Pronounciation and dialects

Hola, I was just wondering if there is a resource where I can compare the different dialects of Spanish and what their commonalities and differences are. I am primarily learning Spanish to visit Spain itself, rather than South America. Therefore, it would be more useful for me to learn to pronounce Spanish words in the way that Spanish locals do. The one main difference I have found so far is that Maurico (from Chile, yes?) pronounces "d" as in ayuda more like the English "th" as in with, and Spanish natives pronounce it more like the English "d" as in dog. Any help would be much appreciated :) Thanks,

Hola Dawsmonkee. Offhand I can't think of a site that compares pronunciations in any detail. If I come upon one, I'll let you know. However, I want to comment on your remark about the way "d" is pronounced in Spain. I've been listening to "Notes in Spanish," which features a native speaker from Madrid and her British husband, who speaks very good Spanish that he learned in Spain. Both of them often pronounce "d" as "th," especially at the end of words. One example: Madrid. The final "d" often seems to me to sound like "th." I'm not sure about the "d" in the middle. It's possible that it, too, has some of the "th" sound.

Fair enough... I have just been speaking to a Spanish speaker from Alicante on the south east coast of Spain, and she says that they pronounce 'd' more like 'd' than 'th', but maybe that's just them! I shall see if I ever get to visit Spain... hopefully soon! :)

Ah, I envy you! By the way, if you're interested in hearing Spanish with the pronunciation used in (most of :D ) Spain, I highly recommend listening to the Notes in Spanish podcasts that I mentioned in my earlier message above. The podcasts are organized into three levels: Inspired Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. All the podcasts are free and can be downloaded from *__http://www.notesinspanish.com/__*. If you want transcripts of the podcasts, you have to pay for them, but not for the podcasts themselves. There's also a forum where you can ask questions about the podcasts or about any other aspect of Spanish: *__http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums/index.php__*. You might find Notes in Spanish a useful supplement to Rocket Spanish. One other site that I _think_ may use the pronunciation from Spain is LingusTV at *__http://www.lingus.tv/video/__*. It offers free videos, often amusing, with transcripts (for all levels) and Spanish subtítulos (for the beginner and intermediate levels). The videos are ranked by difficulty, but even the "beginner" video I saw was pretty challenging, at least for me :oops: . I understood most of it, but I would not have called it "beginner" level. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the site is free. I haven't used it much, but I've liked what I've seen, and it's definitely worth a look.

Holla Nohablo, I read that you have a site that has podcast to practice "Spain" spanish. Do you have one to practice "Latin American" Spanish? Thanks tjv