Spanish Vowels

Knowing how to pronounce Spanish vowels will take you very far in Spanish. You will be able to pronounce words correctly and quickly. When you are learning Spanish, the vowel sounds are the first place to start. Everything stems from there.

Contrary to the English language, the Spanish vowels are always pronounced the same. In English it seems like there are more exceptions than there are rules. But the Spanish language is very straightforward and easy to learn.

Spanish Vowels:

A Pronounced ah

O Pronounced oh

U Pronounced oo

E Pronounced ay

I (Y) Pronounced ee

Also there are vowel combinations:

UA Pronounced wah

UE Pronounced way

IE Pronounced yay

EI Pronounced aye

Now, look at the above vowel pronunciation examples and try to say the numbers 1-10 in Spanish.

Uno (oo-noh)
Dos (dohs)
Tres (trays)
Cuatro (kway-troh)
Cinco (seen-koh)
Seis (sayees)
Siete (syay-tay)
Ocho (oh-choh)
Nueve (nway-vay)
Diez (dyays)
As you can see, knowing how to pronounce the vowels is important to pronouncing any word in Spanish. For extra help in learning Spanish, you should try listening to Spanish television and radio stations. Although you might initially not understand anything they are saying, at least your ears are beginning to hear the words and pronunciations so you can begin processing the language. For more in-depth Spanish lessons, visit http://www.learnespanolfree.com/ There are free resources for those that want to learn Spanish.

Perriann Rodriguez is the founder of http://www.learnESPANOLfree.com, an online center for learning and understanding Spanish. Also includes many resources for traveling and teaching Spanish to children.