Learning to use distinción
Is there any way to easily know when to us the "s" or "th" sound without seeing the word?
2 Answers
If you are referring to the difference in pronounciation between Castilian and Latin American Spanish for the letters z and c (next to a soft vowel like "e" or "i"), Spaniards have an undeniable advantage over Latin Americans. And there is no need to see the word written to know how it should be spelled.
Latin Americans need to memorize the spelling of the words since they always pronounce z's and soft c's as the letter s. Examples:
Distinción (your example) is pronounced [dis-tin-the-on’] in Spain and [dis-tin-see-on’] in Latin America.
Canción is pronounced [can-the-on’] in Spain vs. [can-see-on’] in Latin America.
Especial - [es-pay-the-ahl’] (Spain) vs. especial [es-pay-see-ahl’] (Latin America)
Zozobra - [tho-tho’-brah] vs. [so’-so’-brah]
I hope this helps!
Hmmmmm...maybe this is a silly question, but.... How would I know how to pronounce any word in any language without first seeing what the word is?
I'm confused!
