The Spanish Vowels
In today’s lesson, you will learn:
- What a Spanish Vowel is.
- How to “Tune” each of the Five Spanish vowels by adjusting your tongue position.
- How Spanish Vowels differ from English vowels in LENGTH.
- What the four most common Spanish Vowel Pronunciation errors are and how to fix them.
What is a Spanish Vowel?
There are two basic types of Spanish sounds – Spanish vowels and Spanish consonants.
Spanish consonants are created whenever you use your tongue, lips, or any other part of your mouth to obstruct the airflow through your mouth.
In contrast, Spanish vowels are created whenever you allow air to flow through your mouth completely unobstructed.
There are only five vowel sounds in Spanish – /a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ and /o/. The recording below contains each of these sounds in this order.
What differentiates one Spanish vowel from the next is the position of the tongue within the mouth.
In phonetics, we use Vowel Charts to visualize the tongue positions of vowels. A vowel chart is a geometric representation of the side-view of your mouth.
- The top left corner of a vowel chart represents the top of your mouth (near upper teeth).
- The bottom left corner of a vowel chart represents the bottom of your mouth (near lower teeth).
- The right corners represent the Back of your mouth.
The image above is of the Spanish vowel chart. It shows the tongue position of each of the five Spanish Vowels.
Your goal as a Spanish learner is to hit these five tongue positions with accuracy and consistency.
To do this, you will need to learn how to “Tune” your Spanish vowels.
Tuning The Spanish Vowel Sounds
As the vowel chart suggests, there are only four directions of tongue movement that will affect the Spanish vowel sound: UP, DOWN, FORWARD and BACKWARD.
Since we all speak our native languages naturally without thinking about the physical movements in our mouth, you probably can’t feel what direction your tongue is moving when you speak.
That’s why the first step in Spanish vowel tuning is developing an awareness and control over your tongue’s movement.
Spanish Vowel Openness
Let’s start by developing an awareness of the UP movement. Using the audio file and diagrams below as a guide, do the following:
- Start by articulating the /a/ vowel continuously.
- Next, slowly transition to an /u/ vowel WITHOUT moving your jaw or lips (this will feel awkward but its necessary to isolate the tongue movement).
- After a brief moment of silence, reset your tongue to the /a/ position and repeats the above steps as many times as it takes for you to associate this movement to the direction of “Up”.
Now let’s reverse it and build an awareness of the DOWN movement:
- Start by articulating the /a/ vowel continuously.
- Next, slowly transition to an /u/ vowel WITHOUT moving your jaw or lips.
- After a brief moment of silence, reset your tongue to the /u/ position and repeats the above steps as many times as it takes for you to associate this movement to the direction of “Down”.
Because the /a/ vowel has a lower tongue position than the /u/ vowel, we can say that the /a/ vowel is more OPEN than the /u/ vowel. Conversely, since the /u/ vowel has a higher tongue position than the /a/ vowel, we can say that the /u/ vowel is more CLOSED than the /a/ vowel.So to summarize, moving your your tongue UP makes the vowel more CLOSED, and moving your tongue DOWN makes the vowel more OPEN.
Spanish Vowel Backness
Now we will do the same type of drill to develop your awareness of Spanish vowel BACKNESS. The first drill is to develop an awareness of the FORWARD movement of the tongue toward the
teeth.
- Start by articulating the /i/ vowel continuously with relaxed lips.
- Next, slowly transition to an /u/ vowel.
- After a brief moment of silence, reset your tongue to the /i/ position and repeats the above steps as many times as it takes for you to associate this movement to the direction of “Forward”.
- Start by articulating the /i/ vowel continuously.
- Next, slowly transition to an /u/ vowel WITHOUT moving your lips (to isolate the tongue movement).
- After a brief moment of silence, reset your tongue to the /i/ position and repeats the above steps as many times as it takes for you to associate this movement to the direction of “Backward”.
- Moving your tongue BACKWARD makes the vowel more BACK.
- Moving your tongue FORWARD makes the vowel more FRONT.
- Therefore, /i/ is more FRONT than /u/, and /u/ is more BACK than /i/
Spanish Vowel Shortness
Another feature of a vowel is its LENGTH in terms of time. LONG vowels take more time to say than SHORT vowels.
In English, we have both SHORT and LONG vowels. In Spanish, however, all the vowels are SHORT. In the audio file below I demonstrate this by comparing the Spanish vowels: /a/ /i/ /u/ /e/ and /o/ with their relatively longer English counterparts.
The relative SHORTNESS of Spanish vowels is part of the reason why Spanish is faster and more crisp-sounding than English.
In the next section, we are going to review the most common Spanish vowel pronunciation errors. Most of the Spanish Vowel pronunciation errors you will make are related to tongue position and vowel length.
As you read along, see if you can identify which errors you make when speaking Spanish.
The 4 Most Common Spanish Vowel Pronunciation Errors
After correcting thousands of pronunciation errors, I have identified the following four errors as being the most common ways to mispronounce the Spanish vowels.
There is a very high chance that you commit at least one of these Spanish vowel pronunciation errors whenever you speak Spanish.
To help you better remember these errors, I have given each of them humorous names and images. So let’s get started.
