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Este video resumió el concepto de deixis, los tres tipos de deixis (ostensiva, textual, cuantitativa, y de modo o manera) y algunos ejemplos. También, aprendí de deixis fórica, que es una palabra que refiere a otra palabra del discurso y hay dos tipos de esto: anáfora y catáfora.

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Español avanzado y cultura hispanohablante

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DEIXIS: concepto y tipos ‹ Curso de estilo indirecto

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Cronología de los cambios consonánticos y vocálicos:

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Cronología de los cambios consonánticos y vocálicos:

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Primero, necesitamos empezar con la lengua mas primitiva que es latín. Hay 15 consonantes fundamentales de latín: b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, x. Después, hay muchas cambias como el proceso de lenición, el uso de [e] prostético, o la eliminación de consonante final.

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History of Spanish Consonants

To understand how the modern Spanish consonantal system came into being, one has to go back to the pronunciation of consonants in Latin. As a first approximation, it can be noted that the core Latin alphabet had fifteen consonantal letters (this excludes Greek z which occurred only in certain learnèd words that played no role in the development of the Spanish phonology). These fifteen letters are shown below using modern lower-case characters, which were not themselves used by the Romans, who used either capitals (for inscriptions) or the handwritten script known as Latin cursive (for letters, accounts and many other types of document).

b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, x

The above consonants are all thought to have been originally pronounced, but the letter h came to be silent, as did final -m in all words other than monosyllables. The following points should also be noted:

1. The letter x represented a cluster, /ks/, rather than a single consonant.

2. The letter q had the same value as c, i.e. /k/, although it was confined in principle to the sequence qu, pronounced [kw].

3. The letter f in the Latin of north-central Iberia - the variety from which Spanish descends - probably had a bilabial articulation (symbol: [ɸ]), as opposed to the labiodental pronunciation, [f], found in many other Latin-speaking territories.

In light of the foregoing, the starting point for the Spanish consonants can be idealized as in Table 1 below.

In addition to the consonants in Table 1, we need to take into account the labial-velar and palatal semivowels [w] and [j], corresponding to the letters v and i in initial and intervocalic positions. Even though these sounds were not originally consonantal in Latin, they subsequently became so in those positions, a development which is addressed in Section 2 below.

A further point to note is that, apart from /ɸ/ and the voiced stops, the consonants shown in Table 1 routinely appeared in geminate form, i.e. doubled, as in the examples below (the transcriptions of which assume the spoken Latin vowel system described here).

Apart from /ɸ/, which was displaced by /f/ in the Late Middle Ages, all the consonants in Table 1 survive into Modern Spanish, but their distribution across the lexicon has changed in many cases. In addition, a number of new consonants have been added to the system; most obviously, the voiceless dental fricative /θ/, the alveolar trill /r/, the palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/, the palatal nasal /ɲ/, the palatal lateral /ʎ/ and the voiceless velar fricative /x/. The emergence of these sounds, as well as the other major developments that have affected consonants over the course of the history of Spanish, is described in 2 to 11 below.

In initial and intervocalic positions written v and i appear to have originally represented labial-velar and palatal semivowels respectively, viz. [w] and [j]. However, their reflexes in medieval and modern Spanish are full consonants, implying that they hardened into consonants in later spoken Latin.

2.1 Latin v > Old Spanish /β/ > Mod. Spanish /b/
In the Iberian Peninsula, the labial semivowel [w] corresponding to Latin v must have developed into a labial fricative, specifically bilabial /β/ (cf. French, where the relevant fricative is labiodental /v/, as in voisin < vecīnum). In initial position, the fricative /β/ contrasted phonemically with the bilabial stop /b/ corresponding to Latin b. This contrast appears to have continued into Old Spanish, given that medieval scribes distinguished fairly consistently between words that began with u or v (= /β/) and words which began with b (= /b/):

Modern Spanish has no residue of this contrast, however, given that [β] is now prohibited in initial position (the distribution of the letters b and v in modern Spanish bears no relation to pronunciation). The contrast can be assumed to have disappeared by the fifteenth century at the latest, with [β] being eliminated from word-initial position.

In word-internal contexts, medieval Spanish does not appear to have had separate reflexes for Latin v and b, [β] apparently being used in both cases (as in fact was probably already the case in late spoken Latin, given common 'misspellings' such as plevis for plebes, identified in the Appendix Probi). The Old Spanish orthography typically represents this [-β-] using the letter v/ u, regardless of whether the relevant word was spelled with v or b in Latin:

Despite this merger, Old Spanish does appear to have manifested word-internal [-b-], but in this case the source was Latin /-p-/, 'wolf' was almost always spelled which voiced in intervocalic position during the lenition process. In medieval Spanish, words that had intervocalic /-p-/ in Latin are fairly consistently spelled with a b, implying that they were actually pronounced with [-b-] rather than [-β-]. For example, the reflex of Latin lupum lobo, pointing to the pronunciation [ˈlobo]. Over time, however, Old Spanish [-b-] (< Lat. /-p-/) was fricatized to [-β-], a process which resulted in pronunciations such as lobo.

Word-internally, then, fricative /β/ and the stop /b/ ultimately merged (probably no later than the fifteenth century), just as they did in initial position. However, the result of the word-internal merger was the loss of the stop articulation (except after a nasal, given that Modern Spanish disallows [β] after nasals) rather than the loss of the fricative one. In this way, we arrive at the modern allophony of Spanish /b/.

2.2 Latin i > Mod. Spanish /ʝ/ or /x/
As regards Latin i, this seems likely, in initial and intervocalic positions, to have come to be pronounced as the palatal fricative /ʝ/. In initial position, the palatal pronunciation is retained in modern Spanish only before stressed non-back vowels, as in yace [aθe] (from iacet 'he/she/it lies'), where the affricate [dʒ] is an allophone of /ʝ/. Before unstressed non-back vowels, initial Latin i has no reflex in Spanish, as can be seen from examples such as echar 'to throw' < iactāre and enero 'January' < i has /ʒ/ as its reflex in Old Spanish, but this sound was subsequently iānuārium. Before back vowels, initial devoiced and then underwent retraction to the velar position, delivering /x/ as the modern reflex:

In intervocalic position, the phonetic correlate of i appears to have been a geminate, perhaps [jj] to begin with but subsequently /ʝ ʝ/. For example, accusative singular of māium ( māius 'May') probably came to be pronounced [ˈ]. This geminate /ʝ ʝ/ usually has simple /ʝ/ as its reflex in modern Spanish, a result that implies simplification as part of the generalized process of lenition or 'weakening' which, according to Penny (2002:74), began 'in the last centuries of the Empire and [continued] through the Dark Ages':

In syllable-initial position, the Latin velars /k/ and /g/ each underwent phonemic split, yielding different phonemes in medieval and modern Spanish according as the following segment was a front vowel or a non-front vowel. When followed by a front vowel, both /k/ and /g/ were palatalized, /k/ in this context being one of the main sources of /θ/ in modern Castilian Spanish and /g/ usually resulting in /ʝ/ or disappearing altogether, but occasionally having /θ/ as its reflex. In contrast, when the following sound was a back vowel or the central vowel /a/, /k/ generally survives as a velar consonant (albeit voiced in some contexts), while /g/ either survives intact or it was lost altogether.

3.1 Voiceless /k/
The voiceless velar stop /k/ corresponds mainly to written c in Latin, but it is represented by the letter q in the unit qu (= [kw]) and by the digraph ch in certain Greek loanwords.

Before front vowels
Before front vowels, Latin /k/ is likely to have had a fronted or palatal articulation, which can tentatively be represented as [c] (Menéndez Pidal (1958) uses the ad hoc symbol ć). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, [c] stands for the voiceless palatal stop, the sound which occurs, for example, at the beginning of modern French qui [ci]'who'. This sound can be used to reconstruct the pronunciation, in later spoken Latin, of words such as the following:

Identical remarks apply to the case in which the front vowel following Latin /k/ evolved into the palatal semivowel [j], following the loss of the hiatus:

A reasonable assumption is that the palatal allophone [c] became affricated in spoken Latin, producing [tʃ] in the first instance, a sound which lives on in Italian circa, cielo, pace, vicino etc. In the variety of Latin from which Spanish descends, the [ʃ] component of this affricate fronted, becoming denti-alveolar during the late Imperial period or in the Early Middle Ages. The Old Spanish reflex of Latin /k/ before front vowels or [j] is therefore a dental affricate, which in fact came in two varieties, viz. voiceless /ts/, often written as ç, and voiced /dz/, written as z.

Voiceless /ts/ was the continuation of word-initial or post-consonantal Latin [c], as well as geminate [c]. In contrast, /dz/ was found in words in which [c] was intervocalic in Latin. The voiced affricate /dz/ can thus be assumed to be the reflex of an earlier /ts/ which became voiced in intervocalic position as part of the generalized lenition process. Three examples of Old Spanish words containing /ts/ or /dz/ are given below (as can be seen from , when /s/ preceded Latin [c], it was absorbed into the /ts/ that evolved from this latter sound):

Note that when the element palatalizing Latin /k/ was [j] rather than a full vowel, this [j] was usually absorbed into the emergent affricate and hence does not have an independent reflex in Old Spanish:

The [j] survives in the word lacio 'lank' (Old Spanish: ), but this is presumbaly due to the late semivocalization of the original Latin vowel, viz. ĭ (= /e/), which could not reduce to [j] until the following voiced consonant had been lost, by which time [c] had already become /ts/:

In the late Middle Ages, the two dental affricates /ts/ and /dz/ became deaffricated, evolving at some point into the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/. Then, over the course of the sixteenth century, the voiced member of this latter pair was generally lost, although it appears to have survived as late as the twentieth century in certain rural dialects, notably in Extremadura. For example, writing in the early twentieth century, Menéndez Pidal (1958: 116) reported that the dialect used in certain villages in the north of Cáceres province distinguished between /θ/ and /ð/. Thus while the word cazar 'to hunt', for example, was pronounced [kaˈ θal], the word hace r 'to do' was pronounced [haˈðel], a pronunciation captured locally by the spelling jadel. Apart from these localized relics, however, /ð/ only occurs in the modern language as a phonologically conditioned allophone of /θ/. The overall diachronic process culminating in /θ/ is schematized in Table 2 below.

