A common complaint from native Spanish people in their attempts to learn English is the various difficulties that come up when trying to pronounce certain words correctly. One of the main causes of this problem is the general focus in Spanish schools towards grammar and reading, and the neglect of oral and listening skills. Here we have a look at some common problems faced by Spaniards with regard to their pronunciation.

Vowels

Perhaps the single biggest pronunciation problem for Spanish speakers is that their language does not have a distinction between short and long vowels. They often stretch all vowel sounds out too much and confuse pairs of short and long English vowel sounds like “ship” and “sheep” both in comprehension and speaking. Relevant pairs include:

• bit/beat
• not/note and not/nought
• batter/barter
• pull/pool

As the pairs above are all pronounced with different mouth positions as well as different lengths, focusing on…