How do I pronounce equis in Spanish?

Question

How do I pronounce equis in Spanish?

Answer 1

The letter of the alphabet IS pronounced "ey-kees" but what does it sound like in a word?

Usually it is pronounced as an "eks" or "x" as in English. Most of the time I don't do it like that and in fast conversation I pronounce it like "s"

There are some words where it is pronounced as a Spanish "j" which sounds like an "h" on steroids, or like a kitty cat spitting.

Among the most familiar are "Texas" and México."

Answer 2

As Jubilado says, for any pronunciation questions you can simply go to SpanishDict's dictionary and hear your answer. If you want more varied examples you can also try forvo.com

Answer 3

Click Here

Then click on the little speaker to the right of equis

Answer 4

Equis, as in the Spanish name of the letter <X, x>? Like the beer, Dos Equis? To answer your question directly:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/equis

As a rule, there are five vowel sounds in Spanish represented by more than 5 symbols/letters... but +consonant will only ever yield that same sound the symbol is designated... that sound is almost exactly the same as the English name of the letter <A, a>... the sAme sound we find in the letter's nAme, or in the words, ape, rape, tape, eight, late, date, gate, Kate, etc, etc... or in the a's of the words SAME and NAME... that long /?, ?/ sound we have in English is designated to and ONLY to the symbol/letter <E, e> in Spanish... as for the sequence in Spanish... here it gets a lil dicey, but it's still pretty straightforward... those letters will only and ever make a hard <K, k> sound... when they are mixed with a vowel (and they are ALWAYS followed by a vowel in Spanish... USUALLY a mid-vowel or to yield or whether it has an accent or not... accents only do two jobs, they tell you emphasis/golpe de voz and that a vowel syllable[a.k.a...... a diphthong] is broken into two separate syllables). > /ki/ > [kí] like English noun 'key' > /ke/ > [ké] like English name 'Kay' only slightly shorter... more like the sassy response a teenage girl would give to her parents or boyfriend that is texted like 'K.' literally k-period. Now, when / is followed by an you have the traditional S-noise we think of in English, but the letter in Spanish has two possible sounds depending on its position and environment in a word... i.e. its surrounding letters... When it falls between vowels, like in the word 'casa'... The changes to a /z/... voiceless versus voiced... put your hand against your throat and feel the difference between casa with a S-sound and casa with a Z-sound... SSSSSSS like a snake versus ZZZZZZZ like a bee... that's what I mean by voiced or voiceless... if your vocal cords are not vibrating, then it is voiceless... or if it's easier to envision, pronounce 'casa' versus 'caza'... the two words are pronounced identically in the Standard even though you will want to differentiate the two as a native English speaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives#Seseo

Equis > say: 1) 'Hey'/''ey' in a Canadian accent 2) followed by the plural noun 'keys' ... or 1) take 'a key' with 'a' having that LONG A-sound (unlike a short a...in sofa or example for example) and corrupt the grammar by saying 'a keys'... it feels just as wrong as when people say 'a scissors'... just mash that all up and you have the exact pronounciation...

Spanish is very straightforward with its vocalic pronunciation... It has only five monophthong (your singular, essential vowel sound... short a, e, i, o, u... long a, e, i, o, u) it only has short ones... and very few diphthongs (a syllable with 2 vowels that feels like a glide... e.g. the -oy ending of the English word 'boy' depending on notation (Sampa, IPA, etc) phonemic /boi/ phonetic [b??],,, ) Latin American Spanish has the simplest phonology out of any of the Romance Languages... out of any European language other than like Bosnian/Serbian, for that matter, but those are from a different language family...

Spanish <A,a> = English 'ahhh' as in 'ahhhh, I've just made a realization...' but very short Spanish <E,e> = English <A,a> Spanish <I, i> = English <E,e> Spanish <O, o> = English <O,o> but with more pursed, rounder lips and shorter Spanish <U, u> = English or or 900 other spelling options, roughly, but a very short U-sound... like 'Kewl', 'pool', 'poo', 'roux', 'rue', 'lieu', or like 'to' or a ballerina's 'tutu' not 'too' or 'two', which is pulled out a bit further.

Very nice and erudite post. Please fill out your profile and I'll give you a vote. - Jubilado, Sep 21, 2016

Where did you find this? - rac1, Sep 22, 2016

Hmmmmmm. Actually it is a little too much. - Daniela2041, Sep 22, 2016

The website where he got it from is at the top of the answer. - Daniela2041, Sep 22, 2016