# 1.4 Spanish stops

## Table 1 Spanish stops

Phoneme | Allophone | Orthography | Articulation | Context
/p/ | [p] | p | voiceless bilabial stop | all
/t/ | [t] | t | voiceless dental stop | all
/k/ | [k] | ca/o/u, qu, k | voiceless velar stop | all
/b/ | [b] | b, v, (w) | voiced bilabial stop | initial position (after pause), after nasal
| [β] | b, v, w | voiced bilabial approximant | elsewhere
/d/ | [d] | d | voiced dental stop | initial position, after nasal and liquid
| [ð] | d | voiced interdental approximant | elsewhere
/g/ | [g] | ga/o/u, gue, gui | voiced velar stop | initial position, after nasal
| [ɣ] | ga/o/u, gue, gui | voiced velar approximant | elsewhere

## Ideas for exercises

Depending on the level of your students, take a few sentences (or phrases) and ask your students to underline those occurrences of /b d g/ that are realised as approximants. For example, find all the [ɣ]’s in

Gabriela le ha comprado unos guantes ingleses a Miguel.

Or, which allophones of /d/ occur in this sentence?

Dora y Tadeo han tenido un día tremendo.

OpenLearn - Teaching Spanish pronunciation
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