Somos animales animados: the pronunciation of ‘s’ in Spanish
he consonant 's' is one of the letters that presents the most "dialectal" varieties in Spanish. I use quotation marks because, from my point of view, there are varieties, period, of the Spanish language and not dialects, but people who know much more than I do about the Spanish language and linguistics in general haven't managed to agree on this. But I won't go off on a tangent. In this article we'll look at the varieties of 's' pronunciation in the different varieties of the Spanish language and the possible different pronunciations within each variety of the language. Let's go!
The ‘s’ is a consonant because when pronouncing it, unlike vowels, something interferes that makes it difficult for air to exit the vocal apparatus. It’s a fricative consonant because air exits the vocal apparatus through a narrow opening, although this can change in some variants of its pronunciation. It’s a voiceless consonant, that is, when pronouncing it the vocal cords don’t vibrate, but as we’ll see, it can also be pronounced as a voiced fricative. And it’s a consonant that is, in principle, dorsoalveolar in Hispanic America, that is, the back of the tongue faces the alveoli, which are the small ridges we have on the palate behind the teeth when pronouncing it, and apicoalveolar in Spain, that is, the tip of the tongue faces the alveoli to produce this sound. But all this is the generality, since there are more variants in its pronunciation.
The "correct" pronunciation.
Theoretically in Spanish, unlike English and French for example, one pronounces exactly what one reads, or what one sees. That is, one sees a letter or a set of letters that always sound the same and will always sound the same. The same happens with the German language: one of the best ways to learn Spanish or German, from my point of view at least, is to start with phonetics, with the sounds of the language, because in 40 minutes one can learn how to pronounce each word, which is motivating. On the contrary, starting to learn French or English trying to learn, with a few rules, how to pronounce each word, would be a very bad strategy. Teachers and enseignants, don’t try to lie to me. I already know how it is. Now, while I maintain that the best gateway to learning Spanish is phonetics, we have the problem that Spanish is a multicentric language and there are, at least, 8 varieties. So, let’s look at the two pronunciations that are supposed to be correct for the letter ‘s’ and also the others we’ll find in real life. On the street.
Somos animales animados.
The standard pronunciation in Spain, that is, the one you normally hear in, for example, media outlets, is the apicoalveolar, although in some areas of southern Spain the ‘s’ is pronounced more similar to the pronunciation of Hispanic America, although not exactly the same. Let’s listen to the apicoalveolar pronunciation.
Although in areas of countries like Bolivia or Colombia you can hear the apicoalveolar ‘s’, in Hispanic America in general the pronunciation is dorsoalveolar. Let’s listen to it.
Aspiration, Elision and Assimilation.
I’m going to repeat the same concept: phonetics is a good gateway to the Spanish language, because by learning a few rules it’s easy to know what sound is behind each phoneme. That is, in Spanish don’t happen things like, for example, the pronunciation of Australia in English: /ɒsˈtreɪliːə/. In Spanish behind each phoneme, or each letter to simplify it to the extreme, there’s generally only one sound, although for some phonemes this can vary depending on the variety of the language in question. We’ve already seen, in fact, that for the particular case of ‘s’ there are, broadly speaking, two pronunciations, the apicoalveolar and the dorsoalveolar. But yes, there are more.
The ‘s’, at the end of a syllable, at the end of a word or before a consonant is usually aspirated in many varieties of Spanish, which gives it a sound similar to the ‘h’ in English in the word hello.
The aspiration of ‘s’ can also be complete, which is called elision:
Before voiced consonants, or for example before ‘f’, the phenomenon of assimilation occurs, that is, the ‘s’, so to speak, “joins” with the following consonant, prolonging it:
This phenomenon can, furthermore, lead to the ‘s’ being pronounced as a voiced fricative consonant in some areas of Spain. I didn’t find clear audio examples to include in this article and I didn’t record them myself because, honestly, I tried to pronounce the ‘s’ that way in that position and I couldn’t. Anyway, it’s not such a significant difference.
The phenomena of aspiration and elision of ‘s’ are very variable. They depend on the variant of Spanish in question and, furthermore, on the linguistic register, that is, on the context in which the speaker is using the language. This latter point is because in certain contexts aspiration or elision can be seen as a discredited way of speaking the language, and because all speakers of all languages (I assume) vary the linguistic register according to the situation. I myself come from a region of Uruguay where the aspiration of ‘s’ at the end of a syllable is the rule and not the exception, but I’ve lived for many years in a part of the country where it’s pronounced differently, so my pronunciation changed… to a certain extent. It depends on who I’m talking to. And beyond the generalities I’ve told you in this article, this is a topic to explore variety by variety of the language, because it’s very variable. To give a quick example, in some areas of Colombia, and I clarify that I love Colombian accents, yes, there’s more than one, the ‘s’ is aspirated in positions where in my variety it would never be aspirated and I haven’t even managed to understand the pattern of that ‘s’ aspiration. Yes, that’s how variable it is and no, it doesn’t hinder communication.
To finish the article let’s look at a real example. I’m leaving you with the transcription of a WhatsApp audio that I myself sent to a friend, and two audio versions. The first with a slower pronunciation and eating fewer ‘s’ sounds and the second is the real audio I sent. It seemed like a good example because there are ‘s’ sounds in different positions so you can hear examples of assimilation, aspiration and even elision. I recorded a third version of the same text pronouncing all the ‘s’ sounds and decided not to upload it because that sounded really weird :).
¿Cuánto va de partido? Están al horno ya, porque… O sea, debe quedar… Debe, debe haber empezado a las diez de la noche ese partido, ¿no? Ehm, tendrían que empatar dos a dos. O sea, ahí clasificarían, por las reglas raras esas. Pero me parece que no les va a dar el tiempo.
(How much time is left in the game? They’re in trouble now, because… I mean, there must be… It must, it must have started at ten at night that game, right? Um, they would have to tie two to two. I mean, there they would qualify, because of those weird rules. But it seems to me that they’re not going to have enough time).
*This pronunciation is River Plate. That’s why I pronounce /ʃa/ instead of /ʝa/.
*The pronunciation of ‘c’ in parece (it seems) is a topic for another article.
*Estar al horno (to be in the oven) means, colloquially in Uruguay, to be in trouble.
*Here you can read more about Spanish phonetics.
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