Examples illustrating the transition from Old to Modern Spanish are as follows:

In much of Andalusia, the deaffricated reflexes of earlier /ts/ and /dz/ merged with and displaced the fricative sibilants /s/ and /z/, which stemmed from Latin /ss/ (as in passum 'step') and Latin /s/ (as in casam 'cottage') respectively (/s/ having become voiced in intervocalic position, as in Old Spanish[ˈkaza] casa 'house'). As in Castilian Spanish, the voiced member of the pair /θ/ and /ð/ was subsequently lost, leaving just /θ/ where previously four sounds had existed, viz. /ts, dz, s, z/. In the relevant Andalusian varieties, associated with Huelva, Seville, Cadiz and Malaga provinces, the words casa 'house' and vecino 'neighbour', for example, are both pronounced with /θ/, i.e. as [ˈkaθa] and [beino]. This phenomenon, characterized by the use of the non-sibilant /θ/ in contexts in which the standard language has the sibilant /s/, is known as .

In the related phenomenon of seseo, found in Latin America, Seville City and those Andalusian provinces that abut New Castile, the sibilant /s/ occurs in place of the non-sibilant /θ/ that is characteristic of ceceo. The /s/ of seseante dialects is typically a laminal (denti-alveolar) sound, transcribable as [s̪], unlike the Castilian /s/, which is apical. This laminal or denti-alveolar /s/ is essentially the same sound as the /s/ of modern French, found in words like façade and poisson 'fish'. In dialects that exhibit seseo, words which in medieval Spanish were spelled with ç or z, have /s̪/ in the modern language rather than /θ/, as do words which were spelled with ss or s:

Before non-front vowels
In contrast to the foregoing developments, if /k/ was followed by a back vowel or by /a/ in Latin, it survives as a velar into modern Spanish but lenites to /g/ unless it is preceded by a consonant:

3.2 Voiced /g/
The voiced phoneme /g/ must also have had a palatal articulation before a front vowel, which is represented here using the IPA symbol [ɟ]. The latter symbol stands for the voiced palatal stop, the sound found in modern French [ɟi] gui 'mistletoe'.

In general [ɟ] either has the palatal fricative /ʝ/ as its reflex in modern Spanish or it is lost altogether. In intervocalic position, the /ʝ/ outcome is found in words in which the vowel immediately following [ɟ] was semivocalized to [j] in spoken Latin, due to loss of the hiatus. The survival in this context of a residue of [ɟ] suggests that the spoken Latin sequence [ɟj] developed into a geminate which was subsequently simplified:

fāgeam 'of beechwood' [ˈhaɟja] > [ˈhaʝʝa] > [ˈaʝa] haya 'beech tree'

In the absence of an immediately following [j], intervocalic [ɟ] was generally lost, presumably after having fricatized to [ʝ], a pattern of change that can be seen as part of the early medieval process known as lenition:

The same result, i.e. loss, is also found in some words in which [ɟ] was followed by [j] in spoken Latin. In these cases, however, what seems to have happened is that a front vowel that preceded [ʝ] (< [ʝʝ] < [ɟj]) absorbed this [ʝ] through assimilation:

In initial position, Latin [ɟ] was lost in unstressed syllables but evolved to /ʝ/, realized as [dʒ], in stressed ones:

Note that, when /ʝ-/ (phonetically [dʒ-]) is the reflex, this consonant absorbed any [j] that resulted from the diphthongization of an immediately following stressed ĕ:

Post-consonantal [ɟ]
The sound [ɟ] evolves rather differently when preceded by a consonant, specifically one of the sonorants /n/ or /ɾ/. In nouns at least (but not verbs), the post-consonantal reflex is /dz/ in Old Spanish and then /θ/ in the modern language (or /s/, , in Latin America and in parts of Andalusia):

Before back vowels and /a/
Before non-front vowels, /g/ developed in an analogous way to its voiceless equivalent /k/. In other words, it survives unchanged in word-initial position but suffers the effects of lenition when intervocalic:

4. Palatalization of coronal consonants
With the exception of /ɾ/ and /s/ the Latin coronal consonants were all palatalized when they occurred immediately before [j], corresponding to an earlier front vowel in hiatus.

4.1 /t/ and /d/
In the case of the stops /t/ and /d/, the outcome in medieval Spanish of the palatalization process is identical with the outcome of the palatalization of/k/ and /g/. Accordingly, both [tj] and [dj] yield /ts/ after a consonant, while in the intervocalic context [tj] yields /dz/ and [dj] yields /ʝ/, the latter presumably resulting from the simplification of an earlier geminate /ʝʝ/:

As was discussed in 3.1 above, medieval Spanish /ts/ and /dz/ were later deaffricated and then merged to produce modern Castilian Spanish /θ/:

As was noted in 3.1, in Andalusian and Latin American Spanish, the deaffricated reflexes of /ts/ and /dz/ displaced the alveolar fricatives /s/ and /z/ which descended from Latin /ss/ and /s/, with the result that those dialects now have just a single phoneme in place of the two phonemes /θ/ and /s/ exhibited by Castilian Spanish. In Latin America and northern Andalusia, this single phoneme is typically pronounced as a laminal or denti-alveolar sibilant [s̪], while in much of southern Andalusia it is realized as the non-sibilant [θ].

4.2 The sonorants
Turning now to the sonorants /n/ and /l/, palatalization in this case produced the palatal nasal /ɲ/ and the voiced palato-alveolar fricative /ʒ/ in medieval Spanish, the latter sound stemming from an earlier palatal lateral /ʎ/ (which in fact is retained in Portuguese words such as alho 'garlic', mulher 'woman' etc.). The palatal nasal /ɲ/ continues unmodified into modern Spanish, while /ʒ/ was first of all devoiced to /ʃ/ and later had its place of articulation retracted to the velar area, producing modern Spanish /x/:

The development of early medieval /ʎ/ in the above, intervocalic position into /ʒ/ implies convergence with the reflex of Latin initial i before back vowels, which also delivers /ʒ/ in Old Spanish. Given that this latter /ʒ/ was originally a mid-palatal, presumably /ʝ/, this convergence is analogous to the modern phenomenon of which exists in River Plate Spanish. The essence of žeísmo is a historical merger of the Castilian phonemes /ʎ/ and /ʝ/, but with /ʒ/ as the result, rather than the /ʝ/ which has this role in so-called yeísta dialects.

The derivation of modern cuchara 'spoon' (< cochleāre), offers a variant on the '[lj] to /ʎ/' change, given that in this case a voiceless stop, viz. /k/, was positioned immediately before the lateral in the Latin etymon. Presumably the voiceless property of this /k/ caused the following lateral, once palatalized, to evolve directly to /ʃ/ rather than /ʒ/. The [kʃ] sequence must then have coalesced into the palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/:

(The change /o/ to /u/ in the first syllable is due to metaphony, induced by the [j] of the [lj] sequence before this latter item coalesced into /ʎ/.)

5. Semivocalization of syllable-final velars and /-l/

5.1 Syllable-final velars
In syllable-final position (i.e. before any consonant other than /ɾ/), the Latin velar consonants were semivocalized to [j], the latter sound then becoming the trigger for palatalization of the following consonant. Thus the /k/ or /g/ at the beginning of the groups represented in the orthography by-ct-, -x-, -c(V) l-, -g(V) l- and is assumed to have been weakened to [j]. This [j] must then have exercised an assimilatory effect on the consonant it preceded, as the latter's place of articulation was generally retracted to the palatal or palato-alveolar region, with [j] itself being lost in the process. These developments are illustrated in Table 3 below.

Of the Old Spanish reflexes shown above, /tʃ/ and /ɲ/ continue unchanged into modern Spanish, while the other two underwent further modification in the late Middle Ages or early modern period. First of all, /ʒ/ was devoiced and so merged with /ʃ/. Then the place of articulation of /ʃ/ was retracted to the velar area, producing modern /x/:

Note that the palatalization process just described failed to occur if the '[-j] + consonant' sequence resulting from semivocalization was itself followed by a consonant, this case usually arising through intertonic vowel syncope:

The same failure to palatalize is also apparent when the '[-j] + consonant' sequence was word-final, as in the example below:

5.2 Syllable final /-l/
The /-l/ of the Latin group represented by was in all probably articulated as a . This is the kind of l that occurs in syllable-final position in most varieties of British English - e.g. in feel or belt - and its phonetic symbol is [ɫ]. What gives the sound [ɫ] its distinctive 'dark' quality is its secondary, velar articulation. Due to this velar feature, Latin /-l/ in the sequence developed in the same way as the syllable-final velar consonants considered in 5.1. That is, it semivocalized and then caused the following consonant to palatalize:

As with the velar consonants discussed in 5.1, the palatalizing effect of syllable-final [-j] (< /-l/) on the following consonant was generally blocked if the consonant in question was itself followed by a consonant:

The main changes in word-initial position concern /ɸ-/ (represented orthographically by f), /ɾ-/, [kw-] and combinations of voiceless + lateral, viz. /pl-/, /ɸl-/ and /kl-/.

In modern Spanish words that descend from Latin by popular transmission, Latin f- has two outcomes. Either it disappeared altogether, in which case the modern orthography replaces the original f with a now silent h, or it survives as the labiodental fricative /f/. The first outcome is apparent in words in which the (now) initial sound is a pure vowel or the semivowel [j], and the second outcome arises when the following segment is either /ɾ/ or [w]. For example, harina 'flour' (< farīnam), hijo 'son' (< fīlium) and hierro 'iron' (< fĕ rrum) have no initial consonant, whereas fuerte 'strong' (< fŏrtem) and frío 'cold' (< frīgidum) begin with /f/. The initial /f/ of words like falso 'false', figura 'figure', forma 'form' etc. appears to reflect learnèd restructuring under the influence of either medieval Latin or Gallo-Romance.

In word-internal positions, the reflex of Latin o] f is the bilabial fricative /β/, which reflects voicing as part of the generalized lenition process. This can be seen, for example, in pr > [p ɾ β et ʃ provecho 'benefit'.

