G's in spanish

Question

Why do some "g's" have the "h"or a silent sound and some the "g" sound? Like in "igualmente " the "g" has a silent or "h" sound but in one like "Amiga" the "g" is a "g" sound?

welcome to the forum, :) - 006595c6, Sep 14, 2017

Answer 1

Hi Jonathan, welcome to the forum

The letter G in Spanish has several well defined pronunciations, and unlike in English, which has a million sounds for every single vowel, Spanish is quite consistent .

Have a look at this interesting explanation.

Pronunciation of the letter G in Spanish.

The sound "gua" , not mentioned in the link, has this distinctive "h" sound...aspirada we call it.

You can find this in many words: guarra, guarnición, Guantánamo

http://www.aprende-espanol.com/es/pronunciacion/letra_g

A million sounds for every single vowel? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: Don't exaggerate! - jtaniel, Sep 14, 2017

Answer 2

Why not?
Letters behave differently in English, too (more so than in Spanish) depending on what other letters surround them. The "h" has a different sound in Home, Thatch (two different sounds in that single word), and cough, for example.

There are historial reasons for that, of course, which you can easily google up, but there's nothing particularly unusual about letters having different sounds in different words.

jejeje, vaya cosas que dices, en español hay reglas de pronunciación - 006595c6, Sep 14, 2017

Bueno, claro, y en inglés también, no es a lo loco. Pero la pregunta es "por qué", no "cuándo se pronuncia de una u otra forma". El por qué tiene que ver con la histora del lenguaje, y eso en turno lleva a las reglas. - Gekkosan, Sep 14, 2017