Japanese → Spanish
Spanish uses 27 sounds. You already own 16 of them from Japanese. 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: alveolar → dental
Spanish: nothing · written "d"
Soft d between vowels, like English 'th' in this. Nearly vanishes in -ado endings.
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
the move: bilabial → labiodental
Spanish: fire · written "f"
Your /ɸ/ is the one in ふゆ fuyu (winter).
the move: alveolar → dental
Spanish: beer · written "z", "ce", "ci"
Spain only. Latin America: /s/.
Your /s/ is the one in さかな sakana (fish).
the move: palatal → velar
Spanish: ham · written "j", "ge", "gi"
Harsh in Spain, soft [h] in the Caribbean.
Your /ç/ is the one in ひと hito (person).
the move: alveolo-palatal → postalveolar
Spanish: boy · written "ch"
Your /t͡ɕ/ is the one in ちいさい chīsai (small).
the move: voiced
Spanish: to have · written "b", "v"
Soft b/v between vowels — lips don't fully close.
Your /ɸ/ is the one in ふゆ fuyu (winter).
the move: palatal → velar, voiced
Spanish: water · written "g", "gu"
Soft g between vowels.
Your /ç/ is the one in ひと hito (person).
the move: approximant → nasal
Spanish: year · written "ñ"
Your /j/ is the one in やま yama (mountain).
the move: fricative → lateral
Spanish: moon · written "l"
Your /z/ is the one in みず mizu (water).
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.
| Japanese | Spanish | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Mora-timed | Syllable-timed |
| Stress | No stress in the English sense — syllables are not louder or longer, so a Japanese speaker reading English tends to flatten it, and an English speaker reading Japanese tends to hammer syllables that should be even. | 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
15 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 Japanese 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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