Pronunciation Help

I am new to RS, I am starting to go to Peru on Mission trips and I have always wanted to learn Spanish so now is the time :). I was looking through the beginner’s book and lesson 1.1 has the pronunciation of the alphabet, is there anywhere I can get audio of each letter? I know there are examples but I want to get off on the right foot and if I say a letter wrong from the beginning it would be more harmful than good. Thanks

Hi there. Here you have to links with audiofiles: http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/spanish_alphabet and http://www.spanishdaddy.com/learnspanish/learnspanishalphabet.aspx Cheers and good luck. Chris

Seems as though the biggest hurdle for most people I know trying to learn Spanish is the d and r sounds when not at the first of a word. You can find a few samples such as the ones pointed out by Chris above and those do help. Sometimes getting one or two examples is just not enough. Because this is such a problem one would think that drills on these letter would be numerous. The trilled RR is everywhere. If you were coaching a team that could not pass a soccer ball what would you do? Right, they would be passing soccer balls in their sleep from all the practice. Here are some things I noticed. I hear the r when it is the second letter in the word lightly trilled. I hear the r lightly trilled at the end of a word. Between vowels it sounds like the dd or tt sounds in English. How about when it is in the middle of a word next to a consonant? I just want to learn Spanish correctly. One last thing, the d on the end of a word is pronounced as a d or th?

[quo]*Quote from * jbarbee Seems as though the biggest hurdle for most people I know trying to learn Spanish is the d and r sounds when not at the first of a word.... I just want to learn Spanish correctly. One last thing, the d on the end of a word is pronounced as a d or th?[/quo] There's a fair amount of variation in Spanish pronunciation. Last night I was at a meeting where someone claimed that there was more variation in Spanish pronunciation than in English pronunciation. That surprised me. However, my point is that there is a lot, and so don't sweat it. However, I thought I'd let you know what one of my favorite books says about the pronunciation of r and d. The book is *Búscalo: A Quick Reference Guide to Spanish Grammar and Usage* by Clarkson and Campos. It's a moderately inexpensive paperback that was useful to me when I was just starting out, and is just as useful to me now (which of course may mean that I haven't made much progress :mrgreen: ). In the beginning of the book, there's a brief discussion of how to pronounce Spanish vowels and consonants. Here's what it says about the d and r sounds: *d* at the end of a word or between two vowels is pronounced like the English *th* in the word *there*: *to_d_o, dormi_d_o*. In all other positions it is closer to the English *d* in the word *dollar* but still with a hint of the *th* sound of the word *then *because the tip of the tongue touches the edge of the front teeth. *r* within words is usually pronounced with a single trill or flap of the tongue: *pe_r_o*, *ca_r_o*, *pa_r_a*. At the getinning of words or after n, l, or s, the trill is extended: *_r_ápido*, *En_r_ique*, *al_r_ededor*, *Is_r_ael*. *rr *is pronounced with the extended trill and is never written at the beginning of a word: *pe_rr_o, ca_rr_o*. I hope this helps.