<Heeeyyyy...wainuhminute! Spanish must have more than 5 vowels?
<
<What about -ay as in "No hay nada"?
<
<or [O] as in "La historia" or "Senor" (as distinct from the o <in "No")?
<
<Reading and learning...
<
<GWendel (dT)
I've spoken spanish all my life (Born and bred in Ecuador and lived there till
two years ago) and I can tell you there are NO more than 5 vowels in spanish.
The "o" in Historia and Seņor sound *exactly* alike and must be pronounced that
way. "Hay" is an exception, when the Y (greek i, as we call it)is AFTER a
vowel, then there is a diphtong, so basically HAY is "a" + "y" (Or, to
illustrate my point, the greek "Y" serves the function of the latin "i"). When
the Y is before a vowel, the sound becomes that of the double L in spanish, in
words such as "llorando", "lluvia". Make sure you ask a latin american to
pronounce these words, as most americans will say "Iuvia", "Iorando", don't ask
people from Argentina for this because -due to their native accent-, they turn
the Y and the LL into SH (they would say SHuvia, SHorando). It is a dry sound.
If you've learned it from a teacher, then I'm afraid you didn't have a very
good teacher :P I'm the student assistant of the spanish tutor here at the
college and we get lots of cases of students from high school who learned
spanish from american teacher whose vowels go all over the place (sometimes
they sound like they are speaking french) and, try as they might, do not manage
to master the open vowels of spanish---thus, their o, a, u ,i and e become
covered and -like I like to say- take on a life of their own, mutating wildly
into variations of the sounds. I'll go as far as saying that the vowels in
Italian and Spanish are exactly the same.
If you want to have an indisputable guide for spanish/italian pronunciation,
ask an italian or a latin american-- Do not take other teacher's advice as
gospel, even our teachers here with a Master in the spanish language have a
tendency to screw up the vowels from time to time.
Also, the second piece of advise: make sure they know how to speak their
language properly. You'll clearly be able to distinguish the clean and precise
diction of someone who handles the language from the uninteligible jargon some
people tend to speak (this happens a lot in Latin America, especially in places
like Puerto Rico where they turn the "r" to "l" and the "e" (eh) to "i" (ee))
There's my two cents :p
Pablo Romero
-----------------
Bright is the ring of words
when the right man rings them
Fair the fall of songs
when the singer sings them
Still they are carolled and said
on wings they are carried
After the singer is dead
And the maker buried.
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