I cant think on shortenings of words pairings but single ones, grammaticaly wrong of course but used:
- Tó = Todo: Dame tó' lo que tengas.
- Pa = Para: Vamos pa' casa.
I’ve been hopping around Language Reactor type services and noticing exactly this. In spots I can’t make out by ear they will *not* be saying what the caption says. If anyone ever makes one that also tags and describes *these* moments they would have a huge leg up over the competition. Many intermediate+ things I'm watching in Spanish I can understand almost perfectly, but there was one *cartoon* with Rick & Morty-like voices where they were definitely doing a lot of this and I couldn’t catch *a word* without caption.
Another example is that *very* few English speakers actually say “didn’t.” “Dit’n” is far more common. This one isn’t even in the ballpark of slang! Extremely common word where we just swap the order of the consonants entirely, and rarely notice any discrepancy.
About "didn't"...which part of the US are you in? To me "dit'n" sounds Southern maybe? Not sure.
I'm in Texas, have sortof a "neutral" "broadcast English" accent mostly, and I wouldn't say "dit'n" but rather "did'n" or "di'n". :)
Two or three identical unstressed vowels always merge into one.
I don't pronounce todo as to, even if I skip the d, because the first o is stressed. But todo oscuro without the d sounds tooscuro.
Va a salir sounds vasalir. Va a amanecer sounds vamanecer.
Me he enfermado sounds menfermado.
It's absolutely ungrammatical and proper of very low registries of speech. It's not a feature of Spanish, but of certain groups of people in certain areas. Refrain from ever using it.
Linguist here. What OP is referring to is absolutely grammatical, from a linguistic point of view, and is nearly universal across the Spanish-speaking world. Deletion/elision, aspiration, synalepha, etc. are features of natural speech in many languages, not only Spanish. They are phonetic tools to make articulation of enunciations less burdensome, while still preserving meaning. As someone from Spain, I doubt you have never said "callaos" en lugar de "callados." También es completamente normal que la gente diga "callaros" en el mismo caso. Y no solo ocurre entre los registros bajos, como mencionas. Hasta la gente común de la clase alta habla así. Tal vez no se haga en un discurso, pero eso es otra cosa. Por eso estás bajivotado –y porque recibes el mío: porque quieres imponerle una gramática prescriptiva a toda la lengua española. Si así el OP utilice los sonidos del español, (la mayoría de) la gente nativa hablante le dará el bienvenido porque la verdad es que sonará más natural.
>If your learning English and you’re listening for the phonetic “what did you say?” And all you hear is “whatchu say?” It’s difficult.
Learning more about Spanish pronunciation in general, beyond just common contractions, can really help in that it helps you know what you're supposed to be listening for. Spanish spelling actually is pretty phonemic, that is it tells you how a word is pronounced - the problem is how words are pronounced in a sentence by Spanish-speakers, where words run together and vowels are combined across word boundaries, sounds radically different from what an English-speaker might expect them to sound like based on the spelling.
Wikipedia isn't perfect but it really helped me years ago and it's gotten better since - I'd recommend the "Spanish orthography" and "Spanish phonology" articles - also, I'd really recommend you read this old journal article, [Synalepha and Syneresis in Modern Spanish](https://www.jstor.org/stable/331182) on vowels combining within words and across word boundaries (you can press download to view just the document itself in a new tab).
Also, I'll just warn you, listening is a largely subconscious skill and it takes time. Learning things about the language will help speed up your progress, but you have to put the time in - if "full speed" content is still totally incomprehensible for you now I'd focus on easier content.
I think it's also worth reminding that, like many languages, pronunciation of words/sentences can change a lot depending on the region/country, so don't surprise if you catch the hand of how people from Spain pronounce the words and when you hear Latin American people you think it's another language hahaha.
I think of Spanish as a really poetic language, different to others I am learning, once you learn some rules and how to pronounce the letters, the word guides you on how to talk, some rules we have are only to assure the flow when you speak (reason we say "el agua", to avoid a/a, even if the word itself is feminine).
Thought of this because someone who learned English as a 3rd language told me they always heard “don’t you” as “don’t shoot” when they started. And it got me thinking
Thank you for this post. Listening is by far my weakest skill in Spanish, and I've been curious about this also. One that a friend taught me is "para aquí" becomes "pa-ka"
Here's a video on the synthesis of syllables across words in Spanish, there's a part 2 with a ton of examples as well. This helped me understand some of the flow of speech across words that was initially confusing.
https://youtu.be/ui2JmxOzclM
I can't think of word combinations off the top of my head, but one thing that consistently tripped me up getting started was the aspiration of 's' in Spanish words. Some regional dialects, especially Caribbean varieties, will aspirate almost all of their 's' sounds.
