Wikipedia:IPA for Spanish

Consonants
IPA Examples English approximation
b bestia; embuste; vaca; envidia best
β bebé; obtuso; vivir; curva [1] between baby and bevy
d dedo; cuando; aldaba dead
ð dádiva; arder; admirar [1] this
f fase; café [2] face
ɡ gato; lengua; guerra got
ɣ trigo; amargo; sigue; signo [1] between a light go and ahold
ʝ ayuno; poyo [1] between beige and due in RP English
k caña; laca; quise; kilo scan
l lino; alhaja; principal lean
ʎ llave; pollo [3] roughly like million (merged with Template:IPAslink in
most dialects)
m madre; comer; campo; convertir [4] mother
n nido; anillo; anhelo; sin; álbum [4] need
ɲ ñandú; cabaña; enyesar [4] roughly like canyon
ŋ cinco; venga; conquista; enjambre [4] sink
p pozo; topo spouse
r rumbo; carro; honra; subrayo; amor [5] trilled r
ɾ caro; bravo; amor eterno [5] ladder in American English
s saco; casa; deshora; espita[6] xenón sack
θ cereal; encima; zorro; enzima; paz [7] thing (in central and northern Spain only;
elsewhere, merged with Template:IPAslink)
t tamiz; átomo stand
tʃ chubasco; acechar choose
x jamón; eje; reloj[8] general; México loch (pronounced [h] in many dialects;
like ham)
z isla; mismo; deshuesar [9] prison
Marginal phonemes[10]
IPA Examples English approximation
ʃ Kirchner; Xirau; sherpa shack
tɬ tlapalería; cenzontle; Popocatépetl somewhat like cattle
ts Ertzaintza; abertzale; Pátzcuaro cats
Vowels
IPA Examples English approximation
a azahar Barack Obama
e vehemente play (Yorkshire dialect)[11]
i dimitir; mío; y see
o boscoso coat (Yorkshire dialect)[12]
u cucurucho; dúo food
 
Semivowels[13]
IPA Examples English approximation
j aliada; cielo; amplio; ciudad you
w cuadro; fuego; Huila[14] arduo wine
 
Stress and syllabification
IPA Examples English approximation
ˈ ciudad [θjuˈðað] / [sjuˈðað] domain
ˌ léelo [ˈleeˌlo] intonation
. mío [ˈmi.o] moai

Notes

Other than in loanwords (e.g. hámster; hachís; hawaiano), the letter ‹h› is always silent in Spanish except in a few dialects that retain it as [h] or [x] (halar / jalar; Sáhara).[15]
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 /b/, /d/, /ʝ/ and /ɡ/ are approximants ([β̞], [ð̞], [ʝ˕] [ɣ˕]; represented here without the undertacks) in all places except after a pause, after an /n/ or /m/, or—in the case of /d/ and /ʝ/—after an /l/, in which contexts they are stops [b, d, ɟʝ, ɡ], not dissimilar from English b, d, j, g.Template:Harvcol.
  2. ↑ The phoneme Template:IPAslink is often pronounced as [ɸ], with the lips touching each other rather than the front teeth.
  3. ↑ In metropolitan areas of the Iberian Peninsula and some Central American countries, /ʎ/ has merged into Template:IPAslink; the actual realization depends on dialect. In Rioplatense Spanish, it has become [ʃ] or [ʒ]. see yeísmo and (Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté 2003, p. 258) for more information.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The nasal consonants /n, m, ɲ/ only contrast before vowels. Before consonants, they assimilate to the consonant's place of articulation. This is partially reflected in the orthography. Word-finally, only /n/ occurs.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 The rhotic consonants /ɾ/ ‹r› and /r/ ‹rr› only contrast between vowels. Otherwise, they are in complementary distribution as ‹r›, with [r] occurring word-initially, after /l/, /n/, and /s/, before consonants, and word-finally; [ɾ] is found elsewhere.
  6. ↑ For many speakers, /s/ may debuccalize or be deleted in the syllable coda (at the end of words and before consonants).
  7. ↑ In Andalusia, Canary Islands, and Latin America /θ/ has merged into Template:IPAslink; see seseo and (Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté 2003, p. 258) for more information.
  8. ↑ For many speakers, the ‹j› is silent at the end of a word, in which case reloj is pronounced [reˈlo].
  9. ↑ Allophone of /s/ before voiced consonants.
  10. ↑ The marginal phonemes are found in loanwords, largely from Basque, English, and Nahuatl.
  11. ↑ The Spanish /e/ doesn't quite line up with any English vowel, though the nearest equivalents are the vowel of play (for most English dialects) and the vowel of bed; the Spanish vowel is usually articulated at a point between the two.
  12. ↑ The Spanish /o/ doesn't quite line up with any English vowel, though the nearest equivalents are the vowel of coat (for most English dialects) and the vowel of raw; the Spanish vowel is usually articulated at a point between the two.
  13. ↑ In Spanish, the semivowels [w] and [j] can be combined with vowels to form rising diphthongs (e.g. cielo, cuadro). Falling diphthongs though; e.g. aire, rey, auto, are transcribed with Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink.
  14. ↑ Some speakers may pronounce word initial [w] with an epenthetic /g/; e.g. Huila [ˈgwila]~[ˈwila].
  15. ↑ "Grapheme h". Diccionario panhispánico de dudas. Real Academia Española.

See also

  • Spanish phonology
  • Spanish dialects and varieties
  • History of the Spanish language

References

  • Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259