This latter fact is quite suggestive, as Latin f is likely to have originally been a voiceless bilabial sound, viz. /ɸ/, which which came to be replaced in the Latin of Rome (and other areas) by labiodental /f/. Conceivably, then, the (often conservative) Latin of the area in which Spanish emerged may have retained an archaic, bilabial pronunciation of f, the labiodental sound that now occurs word-initially in words like fuerte and frío reflecting medieval adjustment to this inherited sound. Many regional dialects of modern Spanish, e.g. Andean Spanish, actually use [ɸ] in place of [f], and it is not implausible to suppose that these non-standard articulations are simply the continuation of an earlier, more generalized situation.

Given the dual outcome in Spanish of Latin f in initial position, the underlying phoneme /ɸ/ presumably had (or came to have) two distinct articulations when it occurred at the beginning of a word, viz. [ɸ] before liquids or the semivowel [w], and [h] before all other sounds. Under this assumption, pronunciations such as the following can be reconstructed for north Iberian Latin, at a relatively late period:

[ˈɸɾito] frīctum 'fried'
[ˈɸweɾte] fŏrtem 'strong'
[haˈɾina] farīnam 'flour'
[ˈhoɾno] fŭrnum 'oven'

The reason why the allophones were distributed in the specific way implied by the examples above is impossible to identify with certainty at this historical distance. One possible explanation (see Penny 2002: 92) is that the [h] allophone arose before the labial vowels /o/ and /u/, due to dissimilation, and subsequently generalized, coming to appear before any syllabic vowel.

Modulo the palatalization of the specific sequence /, the situation just described can be assumed to have persisted into Old Spanish, the letter f continuing to be used to represent the underlying phoneme regardless of its realization. This latter point can be seen from Old Spanish spellings such as frio'cold', fijo 'son' and fazer 'to do/make', which make no distinction between the allophones [ɸ] and [h].

In the Late Middle Ages, the bilabial allophone [ɸ] was apparently modified to [f], a development which may be linked to an influx of French speakers that occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (see Penny 2002: 92-93). This turn of events resulted in a situation in which, on the one hand, words such as farina and fijo continued to be pronounced with an initial [h], while on the other hand words like fuerte and frío were now pronounced with initial [f].

In addition, from the Middle Ages onwards, learnèd words in which [f-] appeared before sounds other than [ɾ] and [w] were borrowed into Old Spanish from Latin, Old French and Occitan. The accumulation of such words in the Spanish lexicon ultimately brought [f] and [h] into contrast in initial position, resulting in a phonemic split. For example, the homographs forma 'form' and forma 'shoemaker's last' constituted a minimal pair, being pronounced [ˈfo ɾma] and [ˈhoɾma] respectively (phonemically: /ˈfoRma/ versus /ˈhoRma/).

Until the 15th century both [f-] and [h-] were written as f. However, with the emergence of the phonemic distinction just alluded to, Spanish orthography began to reserve f for the first sound and h for the second. On the other hand, by the 16th century, /h/ was on the way to being eliminated from the phonemic inventory of Castilian Spanish, although the letter h was retained in the spelling system (and remains there, a curious anomaly in an otherwise largely phonemic system).

The developments overall can be exemplified as follows:

6.2 Latin initial
r
Word-initial /ɾ-/ became trilled in all cases, analogously to the intervocalic geminate /-ɾɾ-/:

6.3 Latin initial pl-, fl- and cl-
When immediately preceded by a voiceless obstruent at the beginning of a word, /l/ appears to have had a palatal articulation, [ʎ], in the spoken Latin of many areas in Iberia, including that in which Spanish subsequently developed. In other words, it is likely that /pl-/, / ɸl-/ and /kl-/ were realized as [pʎ-], [ɸʎ-] and [-] respectively. The obstruent in this word-inital cluster must itself have assimilated to the following [ʎ], eventually coalescing with it, the resultant unit ultimately merging with the /ʎ/ that developed from the word-internal geminate /-ll-/:

There are however some exceptions to this pattern, such as plateam > plaza 'town square', flōrem > flor 'flower' and clavīc( u) lam > clavija 'peg'. These may or may not reflect learnèd adjustment during the Middle Ages.

The development of the clusters /pl/, /ɸl/ and /kl/ in postconsonantal position is analogous to their evolution in initial position, in the sense that the final outcome is also a (broadly) palatal sound, viz. the voiceless affricate /tʃ/:

Given the palatal outcome, it seems reasonable to assume that the /l/ in these word-internal clusters was realized as [ʎ], as it was when the cluster came at the beginning of a word. The voiceless nature of the reflex can then be attributed to the clusters' postconsonantal occurrence, while, for the postnasal context at least, the affrication is expected, given that palatal phonemes in Spanish are always affricated after a nasal.

6.4 Initial Latin qu-
The sequence [kw-] (corresponding to written qu-) has quite a high frequency in the lexical stock of Latin but it was generally reduced to [k] before the Old Spanish period whenever it was followed by a vowel other than /a/:

In the last two examples, the loss of [w] exposes the initial /k/ to a following front vowel, viz. /ε/ or /i/. Given that in these cases the initial /k/ self evidently did not develop into /ts/ (and ultimately /θ/), as it normally did before a front vowel, it can be surmised that the change whereby Latin /k/ was assibilated to [ts] before front vowels had come to an end by the time [w] was lost in the qu sequence.

Before /a/ the reflex of initial [kw-] varies between [kw] and [k]:

During the early medieval period intervocalic consonants, together with those occurring in the context 'vowel ___ liquid' (but see 7.5 for an important exception), were subject to an array of processes that can broadly be characterized as involving phonological weakening. These processes collectively are referred to as lenition, and they represent an important chapter in the history of the western Romance languages. As far as Spanish is concerned, the pattern of change was as follows.

7.1 Geminate obstruents
The Latin geminate obstruents, all of which were voiceless, were simplified to single, voiceless consonants:

Note that, through assimilation, the Latin groups /ps/ and /ɾs/ merged with the alveolar geminate /ss/, while the group /pt/ merged with the dental geminate /tt/. These geminates were then simplified as part of the process just illustrated:

Geminate sonorants were also simplified. However, with the exception of /mm/, such geminates were modified as part of the simplification process. Thus /ll/ and /nn/ were palatalized to /ʎ/ and /ɲ/, while geminate /ɾɾ/ was modified to a simple trill /r/:

This development also affects the Latin groups /mb/ and /mn/, which, due to assimilation, merged with the geminates /mm/ and /nn/ respectively:

7.3 Simple voiceless consonants
Among the voiceless consonants, the effect of lenition was voicing, although in the case of /s/, such voicing was subsequently reversed as part of the generalized devoicing of the sibilants.

Intervocalic examples are as follows:

As can be seen from the examples above, when lenition produced a voiced stop, this was as a rule fricatized: Modern Spanish disallows voiced stops in precisely those positions in which the diachronic process of lenition occurred. In the case of /b/ < Latin /p/, fricatization can be assumed to have occurred relatively late, given that the Old Spanish reflexes of words which in Latin had intervocalic /p/ were consistently spelled with -b- rather than -v-, the latter (in all probability) designating the fricative articulation [β] and the former the stop [b].

A further point to note is that lenition predates the generalized loss of the intertonic vowel (although not the initial, phonologically conditioned phase which produced clusters such as /kl/ and /gl/). Syncope of the intertonic vowel often caused an originally intervocalic consonant to become adjacent to a consonant, a position in which a voiceless consonant would not be expected to become voiced (except in the pre-liquid case alluded to above). Accordingly, in those cases in which an originally voiceless consonant became voiced, despite ending up in pre- or post-consonantal position due to the loss of an adjacent vowel, the voicing must have occurred prior to the loss of the vowel. This is illustrated by examples such as the following:

7.4 Simple voiced consonants
As regards those (simple) consonants that were already voiced in Latin, only the obstruents were affected by lenition, specifically the stops /b/, /d/ and /g/. Like the voiced stops produced by the lenition process itself, these were all fricatized in intervocalic and pre-liquid positions, with subsequent loss being common in the case of /d/ and /g/:

7.5 Exclusion of /gl/ and /kl/
Note that the velar stops in the clusters /gl/ and /kl/ are excluded from the lenition effect. This is because the velar stop in this cluster appears to have been treated as being syllable-final and hence was semivocalized to [j], with the following /l/ being subsequently palatalized.

The elision of Latin intertonic vowels in many cases resulted in sequences of phonetic segments that were (or came to be) disallowed by either the phonotactics or the allophonic rules of Old Spanish. A variety of developments took place to regularize these cases. To fully understand these, it needs to be borne in mind that the generalized loss of the intertonic vowel occurred after rather than before the consonantal voicing referred to in Section 7.3.

Often the loss of an intertonic vowel necessitated merely a change in the place of articulation of a nasal (e.g. sēm( i) tam > senda 'path'), in accordance with the principle that pre-consonantal nasals assimilate to the following consonant. Equally predictable are (i) the simplification of geminate sonorants when they became pre-consonantal (e.g. gall( i) galgo 'racing dog') and (ii) the trilling of [ cum > ɾ] > [r] after a nasal, as in h ō) on(onoˈ ɾa rāre [ɾe] > [onˈra ɾ] honrar 'to honour'.

Other developments have more of an ad hoc character, being specific to particular words or groups of words. Some of the commoner processes are described below.

In the first place, groups of three consonants were reduced to two in a variety of ways:

Secondly, there was frequent dissimilation (the converse of assimilation) between nasals, usually resulting in a nasal becoming a lateral or /ɾ/:

Thirdly, a so-called epenthetic consonant was often inserted between a nasal and a following /ɾ/ (representing an alternative solution to the trilling illustrated by the hon( ō) rāre case above):

Fourthly, two consonants were sometimes transposed in a word (a phenomenon known as metathesis):

Finally, syllable-final /b/ (realized as [β]) was generally semivocalized to [w], although this latter sound was later lost through assimilation if it followed a back vowel (see the codo example below):

An analogous development is found with /-l/ when this consonant came after /a/, as can be seen from the historical trajectory of the words for 'willow' ( sauce) and 'river bed' ( cauce):

A well-known feature of Spanish phonotactics is a rule that forbids the sequence /s/ + consonant at the beginning of a word. Similar rules operate or have in the past operated in other Romance languages and the tendency seems to predate the Middle Ages. In terms of etymology, the Spanish rule against word-initial /s/ + consonant has meant that a so-called prothetic [e] has been added to the beginning of those words which in Latin began with the prohibited sequence:

The term prosthetic can also be used in this sense, although 'prothetic', without the s, is more common in linguistics.

