Learning Spanish in 7 days — day 1 use your mouth

Pronunciation

It is day one for my 7-day experiment on learning a new language. To give you some context, I chose Spanish because this is a language that I have never learned before. The only three words I know in Spanish are: hola, gracias, and jueputa. But I do know some French and I heard that these two languages are like cousins. So I am hoping that this could help me learn Spanish.

photo by Parker Hilton from Unsplash

The tasks today are very simple:

#1 Spanish alphabet pronunciation

Have you ever had the experience of seeing a string of characters without knowing how to pronounce it (e.g. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrn-drobwllllantysiliogogogoch)? The latin alphabet can be pronounced differently in different languages. One of the most common mistakes in learning language is to pronounce words using the pronunciation of another language. An exaggerated example is Emily speaking French in Emily in Paris (and that kind of made her even more charming). Learning the proper pronunciation helps both listening and speaking and avoid misunderstanding.

To do so I use the “Echo method” introduced by Dr. Karen Chung. It is comprised of three simple steps:

1) listen to the audio,
2) pause (while there should be an echo of what you have just heard in your head), and
3) mimic and associate the sound with the meaning.

It is similar to how babies mimic adults. This way you could get a close to native pronunciation and gradually associate what you uttered and the meaning.

The website Span¡shD!ct has a page that provides an explicit guide in pronunciation. Obviously there are many useful websites you can choose from. Once you are familiar with the alphabets, you can move on to basic greetings, expressions, etc. Speak them out loud! Get your tongue used to this language!

#2 Tone

Every language has its specific rhythm. It is like a style of music. When mimicking the audio, it would be nice to also pay attention to the tone. I also put a random Spanish podcast/radio on as background music when I work on other things.

That is all for today! 🍣