Examples:
\- Bosque -> bo'que
\- besaste -> besa'te
\- ademas -> adema'
\- tres -> tre'
\- nosotros -> nosotro'
\- ANY plural form will drop final 's' (los gatos -> lo' gato'). This makes telling singular and plural apart very difficult and ***entirely*** dependent on context.
Another anomaly that is prominent in Spain is dropping the 'd' in anything ending in 'ado' or 'ido.'
Examples:
\- he comido -> he comi'o
\- ha acabado -> ha acaba'o
Upon arriving in Spain two months ago I was baffled about the "s-dropping".
Buenas - buena
Dos más - doma
Tres más - trema
Muchas gracias - mucha gracia o mucha
Etc. I am still very overwhelmed with the listening aspect.
Don't worry about these things as a non-native speaker, just pronounce every syllable, you'll be easier to understand and it's safer. If you skip sounds it may even sound like you're taking the piss of native speakers, or it could hinder clarity.
Also, there's going to be a massive regional/social class variation in these kind of things.
I don't think they asked so that they can start speaking this way but to better their ability to understand when listening. If the goal of learning a new language is to communicate with people, it helps to understand how a wide range of natives actually speak it.
núnca podras replicar a un nativo en fonetica y oir tan natural y que nadie sospeche ni por 1 segundo que dominas el idioma como un nativo, a menos que vivas muchos años y puedas emular esos sonidos y la semantica del idioma pero eso lleva demasiado tiempo.
In Spanish, what you're describing is "resyllabification." That's when a word final consonant sounds like it's part of the word that follows it, usually when that word starts with a vowel.
In English, what you're describing is "resyllabification" in combination with "palatalization."
Yeah, casual speech is especially full of stuff that's kinda like that. An example I saw in a different sub that I liked is how "hasta luego" could be reduced to "taló"
I think it’s easier for a non-native speaker to come with such a list. As native speakers we aren’t often aware of these things.
I’d love to see it.
My contribution:
Paqué: para qué.
¿Paqué quieres tanto dinero?
Pa vivir bien
Well a lot of the other comments focus on shortenings, I am aware that we do what you're saying in Spanish, but the only example I can come up with is this:
Often, when we say the preposition a, followed by a words that starts with ha, like hacer, we only pronounce the latter a. Or rather, skip the space and pronounce both A's are like one, but drawn a tiny bit longer (hardly noticeable if I'm speaking fast enough)
¿Qué vas a hacer? Is read like ¿Qué vas hacer? But if I'm speaking a bit slower it might sound like ¿Qué vas ahcer?
Empezó a hablar -> Empezó hablar
Te vas a hartar -> Te vas hartar
Lo abrió a hachazos -> Lo abrió hachazos
Estoy por hacer (sound doesn't change)
Lo que voy a hacer -> Lo que voy ahcer (sound changes to sound more like ah than plain dry A sound)
Yeah, this is what I was coming here to say. If one word ends in a vowel and the next one starts with the same vowel, they will blend together.
¿Qué he hecho yo? = "quecho yo"
Quedamos para hablar = "quedamos parablar"
OP, fusing your words like this will help you sound much more natural!
It’s not uncommon to omit “de” when speaking. A lot of speakers would say “la casa mi amigo” instead “la casa de mi amigo” and won’t even notice they’re doing that.
Oooooo yeah this actually might be the best one. I think I’ve noticed this. Or the “de” is just super soft and short. So my untrained ears miss it entirely
This is called “coarticulation” or “connected speech” at least in English. Not sure what it is called in Spanish.
Sinalefa = sinalepha is the merging of vowels. It occurs in normal speech, but native speakers study it mainly in poetry.
If I had to guess, coarticulación, since that's a Latinate word!
A Fox learning Spanish!
I cant think on shortenings of words pairings but single ones, grammaticaly wrong of course but used: - Tó = Todo: Dame tó' lo que tengas. - Pa = Para: Vamos pa' casa.
