I may be wrong (correct me, Lughaidh, if I am...I'm not entirely up on linguistic terminology), but I think the "dental T" is T pronounced with the tongue pressed against the back of the front teeth rather than tipped off the hard palate. Is that right?

Redwolf

Léamh agus leamh is another one that springs to mind. Oh...and te versus té.

Good suggestion, Saoirse. I think we may have touched on it in other lessons, but a dedicated lesson on the subject is definitely worth doing.

One thing I've noticed, at least with American learners, is a tendency to (maybe this isn't the correct word) lengthen vowel sounds when learning a language. For example, no matter how many times I repeat "le" correctly a learner will want to pronounce it "lay." Same with "go" and "do" (which learners will want to pronounce "goh" and "doh"). It might help them to see the written difference with some of these words.

Redwolf

exactly

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Here's the link.
http://nualeargais.ie/foghlaim/confused.php?teanga=

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West coast Americans may be familiar with the dental "t" from Mexican Spanish. The tongue against the back of the teeth is what makes it sound a little "foreign" (my Mexican grocer gives me kudos for pronouncing "cilantro" correctly, even though the only other words I know in Spanish are "cerveza" and "gracias"!).

Redwolf

I didn't know Mexican people used a dental t.
Btw, in French we use an alveolar t, it doesn't sound as in English either. English t is often aspirated (ie. followed by an h sound) and has something else too that makes it sound differently, it's not pronounced exactly in the same place nor with the same part of the tongue.

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Yep...very similar to Irish, actually, although sometimes it softens to nearly a "th." The "d" is the same.

That may differ in different regions of Mexico...I'm only familiar with what's spoken in California, which is going to come predominately from Northern Mexico. I do remember hearing the same "d" and "t" sounds in Colombia though, even though otherwise their Spanish is quite different from Mexico's (it's said to be closer to Castilian Spanish, though not being a Spanish speaker at all, I can't swear to it).

Redwolf

I learned Spanish from my grinds teacher who was a Colombian native speaker, I used to be quite fluent however much of what I have has fizzled away . Colombian Spanish is not dissimilar to Castellano, It differs somewhat in regards to vocabulary (due to its proximity to American culture) and pronounciation.

For instance the Castellano trait of pronouncing "c"s in the middle of words with a lisp does not occur in Colombia. The lisp of the "c" was supposed to have occured when a Castillian King could not pronounce the "c" properly. His loyal subjects then decided to pronounce "c" with a lisp, as the King "El Rey" did, so he wouldn't feel so bad .

The pronounciation of "ll" also differs, for instance "my name is Cian":

Me llamo Cian (Castellano)
Mé yamo Cian

Me llamo Cian (Colombian)
Me jamo Cian

The Castellano "ll" has more of a "Y" glide (if that terminology makes sense?) Whereas the Colombian "ll" is pronounced like the English "J". Something I have noticed is Colombians and Latin Americans, in general, speak much slower than their Spanish counterparts.

A lot of native Spanish speakers cannot pronounce the Englsih "b". We used to have a great laugh when my grind's teacher used to pronounce a supermarket chain here in Ireland as "Super Balu" when it should have been "Super Valu". Valu is not a spelling error here, it is the name of the company. No matter how much she tried she couldn't pronounce the "b". This is because the Spanish "b" is very often pronounced as "v" and vice verse.. e,g "vamos" (bamos) lets us go similar to "ar aghaidh linn" and "Yo vivo" (bibo). There are exceptions like "bailar" (boil- are) to dance,

Almost forgot, "Yo" or "I" is pronounced differently also in Colombia, for instance "I have":

Yo tengo (Castellano)
Yo teng-go

Yo tengo (Colombia)
Jo Teng-go

The "Y" again glides in Castellano, whereas, the "Y" is pronounced like the English "J" in Colombia.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

té and te/tae and an té (could you imagine the confusion that would arise in a teashop when they're trying to sort out who's the one who paying for the hot tea?)
fear and fearr

not pronounced the same way anyway, in "fear" the a sound is very short. In Fearr it's long and in some dialects there's a y-glide ("feh-AWR").
In Ulster we pronounced it as "fair", it's almost like the word "féar", but in "fearr" the vowel is more open.

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