Error #1: “The Bashful /a/ Vowel”
The “Bashful /a/ vowel” error is when your tongue it too HIGH on the Spanish vowel /a/, resulting in a more CLOSED pronunciation. The spanish /a/ vowel is supposed to be the most OPEN and bright vowel in the language. So when you CLOSE its pronunciation, it’s as if the vowel has become shy and bashful.To correct your bashful /a/ vowel error, you’re going to have to OPEN up.
Example words:
- Nada
- nunca
- habla
- diga
- arroz
This audio first reviews this Spanish vowel sound and then compares the English and Spanish Pronunciation of the name “Ana.” Mimic my pronunciation so that you can feel the difference.
Why you do it:
This error is most likely to occur on an unstressed syllable. This is because in English, we are used to making this ‘uh’ sound when we have an /a/ on an unstressed syllable (e.g. “a-bout”, “gott-a”, “a-round”). This is an ingrained habit that transfers to other languages.
How to Fix It:
LOWER your tongue on every single /a/ vowel – stressed and unstressed. It helps to lower your jaw as well to create more space for the /a/. Note that the Spanish /a/ is already more OPEN than the English /a/, so the key to nailing this sound in general is to exaggerate its openness.
Error #2: “The E-String Thong”
The “E-String Thong” error is when you say the vowel /eɪ/ instead of /e/.
This /eɪ/ sound is known as a “diphthong” because it involves sliding between two vowel sounds, in this case the /e/ and the /ɪ/ vowels. That’s why I call it the “E-string thong” error.
Example words:
- negra
- tiene
- bueno
- leche
- jefe
Why you do this:
In English we almost never say the /e/ vowel by itself; we always articulate it as /eɪ/. So we developed a habit of moving our tongue up whenever we say this sound.
How you can fix it:
Make sure your tongue is fixed in the Spanish /e/ vowel position then do NOT move the tongue at all during articulation.
Spanish vowels in general are more SHORT in duration than English ones. Since English vowels are longer, we have more time to diphthongize. Focusing on the shortness of this /e/ vowel will help prevent you from making the e-string thong error.
Error #3: The Whistle Lip /u/
The whistle lip /u/ error is when you purse your lips and raise your tongue while articulating the /u/ vowel. If you look at your lips while your doing it, it looks like you are whistling, hence the name whistle lip /u/.
Example Words:
- tú
- ustéd
- jugo
- uso
- abusa
The spanish /u/ is made with “Neutral” lips. “The Whistle Lip u Error” error is when you articulate this sound with rounded lips.
Why you do it:
The /u/ vowel in English is both LONG and involves a lot of lip rounding. The roundedness of your lips during articulation of a vowel also affects the sound. This is how you are used to doing the sound in English. Yo you will have a tendency to raise your tongue and purse your lips while doing the /u/ vowel in Spanish.
How to Fix it:
Focus on pulling your tongue BACK and leaving your lips relaxed while articulating this vowel.
This error is also related to the comparative LONGNESS of English vowels. Saying the Spanish /u/ vowel short and crisp gives you no time to move your lips and tongue.
Your lips can round a little bit, but nowhere near as much as you do in English. It helps to double check yourself by looking at your lips in the mirror.
Error #4: The Whistle Lip O – String Thong
This error combines the features of the last two errors – lip rounding and diphthongization (moving the vowel).
This error occurs when you say /oʊ/ instead of Spanish /o/. In other words, you are raising the tongue from the /o/ to the /ʊ/ vowel while articulating.
You will also add some lip rounding to the end of the vowel when making this error.
Example Words:
- no
- solo
- cosa
- oso
- hablo
Why you do it:
Once again, this is just how we pronounce this sound in English. We make the vowel LONG enough to raise our tongues and round our lips during the articulation. The Spanish /o/ does not have any of these features.
How to Fix it:
Focus on articulating the Spanish /o/ position without moving your tongue at all. Also make sure that your lips are completely relaxed to avoid rounding.
Once again, this problem can be fixed by focusing just on the SHORTNESS of the Spanish /o/ vowel. Say it fast enough that there is no time for you to raise your tongue or purse your lips.
The Consistency of Spanish Vowels
Something very common among my Flow of Spanish students is pronouncing a vowel correctly in some situations and incorrectly in others. What determines this is the consonant sounds that surround the vowel. For example, an English speaker might pronounce the letter ‘e’ in the syllable “se” different than he would in syllable “es.”
The Native Spanish speaker, however, would pronounce these vowels the exact same way in both syllables, as demonstrated in the audio below:
The reason you would do this is because English has many more vowel sounds than Spanish. So we’ve developed different habits for pronouncing vowels in different situations.
Luckily, Spanish is extremely consistent in its vowel articulation. The Spanish rapper Nach demonstrates this in a rap song which he centers each verse around a single vowel.
Notice how the vowel sound in each verse is the exact same despite being surrounded by different consonants:
You need to strive for the same consistency in your Spanish vowel pronunciation. This is one of the keys to speaking Spanish with an authentic accent.
Conclusion
To wrap up, let’s review some of the key insights we learned in this lesson:
- Spanish vowel sounds are created when air flows unobstructed to the mouth
- To tune Spanish vowels, you need to develop an awareness of your tongue position and movement.
- Spanish vowels are SHORTER in length than English vowels. This is the root of the most common Spanish vowel pronunciation errors.
- You can fix the most common errors by understanding vowel anatomy and focusing on the correct habits.