Spanish Route episode TEN. Your guided route to Spanish.



Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Welcome to SpanishRoute. The program, the podcast, to learn and improve your Spanish.



My name is Sergio and I am your personal Spanish trainer. And I speak to you from Spain.This is the tenth program, your tenth stage on your way to Spanish.Today we continue with the series of programs on the pronunciation and use of the letters of the Spanish alphabet. In the previous program we talked about the letters G and J, and in this program we will learn to use and differentiate the letters C, K, Z, S, X and also the digraphs Qu and Ch.The sounds or phonemes for which we are going to use these letters are: the phoneme / θ / (zzz), the phoneme / s / (ssss), the phoneme / k / and the phoneme / tʃ / (ch).But as always, I recommend you to follow the class through the transcription and the text you will find on my website: spanishroute.com, since we are focusing on the written form of Spanish. It is advisable to read the words to differentiate when each of these letters is used.On the web you can also expose your doubts and if you wish to book private sessions by Skype, to improve your pronunciation.Remember: spanishroute.com. And now, yes, let’s start with the class.As some of the letters we are talking about today can represent several different phonemes, let’s start by differentiating these phonemes and indicating when each letter should be used. And finally we will see how to pronounce the letter X in Spanish.



pronunciation ce, z qu, k



The phoneme / K / in Spanish



The sound or phoneme / k / can be represented in Spanish written by the letters K, Q / q, and C. In words such as house (which is written with c-), kilo (which is written with k-) or cheese (which is written with q-).



The letter k of the Spanish alphabet



The letter K is always used in Spanish to represent the sound / k /. But the words with this letter are unusual in Spanish. It only appears in some words of Greek or foreign origin: It can be accompanied by any vowel: ka, ke, ki, ko, ku.kilo, Kilómetro, kamikace, vikingo  (kilo, kilometer, kamikaze, vikingo).



The letter Q/q and the digraph Qu / qu in Spanish



The letter Q/q of the Spanish alphabet is always used for this phoneme /k/, but only accompanying the vowel -e and the vowel -i. So it can only represent the sound –que- and the sound -qui-. In addition, the letter Q / q is always written accompanied by the silent vowel -u (without sound) forming the digraph Qu / qu: For example:Queso, quince, quinientos, alquilar, quemar, quieto. (Cheese, fifteen, five hundred, rent, burn, quiet).



The letter C of the Spanish alphabet. When does it represent the phoneme / k /?



The letter C of the Spanish alphabet is used to represent the sound / k / when it accompanies the vowel -a: Casa (house); to the vowel -o: Coche (car); and the vowel -u: Cuadrado (square). When the letter C is followed by the vowel -e or the vowel -i, it is read with another sound, with the sound / θ / (zzz), forming the syllables -ce, -ci. As discussed below.The letter C is also used to represent the sound / K / to end words: bloc, clic, bistec (bloc, click, steak).And when it is followed by the consonant -l and by the consonant -r:Clase, crisis, cruel, crema, cliente, cristal (Class, crisis, cruel, cream, customer, crystal).



The phoneme / θ / (zzz) and the seseo in Spanish



The sound or phoneme / θ / (zzz) can be represented in Spanish by the letters Z and C, but there are Spanish-speaking regions that do not have this phoneme and what they use instead is the phoneme / S / (sss). It is what is known as «seseo». Words like Zapato (Shoe) or Cereza (cherry). With «seseo» they are pronounced Zapato *, Cererza * (* Observe the pronunciation in the audio)The «seseo«, as we saw in chapter four of the podcast, is a particularity of the regional pronunciation of Spanish, admitted as correct. It occurs throughout Spanish-speaking America and in regions of Spain such as Andalusia and the Canary Islands. It consists of changing the phoneme / θ / (zzz) by the phoneme / S / (sss).It should not be confused with the words that are written with the letter S and that are also pronounced with the sound / S / (sss).This is complicated at first, since it can cause spelling errors when writing with S words that really should be written with C or with Z.Although both forms of pronunciation are correct, we recommend that Spanish students learn and practice pronunciation without «seseo» to avoid making mistakes in written Spanish. But if you speak frequently with native Spaniards who pronounce with «seseo» it is correct that you also speak with seseo and it is normal that their way of speaking is contagious.Therefore the phoneme / θ / (zzz) (or / S / (sss) when there is seseo), can be written with Z or with C as follows:



The letter Z of the Spanish alphabet



The letter Z of Spanish is always used to represent the phoneme / θ / (zzz) (or / S / (sss) when there is seseo) and can appear with any vowel: za, ze, zi, zo, zu, but the Z with the vowel -e and the Z with the vowel -i is very rarely used in Spanish.With the vowel -a: Zapato (Shoe), abrazar (hug). With seseo: Zapato, abrazar (* is written with z even if pronounced with s)With the vowel -e: zeta. With seseo: zeta (* is written with z although pronounced with s).With the vowel -i: zinc. With zinc seseo (* is written with z although pronounced with s).with the vowel -o: Zona, zorro, brazo (Zone, fox, arm). With seseo: Zona, zorro, brazo (Zone, fox, arm) (* is written with z although pronounced with s).With the vowel -u: juice, left-handed. With seseo: juice, lefty (* is written with z although pronounced with s).To end words: Pez, paz, feliz, (Fish, peace, happy). With seseo: Pez, paz, feliz, (fish, peace, happy) (* is written with z although pronounced with s).Remember that the syllables with ze and zi exist in Spanish but in words of infrequent use and, although the Z is pronounced with seseo, its writing must be with the letter Z and not with S.



The letter C in Spanish for the phoneme / θ / (zzz) or / S / (sss)



The letter C is used in Spanish to represent the phoneme / θ / (zzz) (or / S / (sss) (when there is seseo) if it is followed by the vowel -e and of the vowel -i. (Forming the syllables ce, ci) Examples:With the vowel -e: Cerdo, Cebra) (Pig, zebra). With seseo: Cerdo, cebra (Pig, zebra) (* is written with c even if pronounced with s).With the vowel -i: Cigarro, cien (Cigar, One hundred), with seseo Cigarro, cien (Cigar, one hundred). (* is written with c even if pronounced with s).Remember that although pronounced with seseo these words are written with C and not with S.



The letter S of the Spanish alphabet and the «ceceo» (lisp)



The letter S of the Spanish alphabet always reads with the sound / S / (ssss). There is only a regional variation in some areas of southern Spain, where this phoneme is replaced by the sound / θ / (zzz). Words like: Casa (House) you can hear it as a Casa (house) * (* is written with s although pronounced with z).



Remember:



The sound or phoneme / S / (sss) is written with the letter S, except in words pronounced with seseo and that must be written with C or with Z.



And the sound or phoneme / θ / (zzz) can be written with Z with any vowel, or with C when accompanied by the vowel -e and the vowel -i (ce, ci). And it is written with S when it is caused by lisp (ceceo).



Both «seseo» and «ceceo» (lisp) are identified with practice, listening to these regional varieties of the language. You do not have to learn them, just identify them when you hear them so you can understand them and not make mistakes in writing.



It must also be taken into account that when seseo or lisp occurs, homophonies can be produced with words that are written with S. That is, words that are pronounced with seseo but that are written with C or with Z sound like words that are they write with S, but they have a different meaning. For example: The word zeta (the name of the letter) if pronounced with seseo sounds the same as the word seta, which is a mushroom. The word casa (house), if pronounced with lisp, sounds the same as caza (hunting), which means searching or chasing animals to kill them. Therefore, the meaning of the words pronounced with seseo o ceceo (lisp) must be deduced by the context of the sentence.



How do you pronounce letter X in spanish?



The letter X of the Spanish alphabet can also be used to represent different sounds or phonemes.As we saw in the previous chapter of the podcast, the letter X can be pronounced as the J/j (jota) (with the phoneme / j /) in place-names such as Mexico or Texas (which are written with X) or surnames such as Ximenez (which is also written with X) ).The letter X can also be pronounced as a / S / when it goes to the beginning of the word:Xilófono (Xylophone), Xenofobia (Xenophobia).But the most common is to pronounce the letter X as the sum of the phonemes / ks /. Words like: Taxi, Claxon, boxeo, nexo, examen (Taxi, horn, boxing, nexus, exam). But sometimes, for reasons of regional accents, an informal way of speaking or talking too fast the sound of the X may sound more like a / S /.



The phoneme / t∫ / (ch) in Spanish



After studying the different ways of writing the phonemes / θ / (zzz), / K / and / S / (ssss), and the pronunciation of the letter X, let’s now also see the use and pronunciation of the digraph / ch /.The letter H/h is almost always silent in Spanish. But when it goes along with the letter C it forms the digraph to represent the phoneme / tʃ / (che).with the vowel -a: charlar (chat)with the vowel -e: noche (night)with the vowel -i: chicle, chile (bubble gum, Chili or Chile)with the vowel -o: chocar, chorizo (crash, chorizo)with the vowel -u: lechuga, chulo (lettuce, cool or pimp)



In summary…



Very good. In this class we have raised the level of difficulty a little.