Spanish Route episode nine. Your guided route to Spanish



Hello! How are you, Spanish student? Welcome to SpanishRoute. The program, the podcast, to learn and improve your Spanish.My name is Sergio and I speak to you from Spain. This is the ninth program, your ninth stage on your way to Spanish.Today, we continue with the series of programs abaut the Spanish alphabet. In the previous program we focus on the letters be (b), uve (v) and uve doble (w).Today we are going to focus on the letter jota(j) and ge (g). And the digraph formed by the letters gu.The letters ge and jota can be a source of confusion for Spanish students, but with these small instructions that I present here today, it will be much easier to differentiate them.I recommend you to follow the class through the transcript that you will find on my website, SpanishRoute.com, since we are focusing on the written form of Spanish and it is advisable to read the words to differentiate when using G and when using the J. On the web you will also have access to a very easy written test to practice and memorize the concepts we are talking about today.And now. Let's start with the class.



The letter "jota" of Spanish



The letter "jota" is always pronounced the same. It is a sound that is produced by the approach of the back of the tongue and the back of the palate. Scraping the throat. jjjj (/x/)It is used with the five vowels: Ja, je, ji, jo, ju. With the vowel a: Jamón (ham)With the vowel e: Jefe (boss)With the vowel i: Jirafa (giraffe)With the vowel o: Jota (jota)With the vowel u: Jueves (Thursday)  The letter j can also appear to end words: Reloj (clock)



The letter g in Spanish



The letter g can be pronounced basicly in two ways in Spanish. And for that, we divide them according to the vowels that they accompany.



G pronunciation same as J



The g with the vowel e and the g with the vowel i are pronounced the same as the j: with a strong sound from the throat. Ge / Gi. With the vowel e: Gente (People). With the vowel i: Girar (Rotate).My name, for example. It is written with g and pronounced with the sound equal to the j. Sergio.The reason for the use of j or g for the same sound has to do with etymological reasons and the way in which Spanish evolved from Latin and also by the incorporation into Spanish of words from other languages such as Arabic.



Soft g sound



The other sound for the letter g is /g/. Also with the throat but softer: Without scraping. And it can be: ga, gue, gui, go, gu.But, I said earlier that the g with the e and the g with the i are pronounced like the j. Therefore to write the words that are pronounced gue and gui, we use a vowel u between the g and the vowels e or i.For example: Guerra (War). Guerra is written: g-u-e-r-r-a. The u is silent, it is not pronounced. Guerra.



Guitarra (guitar): Guitarra is spelled: G-u-i-t-a-r-r-a. The letter u is not pronounced, remember. Guitarra.Examples of words with the letter g and the rest of the vowels for this phoneme:With the vowel a: Gato (Cat).With the vowel o: Gota (Drop).With the vowel u: (gustar( (to Like or to love)



The umlaut (diéresis) in Spanish



But this can still be complicated a bit more.There are words in Spanish with the letter g that are pronounced güe and güi. How are these words written then? In the Spanish written to indicate that we must pronounce this letter, we use the umlaut (diéresis). Which are two horizontal points on the letter u of this syllable.For example: With the vowel e: Cigüeña (Stork), with the vowel i: Güisqui (Whisky). If we do not use the umlaut when reading these words we would say: cigueña or guisqui. and this is wrong. if we do not put neither the umlaut nor the u read: cigeña or gisqui. And that is also wrong.



The letter g with the consonants l and r in Spanish: Gr / Gl



In addition to the syllables formed by the letter g plus a vowel, the letter g can be accompanied by the consonants L/l and R/r, forming different syllables with each vowel. With the L/l: gla, gle, gli, glo, glu. And with the R/r: gra, gre, gri, gro, gru.Examples of words with gr: Grande (large), gris (gray), grueso (coarse).examples of words with gl: Globos (Balloons), arreglar (to fix, to arrange).



Pronunciation of the letter X/x as the J/j



Finally, we are going to talk about the phoneme jjj but that is written with the letter X/x.This is found in the toponym of Mexico and Texas. They are written with X but they are pronounced as if it were a J.The same thing happens in other place names of pre-Columbian America, such as Oaxaca and in some Spanish surnames such as Ximenez. They are written with X but is pronounced like the j.Listen to the audio from the top!



