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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
In todayās episode Iām going to give you fifteen tips that are going to dramatically improve your Spanish accent. Stay tuned till the end, because the tips only get better and better.
Tip #1: To sound fluent, say repeated letters only once, and drop the second one.
For example, instead of saying:
Ā āJaime - es - simpĆ”tico.ā (Jamie is nice).
Say it like this: JaimesimpƔtico.
Say only one E in āJaime esā: Jaimes
Then say only one S in āes simpĆ”ticoā: esimpĆ”tico
So the whole sentence is: jaimesimpƔtico.
It should sound like one long word with no gaps at all between the words: jaimesimpƔtico.
When you link words like this youāll sound much more fluent, and youāll also be able to understand fast spoken Spanish a lot better.
Tip #2: To sound even more fluent, link words that end in a consonant and start with a vowel.
For example: Juan escribe en espaƱol [JuanescribenespaƱol]. (John writes in Spanish)
Say it as if it was one long word, not three or even two word. Just one word: JuanescribenespaƱol.
Link the final N in āJuanā and the initial E in āescribeā: Juanescribe
Then say only one E in āescribe enā, as you learned in Tip #1: escriben.
Then link the final N in āenā to the initial E in āespaƱolā: enespaƱol.
And now the whole sentence sounds like one long word: juanescribenespaƱol.Ā
Tip #3: The majority of Spanish words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable.
For example:
familia (faMIlia)
chocolate (chocoLAte),
avenida (aveNIda),
botella (boTElla),
Watch out for words that look similar in English. Make sure you stress them on the right syllable:
In English: FAmily.
In Spanish: faMIlia.
CHOcolate - chocoLAte
Avenue - aveNIda
BOttle - boTElla
Getting the stress right makes a big difference. People will understand you a lot better.
Tip #4: Some letters become more difficult to say when they come after certain letters.
For example:
Ā the letter S followed by the rolled R: Israel
When saying āIsraelā you donāt get a full on S and a full on RR. Instead, you get only half of each: Israel.
Avoid saying: Iss-rrael. To sound fluent, make sure you shorten both the S and the RR: Israel.
If you want tomaster the double R, and all other Spanish sounds, have a look at my Spanish courses. Iāve put the link in the show notes.
Tip #5: Spanish has only 5 vowel sounds, and they correspond to the written vowels.
The five Spanish vowel are: A, E, I, O, U
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WHO AM I?
šš» Iām Maria Fernandez, a native Spanish speaker from Madrid (Spain). Iāve taught Spanish for over 5000 hours, and counting. My mission is to make you fluent in Spanish super fast. Creating step-by-step lessons for you is one of the things I love most. š
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Ā Over the last few years I've published a bunch of courses, books and audiobooks. Iāve also studied an insane amount of English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Japanese.
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Ā To find out more about me,