Conversational Spanish for Beginners. Ridwan Abdul-Ali

      PREFACE

      My interest in the Spanish Language began as a young child growing up in a mixed and extremely diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. I had neighbors from all different backgrounds but one that stood out to me was the Hispanic community. I would here Spanish at home, in school, in the stores, and even outside playing. So certain basic words and phrases became second nature. As we all know there are differences in dialect among the Spanish language stemming from different Spanish speaking countries and communities. As I grew older and moved to a different state I made new friends but tried to keep diversity in the people that surrounded me. Especially individuals of a Hispanic background because it was one of the languages that came easier to me because of some of the similarities it has to English and also because I already had my foundation.

      In my experience when it comes to different dialects of Spanish they only differ on a minor level. If two individuals from different Spanish speaking countries were to attempt to engage in conversation they would naturally understand a good 75-80% of what is said and only get lost on certain words and phrases. It is my goal in this language manual to use mostly terms that are universal and can be used and understood across the board.

      Proper Pronunciation Techniques

      Before going into the terminology I want to firstly give an understanding of the format and structure of reading Spanish. The letter are the same as English letters however the pronunciation is different. In Spanish when you see the letter Q it is often pronounced as a K. For example “Que Pasa” pronounced Ke pasa. When you see the letter J in Spanish writing it is pronounced like the letter H. For example “Jesus” or “Jose” are pronounced hesoos and hozey. In the word “trabajo” meaning work it is pronounced trabaho. This rule also applies when you see the letter G at the beginning of a Spanish word. For example the word “Gente” means people but it is pronounced Hente. Likewise with the word “Emergencia” meaning emergency but the G is pronounced as an H therefore it is pronounced “emerhencia”

      A few more common techniques is to know that when you see a double L in a Spanish word “llamar”; the double L is pronounced like a letter J or like a letter Y depending on the dialect. Therefore “llamar” is pronounced Jamar or in another example is the word ella meaning she. Ella can be prounced eya or eja depending on the dialect but they are both correct. When you see an accent mark over the letter n remember that the accent mark gives that n a ny sound. For example in the words niñaor niño meaning child. niña is pronounced neenya and niño is pronounced neenyo because of the accent signified over the letter n.

      Last point is to remember when you see a double r like in the last name Cabrera remember to roll your r’s with flutter in your tongue. And when there is a double letter C used in words like “identificaccion” meaning “identification” the double c gives it a s sound therefore making it pronounced “identifi casee on”