Debuccalization: consonant sounds that give us trouble
I think most of us find "listening comprehension" one of the most difficult aspects of learning a new language. In particular, I have been trying to adapt to the way Spanish sounds in the Caribbean. Because I am returning to work in the DR next month, I was becoming frustrated because from experience, I know that the region I will be staying in speaks in such a way that they tend to drop the last sound (particular if the word ends in "s"). In fact, many of the consonants sound a bit different, depending on the word and the placement of that particular word within a sentence.
I'm sure many of you have already heard of this, but it was new to me. It is called "debuccalization". I have found this audio clip helpful and thought others might too.
Does anyone else struggle with "hearing" and understanding certain consonants? I would love to have your input.
8 Answers
A great phonetician once said that the greatest impediment to actually hearing the difference between sounds depended greatly on the degree of belief the listener had that the difference did , in fact, exist!
This is precisely the difficulty with the never-ending requests that we get for how to write "phonetically" some word in Spanish (meaning by "phonetically", some sort to bastardized English spelling that is supposed to "suggest" the Spanish pronunciation, as opposed to the IPA transcription). However, the search for "similar" sounds in English is exactly the wrong approach; the focus should be on the differences in the sounds (unless your goal is to learn to speak Spanish like an English-speaker). If you are unfamiliar with the IPA (as are most English speakers) then seek out web sites that provide recorded pronunciations (in the final analysis, if you can't hear the sounds then you won't be able to produce them). If your ears are unaccustomed to Spanish sounds (actually, this could be said of almost any language), your first order of business is to notice (and, then, reproduce) the differences from the sounds that are familiar to you.
The problem with Americans speaking Spanish is not really the consonants, but the vowels!
Going back to the consonants, I doubt that any natives simply drop the final 's'; what they normally do is to replace it with an aspiration, to open the preceding vowel, or both. The aspiration is generally done with an obstruction below the glottis, which is another sound that it doesn't exist in English.
English speakers tend to give the 't' and the 'd' an aspiration that we don't have, but even worse: the tip of the tongue is on the alveolar ridge instead of on the teeth. The 's' and the 'l' are also pronounced with the tongue with a different curvature.
By the way, the Argentinian guy in the recording believes that in Spain there is no aspirated 'h' replacing the 's', and it is probably where this sound originates from; obviously, he has never been to Spain. In my region in the south of Spain, most people use this aspirated sound; I do not normally pronounce the final 's' myself, unless I want to change my pronunciation, which I can do.
Just a comment here. I'm always surprised at how my listening comprehension improves when I can see the person speaking. Watching the movements of a speaker's mouth and lips help in amazing ways. I still don't like doing business on the phone very much in Spanish!
Yep, I have the same problem. But I also noticed that the "cuts" during the editing process made it even more difficult to hear everything well.
Our beloved Paralee and excellent helpers work very hard on the sound for our lessons, etc. When there are cuts, they smooth them out, and also make sure there is no noise on either side of the cut. Hence, we're barely conscious of the cuts when we listen to her.
Trust me, getting high quality sound without spending tens of thousands of dollars is not easy!
Still, all in all, I did find the audio clip helpful.
A great phonetician once said that the greatest impediment to actually hearing the difference between sounds depended greatly on the degree of belief the listener had that the difference did , in fact, exist! So very true for me.
Another thing I have found is without context, my ability to hear Spanish words when spoken by natives drops considerably. The more I know "what to expect," the better I hear it. 
Very interesting Nicole.
My tutor is from Buenos Aires, so I've been getting more practice in listening to that accent, certainly she pronounces the /s/ in this manner, and of course a delightful /ll/ which to my ear sounds like the French /j/ , unfortunately I can't seem to copy and paste the IPA symbols here, but it is frequently written as 'dz'.
Is it just me, or does the young man in this pronunciation video pronounce /ll/ in two different ways? llamar
Another link you may like, IPA sounds - Spanish
If your ears are unaccustomed to Spanish sounds (actually, this could be said of almost any language), your first order of business is to notice (and, then, reproduce) the differences from the sounds that are familiar to you.
I still can't hear the difference between the n sounds here (voz, sonoras)
I can see from the animation and the word samples what the difference in tongue position is, as well as that it is natural considering the following sound. However, I cannot hear a difference when listening or even when I speak while paying careful attention to my tongue position.
On the other hand, my brain is getting better at not forcing Spanish sounds to the nearest English sound for other consonants.
Samdie, I agree with this statement:
This is precisely the difficulty with the never-ending requests that we get for how to write "phonetically" some word in Spanish (meaning by "phonetically", some sort to bastardized English spelling that is supposed to "suggest" the Spanish pronunciation, as opposed to the IPA transcription).
I have seen this when reading books aiming to teach Spanish speaking people how to speak English. When I see the examples of basic words and the way they are "phonetically" spelled is ridiculous. As a native English speaking person, I look at some of these words spelled out "phonetically" and am usually hard pressed to figure out what the actual word is.
Here are some of the horrible (as least to my opinion) examples from "The Everything Inglés Book":
I think (ai sink)
They drive (dey draif)
How much is this? (Jao mach iz dis?)
Lazarus said:
By the way, the Argentinian guy in the recording believes that in Spain there is no aspirated 'h' replacing the 's', and it is probably where this sound originates from; obviously, he has never been to Spain.
I became interested in this after hearing someone from the Canary Islands speak. The sound was quite similar to that of the Dominican Republic. After research, I discovered that some say that people from the Canaries settled in the DR and other parts of the Caribbean, bringing their particular pronunciation of words with them. According to information I read, that in both the Canary Islands and consequently the Caribbean, the /s/ was debuccalized to /h/ in coda position.
So getting back to your point, I'm sure you're correct that the man from Argentina was not speaking from first hand experience, but rather from his own perception. When I first spent time in the Caribbean, my immediate "perception" was that Dominicans simply don't pronounce the last few letters or syllable of many words. Now I can see that there is a more technical way of describing and looking at this.
