Problematic Spanish sounds and letters (III): «G» and «J» (Ep. 24)

Bienvenido o bienvenida, my dear beginner!

In the previous podcast, I told you what happen when «G» meets with «E» and «I». I told you that you must pronounce this sonud as velarization /X/ and not as an English /G/ because this is the sound that you will find with the rest of the vowels.

Besides, I told you that you can also find the combination GU+E or GU+I, that sounds the same as English as well.

But, in this podcast, you will listen that it is not so easy at it seems…

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Having said that, we are going to dip into deeply in this particular sound of Spanish called «aspiration» and that is pronounced /X/, like GITANO, GENERAL.

As you can notice this is pronounced when you find the «E» and «I» vowels but… yes, that also can happen with the rest of the vowels. However, although it is the same sound /X/, you will have to make an ortographic distinction.

For example, you can find GITANO and GENERAL with «G», but you can also find JAMON (ham) or JUGAR (to play). However, this two last ones, JAMON y JUGAR are writen with J /jey/. The sound is the same one.

So, putting all together, the rule is the next one: you will have to make this sound (aspiration, /X/) everytime that you find G +E or +I and, besides, you will have to make the same sound everytime you find the letter «J».

But REMEMBER: if you just find G + A,O,U, you will pronounced as in English.

In the next podcast, my dear beginner, I will give you some tips to pronounce this difficult Spanish sound correctly.