5 Reasons why Andalusians are Awesome at English Pronunciation

Andalusia, in case you don’t know, is a region which takes up most of the southern half of Spain. Just like the rest of the country, Andalusia is extremely rich in history and culture, especially as regards Roman and Muslim civilisations. Cities like Seville, Córdoba or Granada, and smaller towns like Ronda boast some of the most visited tourist attractions in the country. Okay, maybe I’m a little biased, given that I’m Andalusian, born and raised in Ronda and settled in Granada; but seriously, Andalusia is a great place for many reasons. In fact, Andalusia is also great from a linguistic point of view, given the countless varieties of Spanish spoken in the region.

While «the Andalusian accent» (referred to as one, despite all the different varieties) is sometimes looked down on by other Spanish speakers, it features a range of sounds that don’t belong to traditional standard Spanish. This means that Andalusian speakers actually make use of sounds that don’t exist in Castilian, that is, in standard Spanish as spoken in Spain. Funnily enough, though, most of these sounds do exist in English, which means that Andalusians are familiar with some English sounds that are completely new to the rest of Spaniards.

So in this post, and to celebrate the Day of Andalusia (28th of February), I will walk you through some of these sounds unknown in Castilian, yet common in English and Andalusian Spanish.

Reasons why Andalusians are awesome at English pronunciation

1. /j/ ->/h/

Many regions in Andalusia, such as Malaga, are famous for transforming the Spanish /j/ sound (non-existent in standard English) into an English /h/ (non-existent in standard Spanish). So, for instance, where someone from Madrid might say «caja» (box) as /kaja/ («j» as a strong sound), someone from Malaga would say /kaha/.

A typical pronunciation mistake made by most Spaniards is pronouncing the English /h/ as a Spanish /j/, that is to say, making the /h/ sound a strong one. Therefore, instead of saying «how» /hau/, they sometimes say /jau/ («j» as a strong sound).

The funny thing is that the letter «h» is always silent in Spanish, except when combined with «c» as in «ch». A curious case  is when we (I include myself) pronounce the word «hijo» as /’iho/, disregarding the «h» and switching the «j» to an English /h/.

2. /tʃ/ -> /ʃ/

In Castilian Spanish, the /ʃ/ sound does not exist except, maybe, in some onomatopoeia. However, Andalusians, especially people from Seville, Cadiz and Malaga, use this sound on a daily basis. Normally, instead of pronouncing «ch» as /tʃ/ (the same as in English), we tend to make it a smoother, fricative sound, instead of a stronger affricate consonant. So the word «coche» (car) might be pronounced /’kɒʃe/. In fact, a very typical expression from Cadiz is the word «picha« (meaning bloke or guy), and they pronounce it /’pɪʃa/.

Check out these posts to learn more about fricative and affricate sounds.

3. Silent plosive consonants: /p/ /t/ /k/

Plosive consonants also exist in regular Spanish. However, they are not as strong as English plosives. In fact, this is one of the most common pronunciation mistakes that gives away Spaniards as a non-native English speakers. The same happens to English speakers when talking in Spanish.

The thing is, though, that Andalusians pronounce these plosive consonants both as English speakers do and as regular Spaniards, depending on the position of the letter. Generally, if the consonant appears at the beginning of a syllable that is preceded by an «s», it is pronounced as English speakers do. This also happens when the last letter of a word is an «s» and the first of the following word is a «p», a «t» or a «c».

This happens because Andalusian speakers tend to drop the final «s» in syllables and words. And the way we do this is by stressing the following consonant. In this way, we are giving the consonant the strength that the English give their /p/, /t/ or /k/. So words like «pescar» (to fish), are typically pronounced /pe’ka/ (we also tend to drop the final «r», haha!), with an English /k/.

Check out this post to learn more about plosive sounds.

4. /b/ -> /v/

The final «s» thing mentioned in the previous paragraph also affects other letters following a final «s». For example, it makes a regular «b» be pronounced as an English /v/ sound, which is a sound that disappeared from Spanish yonks ago. In fact, one thing that drives people crazy about Spanish spelling is the fact that both «b» and «v» are pronounced /b/, which makes it tricky to remember which words are spelled with «b» or «v».

So in a sentence like «eres bueno» (you’re good), we’d say /’ere ‘vueno/ instead of /’eres ‘bueno/.

5. Long vowels

While regular Spanish does not draw a line between long and short vowels (they’re all short!), Andalusians, whether we realise it or not, do make use of both long and short vowels, especially in questions and exclamations. This is probably because of the intonation we give to interrogative and exclamatory sentences, and it usually happens when the stress falls on a particular word or syllable. For instance, if you take the question «¿Dónde vas?» (Where are you going?), I would typically say /’donde va:/, stressing «vas», dropping the «s» and making a longer «a», as in /ɑː/.

So, hey! If you’re Andalusian and you’re reading this, you should be happy; you’re linguistically enabled by default to pronounce many of the sounds Spaniards normally struggle with. Besides, the fact that Andalusians have these sounds while the most other Spaniards don’t, makes us have better listening skills in English. How’s that for being lucky? 😉 However, if you want to improve your listening skills no matter what, I suggest you take a look at this post and this one here.

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