Common English/Spanish Pronunciation Gaffes...
What are common pronunciation problems that English speakers of Spanish make that show them up / give them away & vice versa ? Are there any regional factors ?
For example, I suppose it's fairly well-known among native English-speakers than native Spanish-speakers often insert E in front of English words beginning with Sp or St etc. Hence at uni I had a very clever, well-educated & English-fluent professor, who was Venezuelan, and who, despite having lived in Scotland for 15 years (married to a Scotsman) still kept referring to us as 'Escottish estudents'.
I guess the B/V might be an issue...
We know native-French speakers often have difficulty with the English 'th'-sound, tending to pronounce it as Z, whereas Germans often pronounce it as D or T. I suppose for Spaniards (from Europe), this may pose less of a problem because they have the cecio, but then this only represents one of the two English 'th'-sounds, being the 'unvoiced' sound as in 'theatre', whereas the 'voiced' sound as in 'the'/'they'/'there' (which should perhaps really be spelled 'dhe'/'dhey'/'dhere') is quite different. How do Spaniards deal with 'dh' ? How do Latin American Spanish-speakers deal with the 'th'-sound in either version ?
And what do Spanish-speakers make of English-speakers attempts to pronounce Spanish.
Can you tell if we're American, English or Scottish ? Or Australian or whatever ? (Do we amazing Scots just blend in because we already have all the sounds (ahem) ?: our amazing rrroled R's and wonderful j/g sound as in Loch Ness, jeje)...
Genuinely interested. Of what kinds of gaffe should I remain mindful... ![]()
4 Answers
The biggest problem Americans have is not the trilled rrrr but the letter "o"
They pronounce "doctor" as Dakter--terrible! Also words like "control" as
"cuhntrol" the proper symbol for the 'uh' here is the upside down "e" called "schwa" which does not even exist in Spanish. It sounds like English "uh"
Almost EVERY unstressed vowel in American English has the "uh" sound.
I pledge uhleeguhns (alligiance) to thuh flag uhf thuh United states uhf Uhmericuh, and so on.
When you put a lot of schwas into Spanish it sounds horrible. All the preterite endings ending in "ieron" or "aron" sound like "ieruhn" and "eruhn" ¡Caramba! The vowels are the hardest thing I have to deal with as far as my American Engilsh Speakers are concerned.
Now to mention the Brits--¡ Ay Chihuahua! They don't have a pure vowel in their language! ---well maybe one or two. But there is not enough room to discuss the problems they have in this space. As I also teach French once in a while, I can say that the Brits are far better than the Americans at getting the pronunciation right in that language. English is pretty goofy.![]()

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vowels in general, a fast D or T sounds like an R in Spanish.
The B/V is not and issue. Not in Spanish!
That's why I make this little chart for you guys
a = ah
e = eh
i = ee
o = awe (approximate)
u = oo as in moon
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The "R" is a pretty obvious tough one. But I'm not talking about the trilled R of carro, most people get it, and get that "caro" and "carro" are two different things(although some really just can't trill their R's).
On the other side I've noticed english speakers really struggle with the softer trill of the R as in "robar" or "reparto". To my understanding, or at least in most Mexican Spanish, all four of those R's should have a soft trill, not quite like the RR's in "barril" or "ferrocarril" but A LOT of english speakers replace those situations with the english R sound; or just don't pronounce anything when the R comes before a consonant.
...this becomes most problematic with words like cargar; which I often hear sounding more like it's less friendly cousin.
For myself throwing in all of those softer trills can lead me at times to speak a lot slower than a native. It's hard for us to say combinations like "más rápido" or "me has robado" and maintain the soft trill without taking a split second break between the "ssss" sound and the "rr" sound.
whats a gaffe