Of the consonants that in Latin appeared in final position only /-l/, /-s/ and /-n/ survive into Spanish. Latin /-ɾ/ was often transposed with the preceding vowel, as in ĭnter > entre 'between', quattŭŏr > cuatro 'four' etc. Final /t/ was eliminated in Vulgar Latin, except as the marker of the 3rd person singular in verbs, in which role it survived until about the 12th century. The remaining Latin final consonants had been lost by the time Spanish began to written down. Apocope of final /e/ in the Middle Ages has ensured that some Spanish words end in consonants other than the /-l/, /-s/ and /-n/ that were directly inherited from Latin.

11. Devoicing of the sibilants
The existence of both a voiceless and a voiced series of sibilants is a salient feature of Old Spanish and one that is firmly reflected in the old orthography. In initial and intervocalic positions, the graphs ç (or c when followed by a front vowel), ss and x represented the voiceless series, viz. dental /ts/, alveolar /s/ and palato-alveolar /ʃ/ respectively. The graphs z, s and j/ i (or g when followed by a front vowel) represented their voiced counterparts /dz/, /z/ and /ʒ/. This system is illustrated in the table below.

In final and preconsonantal positions, the above voicing distinction appears not to have been operative. In those positions, the sibilant subsystem was represented orthographically by just three graphs, viz. z (dental), s (alveolar) and x (palato-alveolar).

From the beginning of the sixteenth century, the voiced sounds illustrated in Table 4 - the dentals by now having been deaffricated - were lost in northern Iberian dialects and this innovation spread southwards, becoming the Peninsular norm by the beginning of the seventeenth century. The much quoted observation below provides a nice snapshot of the variability of the time, suggesting that the devoicing isogloss was then located somewhere between Toledo and the southern frontier of Old Castile:

Los de Castilla la Vieja dizen hacer y en Toledo hazer, y dizen xugar, y en Toledo dizen jugar.
'The Old Castilians say hacer and in Toldeo they say hazer, and they say xugar and in Toldeo it's jugar.'
(Fray Juan de Córdoba, Arte en lengua zapoteca, 1578)

In contrast to what happened in Iberian and Latin American Spanish, the devoicing of the sibilants did not occur in Judaeo-Spanish. For the latter variety had become separated from developments in the Iberian Peninsula as a consequence of the Expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Thus the modern Judaeo-Spanish phonology retains four of the sounds shown in Table 4, viz. /s/, /z/ /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. Contemporary varieties apparently do not exhibit a distinctive reflex of the dental series (originally /ts/ and /dz/), which presumably merged with the alveolar series comprised by /s/ and /z/, as also happened in Andalusian and Latin American dialects of Spanish. Interestingly, some varieties of Judaeo-Spanish appear to have manifested a residue of the old dental affricates until relatively recently, given that Menéndez Pidal, writing in the early twentieth century, made the following observation:

Hoy los judíos españoles de Bulgaria y Marruecos conservan restos de la pronunciación africada en la sonora de ciertas palabras como conserve remains of the affricated pronunciation in the voiced consonant of certain words such as podsu 'pozo', tedsu 'tieso' (con s sonora)'Today the Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria and Morocco podsu (for pozo 'well') and tedsu (for tieso 'stiff') with voiced s.'
(Menéndez Pidal 1958: 112).

As regards the tedsu case, the affrication does not come from any of the usual sources, such as a palatalized velar or the [tj] of spoken Latin. The Latin etymon is in fact tēnsum, which gives teso in Old Spanish generally. Presumably the affricated articulation reported by Menéndez Pidal in the specified Judaeo-Spanish varieties reflects epenthesis of a dental or alveolar stop between the etymological /n/ and the following /s/, as indeed can happen in the English form of this word, tense being capabable of being homophonous with tents.
12. References
Menéndez Pidal, Ramón. 1958. Manual de gramática histórica española (10th ed.). Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Penny, Ralph. 2002. A history of the Spanish language (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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History of Spanish Consonants To understand how the modern Spanish consonantal system came into being, one has to go back to the pronunciation of consonants in Latin. As a first approximation, it can be noted that the core Latin alphabet had fifteen consonantal letters (this excludes Greek z which occurred only in certain learnèd words that played no role in the development of the Spanish phonology).

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Este artículo de investigación examina el contacto entre español y ingles en el EE.UU. Históricamente, el contacto influyó el cambio del léxico y también el desarrollo del “spanglish.” Hay otros resultados debido al contacto de estas lenguas: simplificación, sobregeneralización, transferencia, y finalmente la mezcla. En dos maneras en que las lenguas se mezclan: el cambio de código y el préstamo.

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Este articulo explica la controversia con Real Academia Española (RAE) y las preguntas mas frecuentes de las reglas y cambio de español que algunos hispanohablantes preguntaron el presidente de RAE, Darío Villanueva, y sus repuestas. Finalmente, el tenía miedo de la extinción de española porque mas y mas palabras de ingles son usadas en vez de español.

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Nuestra lengua

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Darío Villanueva es presidente de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua y director de la Real Academia Española. Credit... Real Academia Española

MADRID - La Real Academia Española (RAE) genera sentimientos contradictorios en la mayoría de los 472 millones de hispanohablantes: para algunos, es la máxima referencia en cuanto al lenguaje; para otros, es el mayor limitante de la riqueza de nuestro idioma.

Pero la RAE es solo una de las veintitrés academias que conforman la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), que edita el Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE), que desde 2004 se encuentra en línea gratuitamente y es una de sus publicaciones más exitosas: en 2016 sumó 800 millones de consultas y tan solo en los primeros dos meses de este año tuvo 81 millones de consultas. España, México, Colombia, Argentina y Estados Unidos son los países que más revisaron esta publicación el año pasado.

La edición más reciente del DLE, la 23.ª, se presentó en octubre de 2014 y contiene 93.000 lemas y unas 200.000 acepciones. Afortunadamente, la tecnología se ha infiltrado en esta institución centenaria y para la nueva edición, que se presentará en diciembre, cambiará el orden de los factores: está concebida para un soporte digital, sin problemas de espacio y habrá lugar para muchas palabras que a veces se cree que la academia rechaza o incluso prohíbe.

The New York Times en Español conversó con el director de la academia española y presidente de la ASALE, Darío Villanueva, quien respondió a preguntas que nuestros lectores nos enviaron, así como a qué nuevas palabras pueden incluirse en el diccionario, qué sucede con la tilde en el adverbio "solo" y cuál es el mayor riesgo para nuestro idioma.

¿Cómo entra una palabra nueva en el diccionario?
Continuamente estamos registrando las palabras que van apareciendo a través de una gran base de datos, el Corpus del Español del Siglo XXI. Cada año, introducimos en la memoria de nuestras computadoras 25 millones de formas del español, no palabras porque no hay tantas, sino realizaciones de las palabras en distintos países. La fuente es escrita (literatura, periodismo, ciencia, medicina, política, economía) y oral (radio, televisión, música); la procedencia es un 70 por ciento de América y un 30 por ciento de España para que predomine el aporte americano, porque es evidente que el español tiene más hablantes en América que en España. Todos los países están representados.

Esa base de datos nos proporciona la palabra y el contexto en el que aparece para que podamos ver exactamente qué significa. Así, detectamos la aparición de nuevas palabras o de nuevos significados de palabras que ya están en el diccionario. Eso lo procesamos en la academia a través de nuestro Instituto de Lexicografía y en el Pleno de los académicos; luego lo consultamos con las academias de la ASALE. La introducción de una palabra en el diccionario nunca nace de una voluntad individual de un académico, sino que siempre viene después de que hemos acreditado testimonialmente que esa palabra ha irrumpido, que tiene un uso en un territorio amplio y con un índice de frecuencia elevado.
¿La RAE es muy intervencionista o más bien permisiva?
Tenemos el problema de que hay quien nos llama intervencionistas de la lengua y hay quien nos acusa de muy relajados y permisivos: son legítimas todas las opiniones. Todo lo que tiene que ver con la lengua es materia muy sensible porque los ciudadanos nos sentimos dueños de nuestro idioma y realmente lo somos.

La academia va siempre detrás de las decisiones que han tomado los hablantes del español, nunca nos adelantamos a proponer una palabra, a proponer una acepción; siempre recogemos lo que hay. No es que bajemos la guardia, que nos estemos convirtiendo en muy permisivos. Nuestra función no es la de "aprueba y reprueba", sino de recoger lo que existe.
¿Qué pasa con la tilde de "solo"?
Se ha interpretado mal porque lo que se dice en la Ortografía de la lengua española de 2010 es que no consideramos necesario el uso de la tilde ya que los lingüistas dicen que, por ejemplo, en el caso de "solo", el contexto de la frase permite ver si se trata de un adverbio o de un adjetivo. La academia no prohíbe el uso de la tilde, sino que dice que no es necesaria. Algo parecido pasa con la acentuación de los adjetivos pronombres "este", "ese", "aquel".

¿O sea que se puede acentuar o se puede no acentuar?
Sí, aunque hay una polarización: la mayoría de los escritores está a favor del acento y, sin embargo, los lingüistas dicen que no es necesario. Estamos empezando a preparar la segunda edición de la ortografía y ahí vamos a procurar ser todavía más claros para que se entienda cuál es la posición. De todas formas, creo que es una tempestad en un vaso de agua.
Hace poco, la RAE recibió una solicitud para eliminar la acepción de sexo débil como "el conjunto de las mujeres". ¿Qué han decidido?
La academia no va a censurar nunca el diccionario. En primer lugar, no es obligatorio usar esa expresión, pero existe y el diccionario recoge lo que existe y no lo puede censurar. La expresión de la que hablamos no fue inventada por las academias, en lo personal no la usaré jamás y creo que la mayoría de los académicos tampoco.

