How should I pronounce words that start with "y"?
¡Hola todos!
I'm confused with the pronunciation of the letter "y" when it's in the beginning of a word, e.g. "yo". I hear some people pronounce it like the "y" in English, like in words "year" or "yolk" or many more. But sometimes I hear people pronounce it like the letter "j" in English, like the "j" in "joke"... So which is the correct pronunciation? Or both are correct and it's just a matter of accent?
¡Muchas gracias!
4 Answers
It's a matter of accent, but as a rule, pronounce it like y not like j. When you get more advanced, like really advanced, you can try to adopt the accent if you like it. You will sound really stupid if you try to do the accent when you aren't fluent, and everyone is gonna tell you to pronounce it like y. Japanese has a similar dialect difference in the Kansai, Kyoto dialects which are a bit different than standard Japanese. Having spent hundreds of hours on both languages, I will say that regional dialects tend to be very pretty, but hard to reproduce correctly.
Well y(and) is a word and you pronounce it as e.... But other words you would pronounce as a real y like yo, ya, yerro, yugo. Hope this helps! 
HI Sophia, the pronounciation "j" like in joker, similar, is more typical for Argentina. In most countries it is pronounced like y, in yes.
Thanks! So I better stick to the "y" sound in English!
