How to pronounce Spanish

• Try to aim to hold your mouth and tongue as still as possible while pronouncing Spanish vowels (in practice, they actually have to move to "go from one sound to the next").
• Try to give vowels more or less the same "quality" whether or not they're stressed: try to avoid the neutral uh sound (often called a schwa) that often occurs with non-stressed vowels in English. For example, about is generally pronounced uh-bout; but in the Spanish word agua, each a has the quality of an "a" sound (but the first stressed vowel has a higher pitch). The quality of vowels in Spanish does vary a little depending on stress position, but there's no central vowel as a target as in English.
• Some varieties of English give the vowel an "r colouring" in words like car (or in simple terms, the "r is pronounced"). This doesn't happen in Spanish. Try to give the a vowel a similar quality to the vowel of ah! or car, but without giving it the "r colouring".
• With the o and u sounds, try and keep the lips well rounded and the tongue held towards the back of the mouth.
• Note that in the sequence gu, the u doesn't actually represent a sound in this case: it just signals the "value" of the g (see below).

• If you're a native English speaker, put your hand in front of your mouth and say the words pace and space. In pace, you'll probably feel a stronger "current of air" as you say the p sound than in space. An all cases, the Spanish p is much more like it is in English space. Try to practise saying the English word pace in such a way that you don't feel the strong "current of air" when you hold your hand in front of your mouth (imagine "chopping off the s" in space). Spanish t and k sounds are similar. To practise these sounds, imaging saying words like stick, skate, but "chopping off the s".
• Most Spanish speakers, when they pronounce the t sound, let the very tip of their tongue touch their teeth. Practice saying words with t sounds pronounced in this way.
• If you're a US speaker, try to avoid "flapping" the t when it occurs between to vowels (as in US English better)— in the Spanish t, the tongue still makes "full contact" (though as mentioned, at a point a little further forward in the mouth than in English, so that the very tip of the tongue also touches the teeth).

• Like the Spanish t, the d is pronounced with the very tip of the tongue touching the back of the upper teeth. The tongue also makes contact with the alveolar ridge, the ridge just behind the upper teeth.
• Unlike English, Spanish speakers generally pronounce b, d and g so that the vocal cords vibrate all the way through these sounds. Unless you've been trained in phonetics, you may find it difficult to control this voicing at first. A technique that may work is to imagine saying a word like humble, but then imagine "chopping off" the first syllable hum-.
• In various positions, these stops are frequently approximated: that is, the speech organs involved don't quite come into contact enough to completely stop the sound (or even cause much friction).

The Spanish ñ is a nasal sound, produced with air escaping through the nose. It actually differs from the English ny in canyon— and indeed from the Spanish ni [nj] in words such as genio. In ñ, the tongue simultaneously touches a large area of the alveolar ridge and hard palate and holds this position steady for something in the region of 70-80ms. In a sequence consisting of [nj] (as in genio), the tongue makes contact principally with the alveolar ridge and this position is held for a shorter time (around 50ms). The "glide" section in [nj] is then longer, and with the tongue apparently making less contact with the palate, than in the ñ sound.

For more details, see Martínez Celdrán & Fernández Planas, Manual de fonética española, pp. 124-134.

• This means that pairs such as ves/vez are generally pronounced identically in Latin America, but are pronounced distinctly in Spain.
• Spaniards generally appear to pronounce z with the tongue between the teeth. This is generally similar to how US speakers pronounce the English th sound, but different to most British speakers (who pronounce it with the tongue behind the teeth).
• In the sequence sce-, sci- (as in escena, piscina), Latin American speakers generally pronounce sc as a simple s. In Spain, the pronunciation varies: sc is pronounced either as though written z, or sometimes as though written sz.