En el diccionario tenemos lo que llamamos las "marcas"; para esta acepción se podrían incorporar las de "discriminatorio", "desusado", "ofensivo", para que se sepa la consecuencia semántica que tiene utilizar sexo débil. Se espera que en diciembre se dé a conocer.
¿Qué decirle a la gente que sigue pensando que España es el lugar desde el que se decide el español que se hablará en América Latina?
No puedo manifestar mi acuerdo con esa expresión. En la Nueva gramática de la lengua española de 2009 están recogidas todas las variantes gramaticales americanas; en el diccionario hay unos 20.000 americanismos y tenemos el Diccionario de americanismos.

Por ejemplo, los mexicanos hablaban, hablan y seguirán hablando lo que quieran; es decir, si la academia española propusiera cosas impositivas y absurdas no tendría ni el más mínimo éxito. La RAE trabaja con la ASALE y con la Academia Mexicana de la Lengua, con la que tenemos un contacto intensísimo. Y así con todos los países hispanohablantes.

¿Por qué incluir en el diccionario palabras como "amigovio" o "asín"?
La palabra " amigovio" así como " marinovio " son dos creaciones americanas que son palabras perfectamente admisibles, están muy bien construidas. "Marinovio" se refiere a las parejas de hecho, entre las que no hay un matrimonio oficial. Los idiomas están continuamente en ebullición, están creando palabras continuamente. No es que nosotros las hayamos autorizado, sino que simplemente las recogemos y nos sentimos muy orgullosos de poner en el diccionario creaciones tan ingeniosas, tan expresivas.

Que mantengamos palabras como "asín", un arcaismo que figura en el diccionario es porque este pretende ser útil para la comprensión de textos desde 1500 hasta ahora, por lo tanto hay palabras que no se usan, pero que están recogidas para que alguien que lea un texto de 1560 que se encuentre con esa palabra tenga respuesta.
¿Qué palabras entrarán a la nueva edición del DLE?
Estamos trabajando con la palabra "posverdad": el año pasado, el Diccionario de Oxford eligió a post-truth como la palabra del año. Posverdad es una traducción perfecta al español; es una palabra que ha cobrado mucha fuerza y que refleja un fenómeno muy significativo de nuestro tiempo, muy relacionado a la política y a los medios de comunicación. Estamos estudiándola y creo que con toda certeza entrará al diccionario en diciembre.
¿"Guglear"? Yo "gugleo", tú "gugleas"...
Sí, "guglear" es un verbo que estoy seguro que acabará imponiéndose. No hay manera de traducirlo porque parte de una raíz que es una marca. Con los anglicismos se plantea el problema: ¿los escribimos transcribiendo la pronunciación o los escribimos con las letras exactas del inglés?

Por ejemplo, en español usamos desde hace tiempo la palabra "mitin", del inglés meeting; en otros casos no hemos tenido demasiada suerte: con whisky, en el diccionario pusimos "güisqui", pero no hemos conseguido que esa forma predomine. Para esos casos, mantenemos el doblete, es decir, ponemos la transcripción a español y la palabra tal y como está en inglés -que en nuestra Ortografía dice que hay que escribir en cursivas-; se mantienen las dos con la esperanza de que acabe predominando la forma adaptada al español.
¿Cuál es el mayor riesgo al que se enfrenta nuestra lengua?
Me preocupa mucho la aceptación, a veces frívola, de los anglicismos por parte de los hablantes, de los escritores, de los periodistas... Es terrible, aquí me llevo grandes disgustos cuando veo que los comercios se rotulan en inglés, que la publicidad termina con frases en inglés, cuando veo también que términos ingleses -por ejemplo, el caso de tablet-tableta-, que son muy fáciles de adaptar a nuestra lengua, no se adaptan. Parece como si tuviéramos un complejo de inferioridad, como si pensáramos que nombrar algo en inglés tiene más categoría, más valor; si se trata de un producto, de mejor calidad, y eso es absolutamente falso, es una total y absurda frivolidad. Uso el término "papanatismo" para referirme a esa entrega a los términos ingleses.

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'Los mexicanos seguirán hablando lo que quieran': director de la RAE (Published 2017)

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El director de la Real Academia Española, Darío Villanueva, explica que la función de la RAE no es censurar sino recoger lo que existe, dice que la polémica por la tilde de "solo" es una tormenta en un vaso de agua y cuenta cómo entran las nuevas palabras en el diccionario.

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Diferencias lingüísticas entre los dialectos de español

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Diferencias lingüísticas entre los dialectos de español

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Este video explica las diferencias y características únicas de español en cada país hispanohablante. Por ejemplo, personas de España usa el presente perfecto mas mientras latino americanos usan el pretérito. También, en vez de pronunciar “ll” como “y”, personas de Argentina y Uruguay dice “sh.” Generalmente, los dialectos reciben influencia de otros países.

Trata de decir "Pedro Pérez pesca peces para Paco Paz Jiménez para Paco Paz Jiménez pesca peces Pedro Pérez" usando seseo.

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Spanish Dialects Around The World: How Spanish Varies From Country To Country

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Este TedTalk discute la influencia de lenguaje en la mente. Un ejemplo es un grupo que se llama Kuuk Thaayorre. Ellos usan las direcciones cardinales para el tiempo y saludar otros. Además, los rusos le gustan discriminar entre tonos claro y oscuro de azul. Pues, dependiendo a la lengua, personas enfocan en cosas diferentes cuando hablan.

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How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky | TED

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Afasia es un trastorno que afecta la producción de habla. Una forma de terapia que se llama terapia melódica de entonación. El hemisferio derecho para la melodía y canta ayuda el hemisferio izquierdo producir palabras mejor. Esta técnica influye la formación de “International Aphasia Choir” para mayor de 100 personas con afasia.

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Aphasia Choirs Bring New Speech Pathways For People With Communication Impairments

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When someone suffers a brain injury and loses the ability to speak, read and communicate, typically after a stroke, that condition is known as aphasia. One way to help bring back the language, and create a social community, is through singing.

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¿Qué es el nombre del fenómeno que los C’s y Z’s son pronunciado como S’s?

A.   Yeísmo

B.   Seseo

C.   Desafricación

D.   Rotacismo

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Este video repasa los fonemas en cuatro partes: concepto, características, fonemas consonánticos, y fonemas vocálicos. Un punto importante es que para un fonema puede tener más de uno alófono. Además, los consonantes necesitan un vocálico para pronunciar. Pronunciamos los fonemas consonánticos en muchas maneras: bilabiales, labiodental, interdental, dental, alveolar, palatal y velar. Para los vocálicos, hay 3 tipos de articulación: anteriores (e, i), centrales (a), y posteriores (o, u).

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Los diptongos son formados por 2 vocales, específicamente una vocal abierta (a, e, o) y una vocal cerrada (i, u). Algunos ejemplos de este fenómeno son “muela” y “cuando.” En ingles, un vocal puede ser un diptongo mientras en español, necesita 2 letras para formarlo. Las letras <h> y <y> no afecta la formación de diptongo o actúa como una vocal, respectivamente.

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Spanish Pronunciation and Accent Reduction | Blanca Quintero

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Diphthong, triphthong, hiatus... These words sound complicated.

Why are they so important?

Why do you need to know how to recognize them? Actually, you don't need it; unless you want to pronounce Spanish correctly, of course!

And I guess that's why you're here.

Before you continue reading I recommend you take a look at this article on how to pronounce the Spanish vowels so that you squeeze the 100% of this post.

I'm going to make it as simple as possible so that you can easily understand how Spanish diphthongs and triphthongs work.

I didn't want to make this post very thick, so I've divided it into 2 parts:

1. Diphthongs and triphthongs (this post)

2. Hiatuses (next post)

If you want to go straight to the point, click here.
This is what you'll find in this post

Diphthongs

Spanish diphthongs are quite different from English diphthongs so before telling you how to pronounce Spanish diphthongs, I will explain to you:

What's a diphthong

2 differences between English and Spanish diphthongs

How to recognize Spanish diphthongs in 2 steps.

What is a diphthong

A diphthong is formed by two vowel sounds, which are pronounced within the same syllable.

Examples of Spanish and English diphthongs:
- In English, the word - it's pronounced . The 2 vowels are pronounced in the same syllable.- In Spanish, the word - it's pronounced . The vowels A and I are pronounced in the same syllable too.

The 2 differences between English and Spanish diphthongs

Single yolk eggs.

Guess how many yolks there are inside these 2 eggs. One in each egg, right? So 2 eggs = 2 yolks.

Good. That's what happens with Spanish vowels: 1 vowel (egg) = 1 sound (yolk).

Examples:
Ir and mini .

The letter I is always pronounced as one sound.

However, sometimes you can find 2 yolks in one egg.

Great! That happens sometimes with English vowels. 1 vowel (egg) may have 1 or 2 sounds (yolks).

Example:
The word king.

The letter I is pronounced as one sound [i]. But in the word ice, the letter I is pronounced [aɪ] (two sounds).

In Spanish, that doesn't happen.

You need 2 vowels to form a diphthong. In Spanish, 1 vowel = 1 sound. Always (there's an exception we'll see it later).

In any case, a single vowel never sounds as a diphthong. Example:

The word no:

- In English, it's pronounced as a diphthong: [nəʊ]. Double yolk! (1 vowel = 2 sounds).
- In Spanish, this word could never be a diphthong because there's only one vowel. The letter O is pronounced as it's written: [no] (1 vowel = 1 sound).

No empty eggs.

In English, the egg can be empty as well.

A vowel may have no sound. Example:

The word good:
It has two vowels, but they're pronounced as one [gʊd].
In the Spanish language, there aren't empty eggs.
Every single egg (vowel) has a yolk (sound) inside. All of the vowels are pronounced -except for the letter U, in words with gue, gui, que, qui. But that's another story and you already knew it.

