Section 1.4

Manner of articulation

 
Voiced or voiceless?

1.

2.

Voiceless	Voiced
t – too	d – do
θ – think	ð – they
s – sip	z – zip
k  – came	g – game
f - ferry	v - very

 Section 2.2

Contrastive segments

1. 

In word-initial position and after n and l, the phoneme /d/ is pronounced as a stop consonant [d]. In other word-medial positions, it is pronounced as an inter-dental approximant [ð], as in hada (fairy). Word-finally, it has many pronunciations depending mostly on the dialect of Spanish. It can be pronounced as a voiceless inter-dental fricative [θ] “Madriz”, or [t], or it can simply be deleted.

 2.

No, she pronounces it [də ðei̯], that is, she swaps the two consonants around.

Section 2.3

1.

Most varieties of Spanish have one alveolar sibilant in their phoneme inventory; /s/, which can be represented by the letters ‘s’ and ‘z’ and the combination ‘ce’ and ‘ci’, in words such as salsa (sauce), centro (centre), or zapato (shoe). In some varieties of Peninsular Spanish, the letter ‘s’ will correspond to the phoneme /s/ realised as [s], while the letter ‘z’ and the combination ‘ce’ and ‘ci’ will represent the phoneme /θ/ and be pronounced as [θ]. The two segments are contrastive, as they form minimal pairs such as casa (house) and caza (hunt).

2.

They would probably pronounce them [esprai̯] and [estei̯] or [estai̯]. Focusing on the initial consonant cluster, they would add an [e] sound before the initial s+consonant sequence because although all these consonants occur in Spanish, the sequences never occur in Spanish in word-initial position. 

Section 3.2

We compiled the following list:

ENG – SP 
area – área
radio – radio
idea – idea
banana – banana
debate – debate

And in the following, stress falls on different syllables: 
capital – capital
continent – continente
dragon – dragón
information – información
artist – artista

Section 3.4

Entonación declarativa > De tipo no neutro > Exclamativa

¡Ay! ¡Qué delicioso olor a pan, don José!

Section 3.5

This is a possible answer, but you might notice other features that you would like to point out.

The student’s intonation is good, in general. She has quite big jumps in pitch on some stressed vowels (the first mention of mejsAje; gEnte; famIlia). Perhaps these modulations are affected by exposure to a specific variety of Spanish, not just interference from the intonation of her mother tongue. 

Section 4.4

This is a possible answer. You might want to point out other pronunciation features.

We can claim that the student has assimilated the main rules regarding the pronunciation of vocalic sounds in Spanish. She doesn’t pronounce English diphthongs in final position.

[a], [e], [i] and [o] are pronounced following the Spanish patterns and this is especially noticeable when the student clearly differentiates between the [a] and [i] in /amiga/ [ aˈmiɣa] and the [ɑː] and [ɪ] in /Cardiff/ [ˈkɑːdɪf].

[u] is pronounced somewhat front (estudia), which shows clear interference from English. 

There seems to be an influence from another foreign language as well – probably French – as enis pronounced with a lower nasal vowel as in French. This should definitely be pointed out early so that it does not become a fossilised error. 

Section 5.5

In this sample there are several pronunciation features that deserve attention. 

The audible presence of the so called “reading” phenomenon is obvious. Firstly, the rhythm and intonation are inadequate and completely monotonous. There are many mistakes that are affected by spelling (hubo with hache, batalla with l), and cognates pronounced as though they were English words (fascista).

We will focus on consonants. The student pronounces the velar fricative [x] as in naranja correctly. This means that the phoneme that has no similar counterpart in English, has been acquired correctly. However, there are a number of features which show that the phonology of the mother tongue has a major influence on the student’s pronunciation. 

The production of voiceless stops is quite aspirated, just as in English (puerto, padeció). 

He produces the alveolar tap or flap [ɾ] (durante) and the alveolar trill [r] (guerra) the same way and pronounced as r is in English.  This could be improved, although we would like to emphasise that there is no point in insisting on a rolled pronunciation if it is difficult for the learner. It is more important to point out that he does not pronounce the r’s in syllable coda at all; fundadoR, impoRtante, baRco.

If the above-mentioned errors – which can hinder comprehension – have been tackled, we can focus on /v/ in all its positions, as it is pronounced [v] instead of [b] or [β] (noVecientos), and on voiced stops (instiGó, y De), as they are always pronounced as occlusives rather than approximants.