How to pronounce "y"s?
My Spanish teacher says y's and ll's with a j sound. Like for yo she says jo and amarillo like amarijo. I've never heard it pronounced this way. Not that I've heard much Spanish in general, but I know it's probably a dialect. I think she said she's from Puerto Rico. But I want to make sure that I'm learning something that is used often. I know language/pronunciation changes from place to place, but I'd prefer to be saying it the way that it's normally pronounced. So...any help?
5 Answers
I'm currently living in México, and here it's usually more j-sounding, though the "y" and "j" sounds are often interchangeable, and "ll" is pronounced the same—either as "y or as "j".
There is no "normal" way. There are ways that are common is certain countries/regions of countries/social classes. Leaving aside the pronunciation of 'y' as a vowel (on which everyone agrees), there are by my count six ways that the 'y' (as consonant) can be pronounced. Lazarus puts the figure at only five. This is one of many things that I would like to discuss with him at length, if only he would come to New York for a couple of years.
Since I agree with him about his five (I just want to add a sixth), you could start with his reference article (grammar, Spanish Alphabet #2). He posted another that mentioned all five but I can't find it at the moment. Nor do I remember the title of the thread in which I described six variants.
I'm in Chile, and my Spanish teacher says, "jyo" for "yo"
and "ay-jyos" for "ellos."
what fun!
it varies. You can pronounce the "ll" like a J sound or and Y sound. The "Y" in spanish depends on the word like "yo" is J and yogur is the same in english. "llibro" (book) is pronounced just like one l in english, usually the double "ll" when at the beginning of a sentence is pronounced as an L sound.
hope that helps 
typically in my spanish class, Ys are pronounced either like e or y *mama y papa --> mama e papa *yo --> pronounced the same, yo
ll i would pronounce like ya *me llamo --> me yamo
that is just the dialect i am learning though