In short, this is the difference between English and Spanish diphthongs:mylittl
♣ Spanish diphthongs always have two (written) vowels -" gue", "gui", "que" and "qui" are an exception. (In Spanish, 1 vowel equals 1 sound.)
♣ English vowels may be pronounced as two sounds (like in y), as one sound (like in es) or may have no sound at all (like the letter E in e).

How to recognize Spanish diphthongs in 2 steps

The first step to knowing whether you have to pronounce the vowels in the same syllable: Recognize the vowels

To understand how diphthongs work you should know that there are two kinds of vowels -as you've already seen in the previous post on how to pronounce the Spanish vowels.

So first of all, you should recognize if the vowels are open or closed.

Why?

Spanish diphthongs are formed by one open vowel (a, e, o) + one closed vowel (e, i).

The diphthong is formed by the vowels I+E, but the emphasis is on the open vowel (e). It's pronounced /bi é n/.

The diphthong is formed by the vowels U+E. But the letter E is the protagonist of the syllable. The letter U is weaker. It's pronounced /pu é r.ta/.

If I say -without pronouncing the closed or weak vowels-, people will understand more easily than if I only pronounce the closed vowels.

In fact, this is the way babies speak when they say their first words. Instead of saying "bueno" they say "beno" (or something like that similar) and instead of "agua" they say "aba".

Let's make it easier.
By reading the following story you'll remember all this theory.
Story (part 1): Alberto doesn't know that he lives with a mouse

The main characters of this story are Alberto, a strong elephant, and Milu, a weak and hungry mouse.

Their names aren't a coincidence.

The elephant Alberto represents the open or strong vowels (a, e, o).
Milu, the mouse, represents the closed or weak vowels (i, u).

As you can see, Alberto is huge. He takes most of the attention and space -and food! He's the king of the house (syllable) and doesn't know that Milu is living with him.

Poor Milu, he's weak and hungry -look at his teeth!

He's so weak that he can't go very far.

He wants to have his own house but he needs to stay close to Alberto, to eat his crumbs, and get a bit of energy when Alberto doesn't realize.

But this energy isn't enough. Milu needs urgently a big piece of cheese (accent mark).

Alberto (open -or strong- vowel) is the protagonist of the syllable so we pronounce it with more emphasis than the closed vowel (Milu).

Examples : pierna, piel
In both words, the open vowel (E) is pronounced stronger and the letter I sounds weaker:

Remember that open vowels are the most important part of the syllable, but this doesn't mean that they are the most important part of the word.

The words cambio and cambió.

The two words have the same diphthong (I+O).

In both cases, the letter O is pronounced with more emphasis than the letter I.

However, the most important part of the word (accent) is different in the two words: /CAM.bio/, /cam.BIÓ/

But this isn't the point of this post.

Story (part 2): Milu invites his girlfriend over

Sometimes, when Alberto goes for a walk, Milu invites his girlfriend over to Alberto's home.

But only sometimes (you'll know why when you read the 4th part of the story).

They are only two little mice so the two of them have plenty of space in the house. No protagonist.

The diphthong is formed by I+U. None of these 2 vowels is the protagonist. It's pronounced /triun.'far/.

Remember:
- Alberto (strong) = a, e, o.
- Milu (weak) = i, u.

The second step to knowing whether you have to pronounce the vowels in the same syllable: Answer this question

You already know that Spanish diphthongs always have two written vowels and that you should identify them (open/closed).

But how can you recognize that those 2 vowels should be pronounced in the same syllable?

Easy peasy.

There's room only for one Alberto at home (syllable). In Spanish, any syllable contains a máximum of 1 strong vowel or 2 week vowels.

All the Spanish diphthongs have, at least, one weak vowel. But the weak vowel can't have an accent mark (i, u) . The other vowel can be weak or strong.

So this is the question:

"Is there 1 closed vowel without an accent mark (i, u) ?"
If the answer is YES, then you have to pronounce those 2 vowels in the same syllable.

On the following image, you can see how to form diphthongs and some examples with each combination.

Be alert to these letters

Common mistake: pronouncing diphthongs where they don't exist

For English natives, it's very natural pronouncing diphthongs where they don't exist in Spanish, mainly at the end of the words:

This is something that comes naturally to English native speakers, while we (Spaniards) tend to do the opposite when speaking in English.

Remember, in Spanish 1 vowel = 1 sound.

We never add extra sounds. In any case, we'd skip them!

Triphthongs

If a diphthong is the combination of two vowels pronounced within the same syllable then, what is a triphthong?

That's it. 3 vowels, side by side, pronounced in the same syllable.

The 3

The vowels which form triphthongs are always the same: closed + open + closed - or what is the same: (i/u) + (a/e/o) + (i/u).

None of the two closed vowels have an accent mark (cheese)- Here you can find out why.

Story (part 3): Alberto comes back home

Milu and his girlfriend are enjoying at home when suddenly, they notice Alberto is opening the door.

The two mice run towards the corners of the room so that Alberto can fit in it.

The 3 of them form a triphthong.

2 vowels pronounced in the same syllable.

It contains at least 1 closed vowel (i, u) without the tilde.

3 vowels pronounced in the same syllable: (i/u) + (a/e/o) + (i/u).

Closed vowels (i, u) never carry a tilde.

That's all. Easy?

If you want to know when you should pronounce vowels in different syllables, you can read this post: Spanish hiatus.

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♣ Spanish Diphthongs & Triphthongs ♣ Pronunciation + Examples

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Diphthong, triphthong, hiatus... These words sound complicated. Why are they so important? Why do you need to know how to recognize them? Actually, you don't need it; unless you want to pronounce Spanish correctly, of course! And I guess that's why you're here.

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Hay 25 consonantes en español (incluyendo los alófonos). Los sonidos diferentes entre español y ingles son <k>, <h>, <j>, <c>, <s>, <z>, <b>, <v>, <q>, <g>, <y>, y <ñ>. Adicionalmente, este video revisa los sonidos similares como [d] y [ð]. En general, la colocación de la lengua y la pasa de aire influyen el sonido que es creado.

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Spanish Latin American Pronunciation Video 1: The Spanish Consonants

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Me gusta este gráfico porque condensa las reglas en una manera simple. Las agudas son palabras que termina con <n>, <s>, o una vocal y la última sílaba es estresada. Las llanas son palabras que no terminan con <n>, <s>, o una vocal y el penúltima sílaba es estresada. Finalmente, las esdrújulas son palabras que necesita una acentuación en la antepenúltima sílaba.

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Hay dos tipos de clases para ordenar las palabras en tipos: abiertas y cerradas. La clase abierta incluye los sustantivos, adjetivos, verbos y adverbios (solo las que terminan en – mente), y la clase cerrada incluye preposiciones, adverbios (el resto de las palabras), determinantes, pronombres personales y conjunciones.  En algunos casos, la clase de una palabra es variable, y esto es el caso para sustantivos, adjetivos, verbos, determinantes, y pronombres personales.

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En este articulo, aprendo que morfología flexiva es el estudio “de los accidentes gramaticales de las palabras.” Los accidentes gramaticales incluyen numero, genero, tiempo verbal, modo verbal, vocal temática y más. Además, los verbos tienen modos, tiempos, y aspectos diferentes. Por ejemplo, podemos conjugar la palabra “cantar,” como otras palabras, en tres modos diferentes: indicativo, subjuntivo e imperativo. Pues hay cambias gramaticales que alteran el tipo de palabra.

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Ejercicios de Morfema Flexivo :

Ejercicio en el que se deben señalar los Morfemas Flexivos y señalar el tipo. Una vez encontrados pulsar el botón "Ver solución" para descubrir las respuestas correctas. ¡Suerte!

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Ejercicios de Morfema Flexivo : Ejercicio en el que se deben señalar los Morfemas Flexivos y señalar el tipo. Una vez encontrados pulsar el botón "Ver solución" para descubrir las respuestas correctas. ¡Suerte!

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Palabras simples, compuestas y derivadas

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Palabras simples, compuestas y derivadas

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Este video repasa las definiciones de palabras simples, compuestas, y derivadas y dan ejemplos de cada. Las palabras simples son palabras independientes como “carta,” “lápiz,” y “lluvia.” Luego, las palabras compuestas son palabras que son formadas de dos palabras simples como “lavaplatos” y “sacapuntas.” Finalmente, palabras derivadas son palabras que son formados de otras palabras. Por ejemplo, la raíz de “panadero” y “panadería” es “pan.” Además, para formar palabras derivadas, puede añadir los prefijos o sufijos.

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Concepto de palabras simples, compuestas y derivadas 4°

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Este video compara las lexemas y morfemas. Pues, un lexema es como la raíz y da un significado básico, y un morfema es una adición que ampliar el significado de un lexema. Hay dos tipos de morfemas: flexivos y derivativos. Un ejemplo de lexema es com- para las palabras “comedor,” “comer,” y “comida.” Luego, un ejemplo de los morfemas flexivos es la adición de -s para palabras plurales y un ejemplo de derivativos es la adición de super- en frente de un lexema como “supermercado.”

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En español, la manera estándar para ordenar las palabras en una oración es sujeto-verbo-objeto. En caso de las frases adverbiales, pueden poner en la posición inicial o final de la oración y ambos tiene un significado lo mismo.

Por ejemplo:

Yo cantó como Shakira.

Como Shakira, yo cantó.

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Por lo general, el español presenta la información discursiva con el siguiente orden de palabras: sujeto (S), verbo (V) y objeto (o). Esta combinación se acompaña de frases adverbiales en la posición final, es decir, se presentan después del objeto.

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Para formar oraciones simples en español, primero necesita un sujeto (o sintagma nominal), próximo un verbo (como una acción, proceso o un estado), y finalmente un complemento (objeto o adjetivo) en este orden.

Ejemplos de sujetos:

Yo, Tu, El/Ella, Roberto, Marta, etc.

Ejemplos de verbos:

Dormir, comer, estudiar, etc.

Ejemplos de complemento:

Cansada, coche, bonita, etc.

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Cómo Hacer Oraciones Simples en Español - Spanish Learning Lab

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Esta lección explica cuáles son las partes de una oración simple en español. Discutiremos como identificar el sujeto y el predicado. Además, aprenderás a hacer oraciones simples en español usando adjetivos y verbos comunes en presente, pasado y futuro. Practica con los ejercicios de una prueba interactiva.

