Other symbols used in transcription of Spanish pronunciation
IPA
Explanation
ˈ
Stress (placed before the stressed syllable), viuda[ˈbjuða]
Notes
^ abcde/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.(Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté 2003:257-8).
^ abcdeThe 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.
^ abThe 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.
^For many speakers, the ‹j› is silent at the end of a word, in which case reloj is pronounced [reˈlo].
^The Spanish /e/ doesn't quite line up with any English vowel, though the nearest equivalents are the vowel of pay (for most English dialects) and the vowel of bed; the Spanish vowel is usually articulated at a point between the two.
^The Spanish /e/ doesn't quite line up with any English vowel, though the nearest equivalents are the vowel of pay (for most English dialects) and the vowel of bed; the Spanish vowel is usually articulated at a point between the two.
^In English, something similar to /eu/ is sometimes heard for "oh" in exaggerations of the Queen's English by American comedians such as Carol Burnett.
Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259