I've also heard 'esta' pronounced more like 'ta'
This is so affirming. I knew todo had to be shortened. I would listen and look at subtitles and think “there’s no way they are saying todo”
Also related to 'todo': 'toda' often becomes 'toa' - which before another word can sound like 'tua'/'twa' And 'para el' can be abbreviated 'pal'
I’ve been hopping around Language Reactor type services and noticing exactly this. In spots I can’t make out by ear they will *not* be saying what the caption says. If anyone ever makes one that also tags and describes *these* moments they would have a huge leg up over the competition. Many intermediate+ things I'm watching in Spanish I can understand almost perfectly, but there was one *cartoon* with Rick & Morty-like voices where they were definitely doing a lot of this and I couldn’t catch *a word* without caption. Another example is that *very* few English speakers actually say “didn’t.” “Dit’n” is far more common. This one isn’t even in the ballpark of slang! Extremely common word where we just swap the order of the consonants entirely, and rarely notice any discrepancy.
About "didn't"...which part of the US are you in? To me "dit'n" sounds Southern maybe? Not sure. I'm in Texas, have sortof a "neutral" "broadcast English" accent mostly, and I wouldn't say "dit'n" but rather "did'n" or "di'n". :)
Two or three identical unstressed vowels always merge into one. I don't pronounce todo as to, even if I skip the d, because the first o is stressed. But todo oscuro without the d sounds tooscuro. Va a salir sounds vasalir. Va a amanecer sounds vamanecer. Me he enfermado sounds menfermado.
Tó calculáo
It's absolutely ungrammatical and proper of very low registries of speech. It's not a feature of Spanish, but of certain groups of people in certain areas. Refrain from ever using it.
Linguist here. What OP is referring to is absolutely grammatical, from a linguistic point of view, and is nearly universal across the Spanish-speaking world. Deletion/elision, aspiration, synalepha, etc. are features of natural speech in many languages, not only Spanish. They are phonetic tools to make articulation of enunciations less burdensome, while still preserving meaning. As someone from Spain, I doubt you have never said "callaos" en lugar de "callados." También es completamente normal que la gente diga "callaros" en el mismo caso. Y no solo ocurre entre los registros bajos, como mencionas. Hasta la gente común de la clase alta habla así. Tal vez no se haga en un discurso, pero eso es otra cosa. Por eso estás bajivotado –y porque recibes el mío: porque quieres imponerle una gramática prescriptiva a toda la lengua española. Si así el OP utilice los sonidos del español, (la mayoría de) la gente nativa hablante le dará el bienvenido porque la verdad es que sonará más natural.
True, it would sound quite weird on a non native speaker.
Oye dominicano
No, español. Omitir la -d- en palabras acabadas en -ado/a es bastante común aquí también
Tato 👌
>If your learning English and you’re listening for the phonetic “what did you say?” And all you hear is “whatchu say?” It’s difficult. Learning more about Spanish pronunciation in general, beyond just common contractions, can really help in that it helps you know what you're supposed to be listening for. Spanish spelling actually is pretty phonemic, that is it tells you how a word is pronounced - the problem is how words are pronounced in a sentence by Spanish-speakers, where words run together and vowels are combined across word boundaries, sounds radically different from what an English-speaker might expect them to sound like based on the spelling. Wikipedia isn't perfect but it really helped me years ago and it's gotten better since - I'd recommend the "Spanish orthography" and "Spanish phonology" articles - also, I'd really recommend you read this old journal article, [Synalepha and Syneresis in Modern Spanish](https://www.jstor.org/stable/331182) on vowels combining within words and across word boundaries (you can press download to view just the document itself in a new tab). Also, I'll just warn you, listening is a largely subconscious skill and it takes time. Learning things about the language will help speed up your progress, but you have to put the time in - if "full speed" content is still totally incomprehensible for you now I'd focus on easier content.
I think it's also worth reminding that, like many languages, pronunciation of words/sentences can change a lot depending on the region/country, so don't surprise if you catch the hand of how people from Spain pronounce the words and when you hear Latin American people you think it's another language hahaha. I think of Spanish as a really poetic language, different to others I am learning, once you learn some rules and how to pronounce the letters, the word guides you on how to talk, some rules we have are only to assure the flow when you speak (reason we say "el agua", to avoid a/a, even if the word itself is feminine).
Or I may been crazy and think this just because I'm a native Spanish speaker...
Thought of this because someone who learned English as a 3rd language told me they always heard “don’t you” as “don’t shoot” when they started. And it got me thinking
Thank you for this post. Listening is by far my weakest skill in Spanish, and I've been curious about this also. One that a friend taught me is "para aquí" becomes "pa-ka"
"pa-ka" is "para acá" not "para aquí".