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Para formar las oraciones compuestas, necesitas combinar dos oraciones simples. Hay 3 tipos de oraciones compuestas coordinadas (dos oraciones simples e independientes), subordinadas (proposiciones dependientes), y yuxtapuesta (usa los signos de puntuación para combinar las oraciones simples). En el caso de oraciones coordinadas, estas usan palabras copulativas, disyuntivas, adversativas, y distributivas para relacionar las dos proposiciones. Finalmente, las oraciones subordinadas tienen tres tipos: sustantiva, de relativo, y adverbial.

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Por- Linda Ojeda

Las oraciones compuestas son aquellas que tienen dos o más relaciones sujeto-predicado, es decir, que varias oraciones simples se asocian para presentar un mensaje. Según la relación que haya entre los predicados las oraciones compuestas se clasifican en coordinadas, subordinadas o yuxtapuestas. Las oraciones compuestas coordinadas unen dos o más proposiciones independientes por medio de conjunciones y se clasifican, según el nexo coordinante que se utilice, en: copulativas, disyuntivas, adversativas y distributivas. En la oración subordinada hay dependencia de un segmento con respecto a la proposición principal. Por último, las oraciones yuxtapuestas separan las proposicones, independientes entre sí, con una coma o un punto y coma en lugar de un nexo coordinante.
Oraciones compuestas coordinadas y yuxtapuestas Oraciones compuestas subordinadas
La oración subordinada está compuesta de una proposición principal y una proposición dependiente. La proposición principal recibe el nombre de subordinante y la proposición dependiente recibe el nombre de subordinada. Según la función que desempeñe la proposición dependiente (subordinada), suele clasificarse en subordinada sustantiva, subordinada de relativo o subordinada adverbial.

Observa:

1. Subordinada sustantiva - Realiza la función de un sustantivo, como sujeto o complemento directo;
regularmente comienza con la conjunción que.

Ejemplos:
Que llegues bien es mi mejor deseo. (sujeto)
Esperamos que regreses pronto. (complemento directo)

2. Subordinada de relativo - Tradicinalmente, recibía el nombre de subordinada adjetiva, pero no
siempre ejerce esa función. Las proposiciones subordinadas comienzan con:
a. pronombres relativos - que, quien, cual.
b. adverbios relativos - como, cuanto, cuando, donde.
c. determinate (porque precede al sustantivo) - cuyo.

Ejemplos:
El vestido que tiene flores azules es de mi prima.
La niña cuya madre fue galardonada ayer es amiga de mi hija.

3. Subordinada adverbial - No siempre desempeña la función de un adverbio, aunque su nombre así lo
indique. Ofrecen información adicional o incidental en la que expresan las circuntancias
en que ocurre la acción de la proposición subordinante.

Ejemplos:
No puedo acompañarte porque estoy castigada. (construcción causal)
Corrí tanto que me duelen las rodillas. (construcción consecutiva)

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La oración compuesta | Vista Higher Learning Blog

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Por- Linda Ojeda Las oraciones compuestas son aquellas que tienen dos o más relaciones sujeto-predicado, es decir, que varias oraciones simples se asocian para presentar un mensaje. Según la relación que haya entre los predicados las oraciones compuestas se clasifican en coordinadas, subordinadas o yuxtapuestas.

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En este video, comprendí que un sintagma es "una palabra o grupo de palabras que realiza una función sintáctica dentro de la oración." Adicionalmente, cada sintagma tiene una palabra principal o el núcleo. Hay 5 tipos de sintagmas: sintagma nominal (SN), sintagma verbal (SV), sintagma adjetival (SAdj), sintagma adverbial (SAdv) y sintagma proposicional (SAdv).

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Este documento tiene todos los sibilantes de español y sus evoluciones. Por ejemplo, hay cambias que ayudan escribir las palabras más fácil. En los cambios de sistema sibilante latin americano, primero hay una fusión de sibilantes, nivelación de voz, y un desplazamiento del punto de articulación.

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Este es un imagen the "scriptio continua" que es una manera de escrita en español. No hay puntuación porque fue escrito de una escriba y pues ello necesitaba escribir rápido. Hay algunas personas que pueden leerlo fácilmente.

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Este video revisa la historia de español. El fin del imperio romano causó la erupción de más dialectos de latín. Luego, la invasión de España por los árabes influye el desarrollo de español. Finalmente, el rey Alfonso el décimo declaró español la lengua oficial de España. Después de la colonización de los americas, los tribus americanos influyen la lengua también como llama y tomate.

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Palabras polisémicas son las que tienen varios significados. Algunos ejemplos de esto concepto son banco, lengua, bota, estrella, y copa. Puede usar una palabra polisémica en contextos diferentes. Por ejemplo, banco significa el lugar donde se guarda el dinero pero también significa asiento del parque.

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El concepto de homonimia es cuando dos palabras diferentes tienen pronunciaciones similares como baca y vaca. Este articulo revisa 5 errores más comunes cuando usa homonimias. Primero, el uso de los acentos distingue entre los significados diferentes de una palabra como el y él o de y dé. Segundo, las letras B y V son pronunciados en maneras similares, pero cambian la significa de una palabra. Los otros errores son la H muda, la diferencia entre Y y LL, y las diferencias entre C/Z/S.

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Most world languages have some pesky homophones-words that sound the same but mean different things.

Some languages do this more than others, of course.
Spanish is a pretty big offender, even mixing up its native speakers with trickier sounds!
As though we needed more obstacles thrown in our path when trying to learn Spanish.

But, c'mon, you're an English speaker.

English is infamous for its homophone usage-their, there and they're, anyone?-so count yourself lucky that you don't have to learn those from scratch.

Why Learn Spanish Homophones?

As big a pain as it is to learn and recognize the homophones, it's a deed that must be done.

Much like mastering gender or the plural in Spanish, it's a step you must take to reach fluency. If you can't learn to recognize homophones in oral communication, you'll be tripped up in conversation time and time again. (Remember to brush up on those listening skills, and stay on top of your false friends!)

Your conversation partner might tire of your confused looks, so it's best you learn to embrace the homophones. With time, you'll learn to focus on contextual clues. But when first starting out, it's important to have a mental list going of the homophones of a language.

And now for the good news: Spanish has far fewer homophones than English. In this respect, it's a really easy language to study.

The phonetics, or sound system, of Spanish is relatively uncomplicated. Each letter is assigned one sound, with only very few exceptions. Compare this with English, where a simple "e" can take on a multitude of different sounds, and Spanish suddenly seems like a piece of cake.

Let's start by identifying the type of Spanish homophones that are out there.

Spanish Homophones: Common Mix-ups and How to Identify Them

1. The Accents Pitfall

Some words not only sound the same, but are written exactly the same. Well, almost. The Spanish language helps us out by throwing on accent marks where it deems necessary.

Take, for example, el and él. Same exact letters. The only difference is in the symbols. Normally, Spanish accent marks (called tildes, not acentos - here's the complete guide) are used to show where the stress should fall. In the case of él and el, however, the accent is simply used to differentiate meaning-with the accent, él means 'he," and without the accent, el is the definite article "the."

Another instance of this is de and dé. Again, the accent here doesn't mean "pronounce the e with a little more force." It's simply used to distinguish the two words, since they're spelled and pronounced exactly the same. Without the accent, de is the preposition "of." With the accent, it's the command or subjunctive form of the verb dar, meaning "to give."

2. The B/V Pitfall

If Spanish is completely phonetic, why can't they do away with either the B or the V? It's a question that keeps me up at night but, alas, both B and V make a light b sound. Not quite as forceful as the English b, but with the lips a bit more relaxed (a voiced bilabial fricative, if you want to get technical). Therein lies the reason Spanish speakers have difficulty hearing the difference between "berry" and "very" or "vest" and "best," but I digress.

An example of the B/ V pitfall would be hierba (weed) and hierva (he/she boils [water]). Also: iba (I/he/she was going) and IVA, an acronym that stands for "sales tax." See? Not the same meanings at all, but these sounds make it easy to get tripped up if you can't understand the context.
hierba, hierva:
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hierba-hierva.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Iba-IVA.mp3

3. The Silent H Pitfall

I mean no disrespect to Spanish here, but its H is useless. The letter is a remnant of Latin, Spanish's predecessor, but it serves no purpose in pronunciation today (except to trip learners up). Therein lies the problem with homophones such as Asia and hacia, the first one being the continent, the second being the preposition "towards." So you can move " hacia Asia," but you should know the difference between the two.

The silent H pitfall doesn't just occur with the vowel a. Some examples with other vowels:

With o we can use the simple example of hola (hello) and ola (wave). These are pronounced exactly the same.

An example with e is echo, the first-person conjugation of echar, a verb which has about 20 meanings but we'll go with "to throw away" here. Then you have hecho, with a silent h, meaning both "fact" and also the participle form of hacer (to do or make).

See what a headache these homophones can be?

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hacia-Asia.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hacia-Asia-slow.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hacia-Asia-faster.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hola-ola.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Echo-hecho.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Hechar.mp3

4. The Y/LL Pitfall

These sounds are pronounced slightly differently. To the untrained, non-native ear, the difference is hardly discernible. If you travel to Argentina, however, you're in luck. There, the double L is pronounced similarly to the English "sh," so it's clearly distinguishable. Elsewhere, however, the problem of homophones rears its ugly head once again.

Examples:

Arroyo - a small stream or river
Arrollo - the first-person conjugation of arrollar, which means "to run over, to knock down"

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Arrollo-arroyo.mp3

Rayar - to draw lines, to scribble
Rallar - to grate (cheese, for example)

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Rallar-rayar.mp3

5. The C/Z/S pitfall

Here we have not just two but three sounds to look out for. With the C/Z/S pitfall, it's important that we separate Castillian Spanish (from Spain) from the rest of the pack.

In Spain, the S makes an English "S" sound, but the C and the Z make an English "th" sounds. That's what people are talking about when they affectionately (or mockingly) refer to the Spanish "lisp" (the real term is ceceo, said, of course, with two lisped C's). And due to Spanish phonology, C and Z can never appear in the same letter "slot" of a word, so there's really no C/ Z/ S pitfall in (most parts of) Spain.

