Pronunciation challenges for Arabic speakers learning Spanish

Your Spanish is coming along, but some words don’t come out the way you want. You say ‘peso’ (weight) and people hear ‘beso’ (kiss). You say ‘estudiar’ and it sounds like ‘istudiar’. It isn’t that you have a bad ear. Your mother tongue organises sounds differently, and your ear sorts Spanish sounds into those same categories.

And there is not just one Arabic. What follows starts from Standard Arabic and points out where the dialects differ.

The p that sounds like a b

Standard Arabic has /b/ (ب) but not /p/. In some varieties [p] appears in loanwords, but not in native vocabulary. That is why your ear files the Spanish p under b, and ‘papel’ (paper) sounds like ‘babel’.

The difference lies in voicing. With b, the vocal cords vibrate; with p, they don’t. You already master this gesture: you tell ت (t) from د (d), and ف (f) is voiceless. You just need to take it to your lips.

• Hand on your throat. Say ‘da’ and ‘ta’: with d you feel the vibration from the start; with t, only when you reach the vowel. Repeat with ‘ba’ and ‘pa’.
• Whisper. Whisper ‘pa, pa, pa’ and add voice only on the vowel. No puff of air: the Spanish p does not have the burst of breath of the English one.
• Minimal pairs. Peso/beso, pelo/velo, pala/bala, pino/vino, pasta/basta. In Spanish, b and v sound the same: ‘velo’ begins like ‘beso’.

Five vowels where Standard Arabic has three

Standard Arabic has three vowel qualities: /a/, /i/, /u/. It also contrasts short and long vowels: جَمَل (jamal, ‘camel’) versus جَمَال (jamāl, ‘beauty’). Spanish has five vowel qualities, and length does not distinguish words.

Many dialects have [e] and [o] sounds. But they tend to depend on the neighbouring consonants or to appear as long vowels, as in Egyptian bēt (‘house’) or yōm (‘day’). They exist in your mouth, but they don’t work like the five slots of Spanish. So ‘estudiar’ becomes ‘istudiar’ and ‘gobierno’ becomes ‘gubierno’.

In Spanish, moreover, the final vowel carries grammar: hablo, habla, hable. And unstressed vowels are not reduced.

• Mirror. Go slowly through i, e, a, o, u. From i to e, your jaw drops slightly. From u to o, your lips open without losing their rounded shape.
• Minimal pairs. Mesa/misa, peso/piso, queso/quiso; modo/mudo, lona/luna, tos/tus.
• Verb forms. Read ‘hablo’, ‘habla’ or ‘hable’ at random and ask someone to say which one you said.

The tapped r and the trilled r

Here you start with an advantage. The Arabic ر is usually a single brief tap. When it is geminated, with šadda, it lengthens and usually becomes a trill, as in مَرَّة (marra, ‘time’). In practice, these are the two sounds of Spanish: the r in ‘pero’ (but) and the rr in ‘perro’ (dog).

The difficulty lies in knowing when each one is needed. Between vowels, the spelling tells you: r or rr. But a single written r is also trilled at the start of a word (‘Retiro’, ‘Roma’). And after n, l or s: ‘Enrique’, ‘alrededor’, ‘Israel’.

• Minimal pairs. Pero/perro, caro/carro, coro/corro, para/parra, cero/cerro.
• Test sentence. ‘Pero el perro de Rosa corre por el cerro’ (But Rosa’s dog runs over the hill). One tap in pero; several in perro, Rosa, corre and cerro.

Two consonants at the start: pr-, tr- and ‘es-’

Standard Arabic does not allow two consonants at the beginning of a word. When a foreign word brings them, it separates them with support vowels. ‘Estrategia’ (strategy), for example, is said إستراتيجية (istirātījiyya): one i in front and another between the t and the r. Many dialects do accept initial clusters, such as ktab for kitāb (‘book’) in the Maghreb.

With ‘es-’, your instinct is half right. Spanish also adds a vowel before s + consonant: ‘escuela’, ‘España’, ‘estación’. Only the vowel quality changes. If you say ‘istudiar’, there is nothing extra: you just need to open the i up to an e.

With ‘tr’, ‘pr’ or ‘pl’, however, the intrusive vowel really is extra. ‘Tren’ (train) ends up as ‘tiren’, and ‘programa’ as something like ‘birograma’.

• Disappearing vowel. Say ‘ti-ren’ and shorten the i with each repetition until only ‘tren’ is left. One syllable, one tap of the hand.
• From the middle to the start. Begin with the cluster between vowels, which is easier: ‘otro’, ‘sobre’, ‘compra’. Then move it to the beginning: ‘tren’, ‘Prado’, ‘plaza’.
• On the metro. Read the station names under your breath: Estrecho, Esperanza, Tribunal, Prosperidad, Tres Olivos, Plaza de España.

Word stress: where the emphasis falls

In Standard Arabic, stress does not distinguish words: its position follows from the shape of the syllables. In Spanish it is free and distinctive. ‘Término’ (term), ‘termino’ (I finish) and ‘terminó’ (he or she finished) are three different words. The same happens with ‘público’, ‘publico’ and ‘publicó’.

You have some help: the spelling shows the stress. Without a written accent, if the word ends in a vowel, -n or -s, the stress falls on the second-to-last syllable (‘mesa’, ‘hablan’). If it ends in any other consonant, it falls on the last one (‘Madrid’, ‘hablar’). The written accent marks the exceptions (‘café’, ‘árbol’, ‘miércoles’).

• Tap on the table. Read aloud, tapping on the stressed syllable: TÉR-mi-no, ter-MI-no, ter-mi-NÓ.
• Contrasting sentences. ‘Hoy hablo con ella; ayer habló con él’ (Today I am talking to her; yesterday he talked to him).

The Institute’s tip. Write ten minimal pairs from this article on cards and shuffle them. Record yourself reading one word from each pair. Ask a Spanish speaker to listen without seeing the cards and to write down what they understand. Each mistake tells you which contrast to work on that week.

Working on it with a specialist

The Institute’s teachers are native Spanish speakers, bilingual and of Arab origin, and trained in teaching Spanish as a foreign language. They work on these contrasts using contrastive linguistics. The one-to-one lessons take place in person, at Gran Vía 40, or online. The free 30-minute level test shows which of these challenges affect you. If you are preparing for an official exam, also read DELE or SIELE in Madrid.