Spelling Mistakes in Spanish...
Hacer errores de ortografía es fácil en inglés porque no se escribe como se suena. Cuando estaba en Francia vi que los franceses hacen muchas errores tambien. Por ejemplo, cuando pagaba a mi proprietario, me dio un recibo en que escribió él 'moi' en lugar de 'mois' ('mes') porque el S final en esta palabra no se dice en francés. ¿ Cuales son las errores frecuentes en español, que es un idioma que se escribe como se suena ?
Spelling mistakes are easy in English because it isn't written as it sounds. When in France I observed that the French also make many mistakes. For example, when I used to pay my landlord he gave me a receipt on which he wrote 'moi' instead of 'mois' ('month') because the final S in this word is silent in French. What are common mistakes in Spanish, a language which is written as it sounds ?
1 Answer
This site lists the classics:
http://www.speakinglatino.com/5-common-spanish-spelling-mix-ups/
1 Switching up V and B
The V in Spanish is pronounced basically exactly like the B. In fact, when spelling things out, many people say “b larga” and “v corta” or “uve” to distinguish between the two. It’s common for native speakers to use V instead of B such as huviera instead of hubiera or vendito instead of bendito. Be careful of some V/B situations, like the verbs andar and estar which have conjugations where the word is written with B and other conjugations written with V.
2 Y and LL
In Spanish, the double L (ll pronounced “elle”) is pronounced just like the Y, so this is the same situation as with the V and B. Due to the fact that they are pronounced the same, it is not uncommon to words written incorrectly such as alluda instead of ayuda or lla instead of ya. You will see that there are more rules for the use of Y than for the LL.
3 Leaving out the H
Since the H is silent in Spanish, many natives simply omit it when writing. This is not a big deal for words like abía instead of había, but it can occasionally change the meaning. For example, hola means “hello” while ola means “wave”. Of course, context will usually clear up any confusion.
4 C, S and Z
Latin American pronunciation is distinguished by the seseo, or the pronunciation of S, C and Z as S. This is different from the ceceo of Spain where these sounds are closer to Z (similar to English TH pronunciation in think). As in other letter sets, these three letters may have the same pronunciation, as in necesito or casar/cazar. The result is common mis-spellings such as nesecito or cazar when the word casar is meant. The most common mistakes occur with the pair C and S when C is combined with vowels E or I (when the vowels A, O and U combine with C the sound is a hard C sound, like a K). With the seseo, the sound –ce- and -ci- are the same as –se- and –si- and this is when the confusion comes in.
5 G and J
Since G and J can be the same sound (as in jalea and gelatina), the two are often juxtaposed when writing out words. As an example, take a look at the photo in this recent post on a Language Learning: Spanish for DRINKING STRAW. You will see that the fruit naranja is spelled incorrectly with a G. This photo was taken recently in Costa Rica.