Review about the pronunciation of the g and the j in Spanish



Let's review: the j with any vowel is always the same: ja, je, ji, jo, ju.With the vowel a: Jabalí (boar)With the vowel e: viaje (trip)With the vowel i: jinete (jockey)With the vowel o: rojo (red)With the vowel u: juicio (judgment)With the letter g: we pronounce: ga, gue, gui, go, gu, but to write gue and gui we must add a mute u after the letter g.With the vowel e: Hamburguesa (hamburger): With a mute u interspersed between the g and the eWith the vowel i: Guía (guide), águila (eagle). Also with a mute uinterspersed between the g and the i.Already without the u, with the vowel or: Golpe (knock, shock), abrigo (coat).And with the vowel u: Gusto (taste), alguno (some).The letter g with the vowel e and the letter g with the vowel i are pronounced the same as the j when they do not have that muted u in the middle: General (general), gigante (giant).And when we want to pronounce that u between the g and the vowel e and between the g and the vowel i we use the umlaut (diéresis): Vergüenza (shame), pingüino (penguin).The set of letters g plus u is called a digraph: as we said in the previous episode. Other digraphs in Spanish are the double R (rr), the c plus the h (ch), the double L (or elle) (ll), and the q plus the u (qu).



Orthographic rules of the g and the ja in written Spanish



There are some words that when you hear them you will not know if they should write with g or j. This can happen when you hear words with the syllable ge / je or the syllable gi / ji.The orthographic rules to know when to write with g or j are very broad and have many exceptions. This is also a difficulty for native Spanish speakers. Keep in mind that these rules are necessary to learn written Spanish and not so much for spoken Spanish. To master these rules you must practice them little by little and especially read a lot in Spanish.Next, I will explain these orthographic rules of written Spanish for the letters g and j. This is for students of Spanish at an intermediate or advanced level. You will listen to a more advanced vocabulary. Do not worry if you're still not at this level. Follow me as far as you can.It is written with g after the syllable -al- and the consonants n or r:Words like: Álgebra (Algebra), álgido (algid), ángel (angel), anginas (anginas), evangelio (gospel), margen (margin), emerger (emerge), surgir (arise).There are exceptions to this rule. They are written with j: Monje (monk), extranjero (foreigner), aljibe (cistern), canjear (exchange).The words that contain the syllable -gen- are usually written with g: General (general), generación (generation), genial (great).There are also exceptions. They are written with j: Ajeno (alien), berengena (eggplant), jengibre (ginger). The word jengibre is written first with j (jen) and the second with g (gi): jengibre.The words that contain the syllable -geo- are written with g: Geografia (geography), apogeo(apogee), geólogo (geologist).Words that start with legi- or gest- are also written with g: Gestión (management), legítimo (legitimate), legible (legible), legión (legion).There is an exception to this rule. The word lejia (lye). Lejía is written with j.They are written with g the conjugation of verbs that end in -ger and -gir. Whose infinitive is also written with g: From the verb recoger (to collect) is said nosotros recogemos (we collect), (in the present) or nosotros recogimos (we collected) (in the past). From the verb dirigir (to direct) is said, for example, ellos dirigen (they direct) (in the present), or ellos dirigieron (they directed) (past).The exceptions to this rule are the conjugation of the verbs tejer (to knit) and crujir (creak). That are written with j. The infinitives of these verbs are also written with jota. Tejer, crujir.



Are written with g the words that contain the groups of letters -igi -, - age- or agi-: Página (page), exigir (demand),  rígido (rigid), , frágil (fragile), contagio (contagion).As an exception to this rule we have the verb forms of irregular verbs whose infinitive has neither g nor j. For example, from the verb decir (to say), that the infinitive has neither g nor j, there is the conjugation: Yo dije (I said) or nosotros dijimos (we said) (in the past). These verbal forms are written with jota.Are written with g, also, the words that end in -gía, -ginal, -gico, Words like: Alergia (allergy), energía (energy), marginal (marginal), original (original), lógico (logical), biológico (biological), nostálgico (nostalgic).There are exceptions to this rule. Is written with jota: lejía (lye) (which we mentioned earlier) or bujía (spark plug), , herejía, (heresy), paradójico (paradoxical).The words ending in -gio, -gion, -gional, -gionario or -gioso are also written with g. For example: Colegio (college), religión (religion), región (region), regional (regional), legionario (legionary), contagioso (contagious). Many of these words are derived from others that are also written with g according to the gifts we saw earlier. as a legionario (legionary), which derives from legión (legion). Contagioso (Contagious), which derives from contagio (contagion).Are written with g also the words ending in -geno and -gero: Óxigeno (oxygen),