Learning Spanish: Part 1
When you hear about the language Spanish, two words that instantly dive into your mind are ‘Hola’ and ‘Senorita’. But the Spanish language is far from this, and it makes sense.
Learning Spanish: Part 1
When you hear about the language Spanish, two words that instantly dive into your mind are ‘Hola’ and ‘Senorita’. But the Spanish language is far from this, and it makes sense.
After doing an A1-level course in the Spanish language and delving into A2 or intermediate level, two things are sure to be accomplished through this series of learning Spanish.
One is how you can grasp the Spanish language easily, followed by how you should adapt to the Spanish culture when you go through these phases, as it aligns that language without injecting culture is some sort of a boat without a sail, it’s meaningless.
Here’s a guide to what I understand to be an easy way to start learning. This is the first of 5 of the series “Learning Spanish”.
Remember the first day at school when we started our formal education with ‘A for Apple and B for Ball’? There we got to know sequentially about the alphabets, vowels, consonants, and their pronunciation. Alphabets are the soul of a language. Most importantly, how we pronounce them.
Spanish has 28 alphabets, with every 28 having their distinct characteristics in terms of pronunciation, and some have silent articulation.
A is pronounced as আ whereas B is pronounced as বে, C as সে, D as দে, E as এ, F as এফে. G has two pronunciations depending on the word. One is খে, another is হে. H as আচে, I as ই, J as খোতা or হোতা, K as কা, L as এলে, এলে, M as এমে, N as এনে, O as ও, P as পে, Q as কু, R as এরে, S as এসে, T as তে, U as উ, V as বে, W as দোবলে বে, X as একিস, Y as ইগ্রিয়েগা and lastly, Z as সেঁতা।
Now there are some insightful happenings of this alphabet, such as in Spanish, ‘V (ভি)’ doesn’t have any pronunciation of its own, for which it is pronounced as বে. For example: Valencia in Spanish is pronounced as বালেনসিয়া.
Distinguishing the vowels gives us the result: A (আ), E (এ), I (ই), O (ও), U (উ). In terms of vowels in Spanish, it is pronounced similarly. It doesn’t vary with words. For example: ‘a’ will always be pronounced as ‘আ’. It will never vary depending on any word.
Tale of diction
- If any word is in the form – c + a/o/u, it will be pronounced as ক.
- If any word is in the form – c + i/e, it will be pronounced as s.
For example, Cama (কামা) means bed, Cometa (কোমেটা) means comet. Cemento (সেমেনতো) means cement.
- If any word is in the form – g + a/o/u, it will be pronounced as গ.
- If any word is in the form – g + i/e, it will be pronounced as হ.
For example: Gato (গাতো) means cat. Girar (হিরার) means to turn.
Z will always be sounded as S. Besides, Y will be sounded as ই, but H will always remain silent.
- If any word is in the form – Qu + i/e, here ‘U’ will always remain silent. For example: Que (কে) means what.
Again, if any word is in the form – Gu + a/o/u/i/e, here also ‘U’ will be silent. For example: Guerra (গেররা) means war.
In Spanish language, when we term any word that has ‘R’ in its starting, ending or in the middle, no matter where, it is incumbent to give pressure to that ‘R’ while we pronounce it.
There is no one who doesn’t love Tongue Twisters to make speaking skills smoother and more fluent. The Spanish language also has a tongue twister; if anyone practises with accurate pronunciation, his/her Spanish grasp will become easier. The T.T. stands as:
El perro de San Roque
No tiene rabo, porque
Ramon Ramirez se lo ha rabado
Meaning:
The dog of Saint Roque doesn’t have a tail because Ramon Ramirez has stolen it.
