Why «C» and «Z» don’t get well with «S» in America (Ep. 28)

Bienvenido o bienvenida, my dear beginner!

In this podcast, we are going to finish with this second problematic sound /CE/ or /SE/ that involves two different letters: C+E+I and Z+A+E+I+O+U.

As I told you in the last podcast, you must learn by heart which Spanish words include «C» and which one include «Z».

But, I’m going to make it more difficult. ¿Estás preparado? Are you ready? Well, let’s begin.

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If you are a not seseante speaker like me, this way is going to be easier for you but, by contrast, if you are a seseante speaker from America or south Spain, it’s going to be more difficult. You will have to add a new letter that has the same sound as «Z» and «C+e» or «C+i». And it’s the letter «S».

As I told you in the podcast number 8, seseante speakers doesn’t pronounce the sound /CE/, that it’s a caracteristic of the speakers from the north of Spain. They change the sound /C/, for the sound /S/, like in English the word Say.

In consecuence, you can guess that every time that a seseante speaker face with a word with /C/ sound (ZEbra, Zapato, CIen, CEnar) he Will have to pronounce it with «S» sound, something that involve also all the Spanish words that are writen with «S» (sábado, Sergio, silla…).

In summary, if you are a seseante speaker you will have the same sound «S» with Z+A+O+U+I, C+E+I and S+A+E+I+O+U.

Por ejemplo, we have «CASAR» and «CAZAR» (one is writen with Z and means To hunt a animal, but the other is writen with S and it means to get married); and in the same sense, we have ZETA and SETA (one is the «letter Z» and the other means «mushroom»).

So, I recommend you again to read a lot and meanwhile, to listen a lot to memorize by heart how the words are writen and how they are pronounced. And again, I recomend you to buy a good audiobook for beginners or to listen this podcast with the transcription that you will find in my blog.