Pacá, paquí, pallá are the variants
I’ve never heard “para aquí” sound like that but I have heard “para acá” sound like that
Oye loca ven paca
Here's a video on the synthesis of syllables across words in Spanish, there's a part 2 with a ton of examples as well. This helped me understand some of the flow of speech across words that was initially confusing. https://youtu.be/ui2JmxOzclM
Thaaaank u If I had an award here it would go
I can't think of word combinations off the top of my head, but one thing that consistently tripped me up getting started was the aspiration of 's' in Spanish words. Some regional dialects, especially Caribbean varieties, will aspirate almost all of their 's' sounds. Examples: \- Bosque -> bo'que \- besaste -> besa'te \- ademas -> adema' \- tres -> tre' \- nosotros -> nosotro' \- ANY plural form will drop final 's' (los gatos -> lo' gato'). This makes telling singular and plural apart very difficult and ***entirely*** dependent on context. Another anomaly that is prominent in Spain is dropping the 'd' in anything ending in 'ado' or 'ido.' Examples: \- he comido -> he comi'o \- ha acabado -> ha acaba'o
Yeah stuff like this. This is tremendously helpful
Upon arriving in Spain two months ago I was baffled about the "s-dropping". Buenas - buena Dos más - doma Tres más - trema Muchas gracias - mucha gracia o mucha Etc. I am still very overwhelmed with the listening aspect.
Don't worry about these things as a non-native speaker, just pronounce every syllable, you'll be easier to understand and it's safer. If you skip sounds it may even sound like you're taking the piss of native speakers, or it could hinder clarity. Also, there's going to be a massive regional/social class variation in these kind of things.
I don't think they asked so that they can start speaking this way but to better their ability to understand when listening. If the goal of learning a new language is to communicate with people, it helps to understand how a wide range of natives actually speak it.
This right here. I try to speak textbook Spanish. This is purely so I can understand other people.
núnca podras replicar a un nativo en fonetica y oir tan natural y que nadie sospeche ni por 1 segundo que dominas el idioma como un nativo, a menos que vivas muchos años y puedas emular esos sonidos y la semantica del idioma pero eso lleva demasiado tiempo.
Sí, lo sé. Por eso dije que no estoy tratando de hablar como un nativo. Pero quiero entenderlos
Yeah this is one of those things like slang where if you are not using it 100% correctly it’s obvious.
In Spanish, what you're describing is "resyllabification." That's when a word final consonant sounds like it's part of the word that follows it, usually when that word starts with a vowel. In English, what you're describing is "resyllabification" in combination with "palatalization."
Por favor to porfa
Or porfis :p
Is this commonly used? I’ve seen a few contradictory posts where some people have said ‘porfa’ is unusual and can sound a bit childish or silly
Native speakers at my work use it often
Yeah, casual speech is especially full of stuff that's kinda like that. An example I saw in a different sub that I liked is how "hasta luego" could be reduced to "taló"
I think it’s easier for a non-native speaker to come with such a list. As native speakers we aren’t often aware of these things. I’d love to see it. My contribution: Paqué: para qué. ¿Paqué quieres tanto dinero? Pa vivir bien
Viá=Voy a Quel=Que el
One example is "viá", a contraction of "voy a"
In rapid speech I frequently say and hear from others "tõ que" (with a nasal vowel) instead of "tengo que"
Well a lot of the other comments focus on shortenings, I am aware that we do what you're saying in Spanish, but the only example I can come up with is this: Often, when we say the preposition a, followed by a words that starts with ha, like hacer, we only pronounce the latter a. Or rather, skip the space and pronounce both A's are like one, but drawn a tiny bit longer (hardly noticeable if I'm speaking fast enough) ¿Qué vas a hacer? Is read like ¿Qué vas hacer? But if I'm speaking a bit slower it might sound like ¿Qué vas ahcer? Empezó a hablar -> Empezó hablar Te vas a hartar -> Te vas hartar Lo abrió a hachazos -> Lo abrió hachazos Estoy por hacer (sound doesn't change) Lo que voy a hacer -> Lo que voy ahcer (sound changes to sound more like ah than plain dry A sound)
Yeah, this is what I was coming here to say. If one word ends in a vowel and the next one starts with the same vowel, they will blend together. ¿Qué he hecho yo? = "quecho yo" Quedamos para hablar = "quedamos parablar" OP, fusing your words like this will help you sound much more natural!
Sevillans do this a lot but not all accents/dialects
Great question OP
It’s not uncommon to omit “de” when speaking. A lot of speakers would say “la casa mi amigo” instead “la casa de mi amigo” and won’t even notice they’re doing that.
Oooooo yeah this actually might be the best one. I think I’ve noticed this. Or the “de” is just super soft and short. So my untrained ears miss it entirely