In Central and South America, and the Canary Islands of Spain, however, we do see the C/ Z/ S homophones. The C, Z and S all sound alike - like the English "s" sound. So you can never quite tell if your conversation partner is talking about his house - casa - or hunting, caza. Another example is ciento (one hundred) versus siento (I feel).

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Casa-caza-LATAM.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Caza-Spain.mp3

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/12/Ciento-siento.mp3

How to Tackle Spanish Homophones

Now we've identified the types of Spanish homophones. They may seem tricky, but don't despair. There are ways to tackle them that don't have you bowing down in defeat.

It seems like a no-brainer, but if you know that both the words casa and caza exist, you can begin to see which one fits better in context (and I'm willing to bet it's casa 90% of the time).

Step #2. Context is your best friend.

As you begin to get fluent in the language, you'll use contextual clues to fill in vocabulary you're not familiar with. This will also help you to choose which vocabulary makes the most sense. In the beginning, when you're just starting out, you can probably know that people are greeting you with hola, not ola. But if the homophone in question is more complicated, or the two words share the same part of speech - two high-level verbs like rayar and rallar, for instance - context becomes hugely important to ascertaining meaning.

Step #3. Focus on the nuances of the Spanish sound system.

Like I said, to the untrained ear, the above pitfalls make these pairs sound like true homophones. But in reality, certain accents and speakers do pronounce some of the letters slightly differently. Focus on whether you can hear a tiny, minuscule difference between the B and the V. Is one softer than the other? Is one sound produced by using the teeth a bit, and not just both lips?

The nuances of the Spanish sound system also extend to the accents and the geographic areas in which you're learning or speaking Spanish. If you're in Spain, the "lisp" should give you a big clue. If you're in Argentina, no need to fear the Y/ LL pitfall. It's good to familiarize yourself with the basic rules of Spanish everywhere, but if you plan on moving to Ecuador, for example, read up on Ecuador's specific accents and sound system.

Oh, and One More Thing...

If you liked learning all this incredibly useful Spanish, then you'll love FluentU.

FluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks-and turns them into Spanish learning experiences. Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses an immersion approach that helps you ease into Spanish language and culture over time. You'll learn Spanish as it's actually spoken by real people, so you'll be exposed to Spanish homophones in their natural habitat.

FluentU has a wide variety of videos, covering loads of topics like soccer, TV shows, business, movies and even magical realism, as you can see here:

FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. If you see an interesting word you don't know, you can add it to a vocab list.

Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU's Learn Mode. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you're on. Then play some fun, interactive learning games like word matches and fill-in-the-blank.

The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you're learning, and it recommends you examples and videos based on the words you've already learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they're learning the same video.

Start using FluentU for free on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store for iOS and Android devices.

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn Spanish with real-world videos.
Experience Spanish immersion online!

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Spanish Homophones: 5 Common Mix-ups and How to Tackle Them

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Most world languages have some pesky homophones-words that sound the same but mean different things.Some languages do this more than others, of course.Spanish is a pretty big offender, even mixing up its native speakers with trickier sounds!As though we needed more obstacles thrown in ou

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El concepto de la pragmática es la interpretación de oraciones dependiendo en sus contextos y situaciones. Frecuentemente, el malentendido es debido al rol de pragmática. Además, una oración, más de su significa literal, puede tener una connotación diferente debido a la cultura, los valores, y más.

Un ejemplo de esto concepto es la pregunta, “¿Crees que podrás asistir mi fiesta mañana?” Esta pregunta también puede significar, “Va a mi fiesta mañana.”

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Pragmatics looks at the use of language in action, according to the relationship between statement-context-interlocutors, and is interested in analysing how speakers produce and interpret statements in a specific context. In this way, pragmatics highlights the importance of supra-linguistic factors in communication, such as the positions that speakers occupy in relation to each other, their knowledge of the world, their communicative intention...
It is important for our students to familiarise themselves with this extra dimension to language and to be aware of the fundamental role played by all these factors in communicative exchanges.

Consequences of pragmatic errors in inter-cultural communication

If we encourage our students to think about an incident involving a misunderstanding they have experienced during their stay in Spain (either serious or purely embarrassing), it is certain that in the majority of these situations, pragmatics has played some sort of relevant role. Did they have problems understanding what the other person said? Did they have problems using the exact words they wanted to use? Why were there communication problems? How much weight did the words have? What was the context to the utterance; was that also misunderstood?
Reflecting upon which were the factors that caused the misunderstanding, they will probably understand that the confusion stemmed from a difference between what was actually said in comparison to what the speaker wanted to say.
A brief and simple explanation on the importance of pragmatics can serve as a starting point to introduce teaching suggestions in the classroom, which will subsequently help to develop this pragmatic competency:
Above and beyond purely linguistic knowledge, in order to be able to use, appropriately and effectively, the foreign language that we learn - in this case, Spanish - we first need to get to know the socio-cultural norms and values that surround the language. On many occasions, an utterance goes much further than its literal meaning, so that through other factors, we are able to communicate, or at the very least understand another implied meaning which perhaps contradicts the original explicit meaning - but is really what we wanted to say.
Therefore, there are various extra-linguistic elements that we should consider for effective communication: context, tone of voice, intention, gesture...

If conversations between native speakers are not devoid of a few misunderstandings caused by any one of these aforementioned elements, imagine how many more fractures in communication could occur in conversation between different cultures; that is to say, between people accustomed to completely different codes of behaviour!
Logically, when learning a new language, we tend to apply the norms of behaviour that govern our mother tongue: when both systems are different, we risk a misunderstanding. For this reason, it is fundamentally important to recognise these norms in the discourse of speakers and know how to put them into practice in our own language.
It is certainly not always an easy task. Let's look at the following examples

If a Spanish speaker asks their conversation partner:
"Are you coming to my party tomorrow?": this question is really being used as a type of invitation.
The speaker is effectively saying "Come to my party tomorrow."
If the conversation partner is not a native speaker, he/she could easily fall into the literal aspect of the question (asking for information), therefore producing the misunderstanding.
Also in Spanish culture, before a compliment such as "I like your jacket," the person on the receiving end tends to remove importance with answers such as "it didn´t cost very much" or "well, it's really old."
If an English-speaker were to answer, coming from a culture where compliments are accepted only with a "thank you," this could appear very impolite.

In this way, you can see how decodifying messages in order to communicate successfully depends not only upon comprehension of the words, but also upon a mutual knowledge between interlocutors - on the one hand, of what the speaker knows and on the other hand, what his/her conversation partner knows. We need to understand the norms that the Spanish culture uses to express utterances that transcend a literal meaning, as well as additional more implicit meanings and cultural values.

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The importance of pragmatics in the Spanish foreign language classroom

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Pragmatics looks at the use of language in action, according to the relationship between statement-context-interlocutors, and is interested in analysing how speakers produce and interpret statements in a specific context.

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¿Qué palabra es un ejemplo de polisémia?

A) perro

B) carta

C) tienda

D) zapatos

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Factores que afectan el mantenimiento del español.

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Factores que afectan el mantenimiento del español.

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Esta noticia resume un evento importante entre el Real Academia Española y Microsoft. En esta asociación, RAE quiere que español tiene una posición y cualidad igual con ingles. Hay muchos errores que la inteligencia artificial se comete, pues el RAE quiere prometer el mejor uso de espanol. Este proyecto se llama LEIA (Lengua ANDSpanish Iintelligence TOrtificial).

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More and more we listen to content created by Artificial Intelligence. From home assistants to platforms that create content automatically, it is a trend that will affect all sectors, from online education to journalism.

The fact is that it is necessary for machine learning systems to know a language well to be able to use it, and that is why the Royal Spanish Academy has partnered with and Microsoft to promote a correct use of Spanish.

The objective is clear, to allow Spanish to gain quality in the digital universe, an important point in the LEIA project ( Lengua ANDSpanish Iintelligence TO rtificial) thanks to which Microsoft will have direct access to some 375,000 sets of dictionary data, with annual updates so that Microsoft can use them both in Microsoft 365 and in other systems, search engines and platforms that require spelling and grammar checking.

With the information, automatic translation and transliteration models will also be created (that's where AI comes in), taking into account both Spanish from Spain and from Latin American countries. Applications will be trained and language biases will be avoided, thus improving natural language in the different applications that Microsoft will present in the future.

Machines must know how to speak correctly, and digital environments have forgotten that aspect since their inception. It is true that the vocabulary used is correct, and that there are few grammatical errors in translation and voice generation applications, but Spanish is much broader than what is spoken in Spain, requiring the collaboration of experts in both sectors .

Logically, another consequence of the LEIA project is that Spanish is available in more technological products and services, and that it is available in a professional way, without errors that make us switch back to English to avoid reading and so on.

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The RAE and Microsoft partner so that Artificial Intelligence speaks Spanish better - How smart Technology changing lives

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More and more we listen to content created by Artificial Intelligence. From home assistants to platforms that create content automatically, it is a trend that will affect all sectors, from online education to journalism.The fact is that it is necessary for machine learning systems to know a language well to...

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Este video de TEDxYouth explica el uso importante del “spanglish.” Ella dice que spanglish es importante para mejorar la aptitud para hablar español y ingles. También, ella refiere al movimiento del chicano y como las personas de este grupo usaron spanglish. Ella creo que spanglish cierre el hueco entre hablantes de español y ingles y promueve mas unidad.

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Spanglish is a Language Too! | Alondra Posada | TEDxYouth@UrsulineAcademy

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Este articulo explica como el EE. UU. no tiene una politica oficial para lenguas, especialmente porque hay tantas lenguas y culturas pues es difícil ejecutar políticas para sola una lengua. Pero, mas estados tienen políticas que ejecutan educación solo en ingles. En los 10 años pasados, hay más programas para dos lenguas y mas promoción de multilingüismo.

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Unlike many other countries, the United States does not have an official national language policy. Educational language policy in the country is largely the result of widely held beliefs and values about immigrants and patriotism. Language policies, implicit or explicit, are used to influence and co…