English → Spanish
Spanish uses 27 sounds. You already own 16 of them from English. The other 11 are the work — and 11 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: labiodental → bilabial
Spanish: to have · written "b", "v"
Soft b/v between vowels — lips don't fully close.
Your /v/ is the one in very (very).
the move: near-close → close
Spanish: yes · written "i", "y (alone)"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in sit (sit).
the move: near-close → close
Spanish: light · written "u"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in book (book).
the move: near-close → close-mid
Spanish: table · written "e"
Your /ɪ/ is the one in sit (sit).
the move: near-close → close-mid
Spanish: bear · written "o"
Your /ʊ/ is the one in book (book).
the move: plosive → fricative
Spanish: water · written "g", "gu"
Soft g between vowels.
Your /ɡ/ is the one in go (go).
the move: plosive → fricative
Spanish: ham · written "j", "ge", "gi"
Harsh in Spain, soft [h] in the Caribbean.
Your /k/ is the one in cat (cat).
the move: approximant → trill
Spanish: dog · written "rr", "r- (initial)"
Trilled. Contrasts with the tap: pero 'but' vs perro 'dog'.
Your /ɹ/ is the one in red (red).
Words you may say identically
Two or more Spanish sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| English | Spanish | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Stress-timed | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | Contrastive, and unmarked in writing — the single most common cause of not being understood. Dozens of noun/verb pairs differ only in where the stress goes, and every unstressed vowel collapses to /ə/. | Fully contrastive, and mercifully written: if a word breaks the default pattern (stress on the second-to-last syllable for vowel/-n/-s endings, on the last otherwise) it carries an accent. Three-way minimal sets are common and the accent is the only thing separating them. |
What you have that Spanish doesn't
27 sounds with no job in Spanish. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your English has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned Spanish from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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