{"id":17645,"date":"2025-07-03T23:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T21:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/somos-animales-animados-the-pronunciation-of-s-in-spanish\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T01:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T23:27:09","slug":"somos-animales-animados-the-pronunciation-of-s-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/somos-animales-animados-the-pronunciation-of-s-in-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"Somos animales animados: the pronunciation of ‘s’ in Spanish"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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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!\n\n<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The ‘s’ is a consonant<\/em> because when pronouncing it, unlike vowels, something interferes that makes it difficult for air to exit the vocal apparatus. It’s a fricative<\/em> 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<\/em> 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<\/em> fricative. And it’s a consonant that is, in principle, dorsoalveolar<\/em> 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The \"correct\" pronunciation.<\/h6>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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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<\/em> and enseignants<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Somos animales animados.<\/h6>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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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.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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