Puerto Rico Pronunciation

Spanish pronunciation is pretty straightforward; Puerto Rican Spanish is a bit more complicated. Puerto Ricans have a notoriously strong accent and tend to speak very rapidly. Some also have a tendency to drop off the ends of words—for example, “buenos días” becomes “buen día.” In Spanish, each vowel has only one pronunciation: a (“ah” as in father); e (“eh” as in pet); i (“ee” as in feet); o (“oh” as in oat); u (“oo” as in boot); y, by itself, is pronounced the same as the Spanish i (“ee”). Most consonants are pronounced the same as in English. Important exceptions are j, pronounced like the English “h” in “hello,” and ñ, pronounced like the “ny” in “canyon.” Ll theoretically sounds like the English “y” in “yes,” but in Puerto Rican Spanish it frequently comes out like “s” as in “pleasure.” R at the beginning of a word or rr anywhere in a word is trilled. H is always silent. G before e or i is pronounced like the “h” in “hen”; elsewhere it is pronounced like the “g” in “gate.” X has a bewildering variety of pronunciations: depending on dialect and word position, it can sound like English’s “h,” “s,” “sh,” or “x.” B and v are often pronounced somewhere in between a “b” and a “v.”

Spanish words receive stress on the syllable marked with an accent (´). In the absence of an accent mark, words that end in vowels, “n,” or “s” usually receive stress on the second-to-last syllable. For words ending in all other consonants, stress falls on the last syllable. The Spanish language has masculine and feminine nouns, and gives a gender to all adjectives. Masculine words generally end with an “o”: for example, él es un tonto (he is a fool). Feminine words generally end with an “a”: for instance, ella es bella (she is beautiful). Pay close attention—slight changes in word ending can have drastic changes in meaning. For instance, when receiving directions, watch for the distinction between derecho (straight) and derecha (right).