Give your Spanish
a little voice.

Five steady vowel sounds.

Spanish vowels are generally shorter and steadier than English vowel glides. English approximations are only a starting point.

a

roughly “ah” · casa Listen

e

roughly “eh” · mesa Listen

i

roughly “ee” · sí Listen

o

a steady “oh” · no Listen

u

roughly “oo” · tú Listen

Notice these differences.

• h is normally silent: hola.
• ñ is its own letter, like the “ny” sound in canyon: mañana.
• j has a sound toward the back of the mouth: trabajo. Its strength varies by region.
• ll and y often sound similar, with regional differences.
• r and rr can change meaning. Hear pero and perro and notice the difference.
• Written accent marks show stress when it differs from the usual spelling pattern, or distinguish words such as tú and tu.

Listen to the whole phrase.

Spanish links words in connected speech. Try “Me gustaría un café, por favor” as a phrase rather than separate English-style syllables.

Text Listen buttons use device/browser Spanish voices. They are not new recordings by the instructor. Voices and accents vary; original audio is in the bilingual videos. No microphone is required.