ejercicio pronuncaition

Question

is ejercicio pronounced with ""s sounds or "th" sounds. i thought "ci" in Sp. is pronounced "th" so I would expect eher-thee-thee-o phonetically?

This is not a quick answer site for a sloppily put together post. Misspellings, lack of proper capitalization and punctuation. Your question is vague and presumptuous. Please either edit or re-post properly. - Jubilado, Oct 20, 2015

Gracias Jubilado - ian-hill, Oct 20, 2015

Please take the advice from jubilado , we are teaching both English and Spanish here , and we expect good manners at all times. - ray76, Oct 21, 2015

Answer 1

To address the subject matter:

Here is the word being pronounced by 2 people from Mexico and one from Spain (go to the site and press the triangle before each recording, nothing beats actually hearing a native speaker say a word).

http://forvo.com/word/ejercicio/

Here is a map of differences in the pronunciation of c and z vs. s in Spain.

Here is a discussion of the differences in the pronunciation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives

The simplified answer is that most of Spain will use the “th” sound, and Latin America and part of the southern part of Spain the “s” sound but if you really want to understand the details you will read the article.

To quote a part of it:

In Spanish dialectology, the terms distinción, seseo and ceceo are used to describe the opposition between dialects that distinguish the phonemes /?/ and /s/ (distinción), and those that exhibit merger of the two sounds (neutralización) into either /s/ (seseo) or [s?], a sibilant fricative similar to /?/ (ceceo).

Dialects that distinguish the two sounds, and thus pronounce the words casa "house" and caza "hunt" differently, are described as having distinción, whereas the dialects that lack this distinction and pronounce the two words as homophones are described as having seseo if both words are pronounced with [s] or ceceo if both words are pronounced with [s?].

Seseo is typical of the Latin American and Canarian dialects and some dialects of central Andalusia, whereas distinción is typical of most dialects in Spain, except in much of Andalusia and the Canary Islands. Ceceo is found in some dialects of Spain, in the southernmost part of Andalusia.

¡Yo ceceo! - de12wey, Oct 20, 2015

Normalmente yo seseo. Y entiendo lo de seseo mejor. :) - bosquederoble, Oct 20, 2015

Wow... what a spectacularly thorough and helpful answer! - jtaniel, Oct 20, 2015

Answer 2

The rules for Castillian style pronunciation is easy. "c" before "e" and "i", and "z" before the other vowels.

Also, a lot of people forget that in spoken Spanish everywhere the "d" gets pronounced as a "th" as in "although" Otherwise the hard English "d" sounds like a single "r".

Ex. "cada" should be pronounced as "catha" otherwise it would sound like "cara" at least to my ears. (Note) This rule pertains to "d" between vowels only. In other positions, the regular "d" is OK. See my comment below.

¡Lo mejor!

I pronounce the d somewhere between- my tongue is in between my teeth like a th, but there is less vibration/air pressure. Not that how I pronounce anything matters (but i think I do okay with the d, unlike the ere and erre). :) - bosquederoble, Oct 21, 2015

Your although example is good- it is pretty similar to what I try for. :) - bosquederoble, Oct 21, 2015

Big goof on my part, the "although" "d" is for between vowels only. Hablado, jubilado, nada, cada, partido, and so forth. I will edit now. - Daniela2041, Oct 21, 2015

Answer 3

Wow! That was an unexpected welcome to this website. Do you always greet newcomers with such a warm welcome? I am afraid I am going to upset you every time I ask a question in future too as I do not even have an "upside down" question mark on my keyboard.

John - new member/rulebreaker (apparently)

Please read the rules they are right there before you post. This is well written. All the Spanish characters are at the bottom of the description box where you post your answer. For titles use English if that is your language. - Jubilado, Oct 20, 2015

Spanish speakers usually have them on their devices. Look at some of the questions asked and you should not be surprised at my initial reactions. Welcome and a vote for this well written post. jtaniel has answered you. - Jubilado, Oct 20, 2015

Jubi: I'm a native Spanish speaker and don't have those things, but I do know all the "alt" codes and can use them faster than going down to the special characters bar. - Daniela2041, Oct 21, 2015

Dani: Thanks for your input. Spanish speakers may miss written accents and ¿ & ¡ but they always have ñ, don't they? My laptop doesn't have the alt num pad option so I have a program to use. - Jubilado, Oct 21, 2015

I don't have any of that stuff on my computer. but I do have a keypad, and that's unusual for a laptop. "ñ" for example is alt/0241. - Daniela2041, Oct 21, 2015

Answer 4

It would help us answer if you would complete your profile. Among other things, your location might give us a clue whether you're interested in pronunciation as in Spain or as in Latin America. (There are important regional differences.)

There are Spanish speakers here who are learning English; for this reason (among others) it is preferred that spelling, capitalization, and usage are correct.

There is no upside-down question mark on your keyboard, but there is one available below the box where you typed your question.

Thank you for explaining the need for precision. I will take more care in future. I will also complete my profile. - clevejon, Oct 20, 2015

You are welcome... and I mean that two ways. - jtaniel, Oct 20, 2015

Answer 5

Thank you to bosquederoble who provided my favourite answer. The reason I asked the question is that I listened to the SpanishDict.com pronunciation of the Spanish word ejercicio and to my ear, it sounded as if seseo pronunciation was used. But in other places I think I heard more the distinción pronunciation. So my supplementary question would be, "how do I know which pronunciation is used at the web site when I click on the audio symbol?"

Apologies if this is already explained somewhere but I am new to this site and (obviously) do not know my way around yet.

I am English and most interested in Spanish as spoken by the majority of mainland Spain. So I think that means "distinción" from the map above.

The audio icons here are often machine generated. The videos I believe are Latin Americans. The link I gave you at least tells what country the person is from, although Spain has a huge internal variation in dialects. :) - bosquederoble, Oct 20, 2015

I'm giving you another vote to show that I don't have any bad feelings from the initial exchange and hope you don't either. - Jubilado, Oct 21, 2015

Thank you. Life is too short to bear grudges! Perhaps I was over-sensitive? I do think this is a great website and forum. - clevejon, Oct 21, 2015