The secret of how to improve your Spanish accent fast – Episode 40

The secret of how to improve your Spanish accent fast

Podcast episode 40 – SEE ALL EPISODES

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Today we’ve got a great pronunciation question.

Hi, welcome back to Speak Spanish with Maria Fernandez. I’m Maria Fernandez, a native Spanish teacher and course author.

See also: Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses.

Today’s question comes from Bret, one of my Twitter followers. Bret wrote to me: “I started learning Spanish about a year ago, and I seem to have acquired some bad pronunciation habits. How can I get rid of them? When I talk to my Spanish friends, they often don’t understand what I’m saying. It’s so frustrating.”

How to improve your Spanish accent: intro

As a language learner myself, I totally sympathise. When I was learning English, I had to make a huge effort to improve my accent. You see, I was taught mainly by non-native teachers, which was a disaster for my accent. I had so many bad pronunciation habits.

Basically, I had to relearn hundreds of words, and practice for tens of hours, just to improve my accent.

I never again made the same mistake when learning other languages. Instead, what I did was to develop a technique that gives you a great accent. Guaranteed!

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

How to improve your Spanish accent: main points

In this episode, I’m going to go through the main five points of my technique. It will help you get rid of bad pronunciation habits in Spanish. And it will also help you develop a superb accent from now on.

The 5 points are:

Number 1. Learning the pronunciation rules.
Number 2. Focusing on the vowels.
Number 3. Doing pronunciation exercises regularly.
Number 4. Aiming at clarity, not perfection.
Number 5. Learning only from native speakers.

Let’s see these five points in detail:

How to improve your Spanish accent: point 1

Number 1. Learn the pronunciation rules

The Spanish pronunciation rules are straightforward. You can learn the rules quickly with a good course. In Spanish, unlike in English, each set of letters has a specific sound that never changes. Learning the Spanish pronunciation rules well, is the best way to start developing a good accent.

How to improve your Spanish accent: point 2

Number 2. Focus on the vowels

I’m sure by now you’ve heard me say this. If you want to have a good Spanish accent, you need to master the vowels. And once you’ve mastered the vowels, the odds of being understood by Spanish speakers is much, much higher. So, focus on: a e i o u.

Most Spanish courses don’t help you with these sounds. They assume you’re going to master them as you go along, the way children do. Unfortunately, as adults, we need to work on our pronunciation, because it doesn’t come naturally. And that leads us to:

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

How to improve your Spanish accent: point 3

Point 3. Do pronunciation exercises regularly

The Spanish pronunciation rules may be straightforward. But that doesn’t mean that developing a good accent is easy. You need to work on it. A good Spanish course will give you plenty of exercises to master all the sounds. And, at the same time, it will help you avoid bad habits.

Good pronunciation exercises cover all the Spanish sounds, with special emphasis on the most difficult ones apart from the vowels. For instance: ce, gue, ge, lle, ñe, rre, and a few others.

Pronunciation exercises are also great for learning where the stress goes on each word. And for mastering the intonation. All that will skyrocket your conversation skills.

How to improve your Spanish accent: point 4

Number 4. Aim at clarity, not perfection

The good news is that, to communicate without trouble, you don’t need to have a perfect accent. All you need is a clear accent.

Avoid the mistakes that make Spanish unintelligible. You don’t need to roll your double R like a native, or master the J or the Y. All you need to do is produce clear sounds that are close to what a native speaker expects to hear. A good Spanish course will help you with that.

How to improve your Spanish accent: point 5

Number 5. Learn only from native speakers

After the ordeal I went through to get rid of my appalling English accent, this, for me, is an absolute must. Unfortunately, there are dozens of courses out there, especially mobile apps, that have NOT been recorded by native speakers. The accents in some of those Spanish courses are simply awful.

Make sure your Spanish course is recorded by native speakers. That way you won’t have to waste hours, like I did, getting rid of bad pronunciation habits.

How to improve your Spanish accent: let’s recap

To recap, these are the five point that will help you develop a great Spanish accent:

Number 1. Learn the pronunciation rules.
Number 2. Focus on the vowels.
Number 3. Do pronunciation exercises regularly.
Number 4. Aim at clarity, not perfection.
Number 5. Learn only from native speakers.

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

Find out more about my Spanish courses.