How to Pronounce: Common Issue for Spanish Speakers - Consonant clusters

Hello! I’m John Russell
Let’s explore one of the common issues that Spanish speakers face when pronouncing English words.
Even if you do not speak Spanish, you can still learn from this video!
In Spanish, a vowel often comes before a consonant cluster – a group of consonant sounds.
But in English, vowels might not come before consonant clusters.
The result is that Spanish speakers often add extra vowels to the beginning of English words.
Here’s an example:
Think of a common English word, such as school.
School starts with the consonant sounds at the beginning of the word.
School
The Spanish word for school is this:
Escuela
Notice that a vowel comes before the consonant sounds.
Often, Spanish speakers add an extra vowel when saying English words. So,
School becomes “e”school
Or for example, study becomes something like “e”study
Luckily, there are some things you can practice to overcome this issue.
The first is to lengthen the first consonant sound in the word you want to practice.
For example, say
/sssssssssssss/study
Or /ssssssssssss/school
Then try more complex statements such as
“I /sssssssss/speak /sssssssss/Spanish”
Over time, you can shorten the /s/ sound so that it sounds more like what an English speaker would say:
“I /ssss/speak /ssss/Spanish”
“I speak Spanish”
That’s all for today! Keep up the good work!

Originally published at - https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a...