• In Spanish, the s generally keeps its "hissing" sound even at the ends of words. So be careful not to pronounce it like a z at the end of plurals, for example.
• The s sound is pronounced so that part of the front of the tongue makes a narrow constriction around the ridge at the front of the mouth. In Spain, that constriction is usually with the very tip of the tongue, whereas in English (and in certain varieties of Latin American Spanish, notably in Mexico), it is often with the part of the tongue just behind the tip.
• The pronunciation of s in Spanish is actually quite a complex issue. Depending on the region, and depending on where s occurs in the word/syllable, various pronunciations are possible.

Before or after a "front" vowel (i, e), often similar to the h sound in hue, or the fricative k sound that you can get in English kick it when said very rapidly.

gira
lejos

In the presence of other vowels, often similar to the Scottish/Welsh ch sound (as in loch), or German Aachen.

jabón
joven

There is some variation in how this sound is pronounced. The "common factor" is generally that the back of the tongue comes into contact with the roof or back of the mouth and causes friction, and that it is voiceless (speakers aim to stop their vocal cords vibrating during this sound).

Some speakers essentially have a pronunciation similar to English kick it said rapidly (i.e. the friction occurs around the tongue position for k), whatever the following vowel. For others, it tends to always be towards the back of the mouth, similar to Scottish loch (or a a voiceless French r sound). And in other dialects it can be similar to a h sound.

• See the comments above about the pronunciation of Spanish s: the pronunciation of x is generally similar to k plus s.
• In the word México and related words (mexicano, mexicanismo etc), the x is pronounced as though written j.
• The letter x has various pronunciations in Mexican place names and other loan words from indigenous languages spoken in the country. Depending on the word, x may be pronounced as though written j (Oaxaca), like the English sh (Xola) or as s (Tlaxcala).

• When pronouncing Spanish l, avoid raising the back of your tongue, as often happens when l occurs at the ends of words and syllables in English (e.g. lull, little).

• For most speakers, there is no difference between the pronunciation of y and ll. Hence, the words vaya and valla generally sound identical.
• In some parts of Spain and South America (but increasingly fewer), a distinction is made between y and ll, and the latter is pronounced in a similar way to some English speakers' pronunciation of million.

• In Spanish, unlike English, the y is often fricated: that is, the tongue body is moved close enough to the palate to cause friction.

Normally, the letter h does not represent a sound in Spanish. When deciding how to pronounce a word, you can usually disregard it. (In some cases, it is simply written to distinguish words that would look similar in certain typefaces: when a word begins with ue-, it is usually written hue- to distinguish it from ve-.)

A notable exception are words beginning with hi-, where hi- is essentially an alternative to y- (yierba/hierba), and where the initial y-/hi- may be fricated (see previous comment).

If between two vowels inside a word or if not at the beginning of a syllable, a tap, similar to US English "flapped t" (better, butter).

verano

If at the beginning of a syllable (and not after a vowel inside a word), a trill with the tongue otherwise in a similar position.

enrollo

(In practice, this usually means at the beginning of a word, or after n, s or l)

• Spanish has two "r sounds": a tap and a trill.
• In the tap, the tip of the tongue briefly touches the ridge behind the teeth, under "full control" of the muscles that control the tongue.
• In the trill, the tongue is held so that it "naturally" vibrates (usually twice or three times) against the ridge; the muscles don't control each individual vibration.
• Between two vowels inside a word, which r sound you use can distinguish between two words (e.g. pero means "but", but perro means "dog".
• In other cases, speakers tend to use one or other r sound depending on context, but they do not distinguish different words. In general, the trill occurs at the beginning of a syllable (unless it comes after a vowel inside a word, in which case it just depends on the word, as mentioned). So in Enrique, the r is trilled because it is at the start of a new syllable (En-ri-que). Similarly, in Is-ra-el, or generally at the start of a word (la ro-ja).
• Sometimes for emphasis, r can be rolled before a pause. In such cases, it is often devoiced (i.e. the vocal cords stop vibrating before the end of the r).
• In certain dialects of Spanish, other pronunciations of r are possible.