceptions the guttural g the double r and the v for example.
As English speakers we need to master these few alien Spanish sounds. It’s not too difficult as most of the sounds made when speaking Spanish are very
similar to the sounds made when speaking English so we do not have a huge task here. We already know most of the sounds we just have to learn a few
new ones. It is important that before we spend time learning the written word and our word lists that we understand how we should pronounce these written
words otherwise we are going to learn bad habits that will be very difficult to break. Learn to say something the wrong way and to make the wrong sound
and it can be very difficult to fix.
Most of our initial work will be reading so before we go any further let’s look at
how to produce the right sounds from the written word. Remember you will make the sounds silently in your mind even if you do not read them out aloud
so by reading them over and over you will iron them into your brain, so don’t do it! Not until you know how to correctly pronounce the Spanish sounds.
We have the list below I suggest at first you read only the English words on the list so you know what we are aiming at. Just viewing the list will give you
an idea of the task. Hopefully you will not find it too daunting. Skim through it
and then study how to make the Spanish sounds before you go back to the list.