Which words are most difficult for Spanish Speakers to pronounce?

At Confidence Learning Services, we freely admit that English is a difficult language to pronounce.
Thats why we offer advanced English Pronunciation courses and offer tips and videos on Accent
Reduction. While our English Pronunciation courses are personalized (meaning we plan our
lessons based on an in-depth, one-on-one evaluation with you), there are some aspects of English
pronunciation that are difficult for almost all Spanish language speakers.

Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 diphthongs. Vowel length is not significant in distinguishing
between words. However, English, has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs. The length of the
vowel sound plays an important role. It is not surprising, therefore, that Spanish background
learners may have great difficulty in producing or even perceiving the various English vowel
sounds.

Lets take a closer look at the Top 11 English words that Spanish-speakers mispronounce when
trying to learn English.

11. Breakfast/Brefas

A simple word (for native English speakers) like breakfast is tough for Spanish-speakers, who
struggle with consonant clusters. Spanish-speakers will often pronounce it brefas and omit the k
and the final t because they are attached to another consonant.

10. Teeth/Teet

Some people have trouble mastering the th sound on words like teeth. (For fun, try speaking
teeth without the th sound. Oops, You might not want to try that out loud!)

Knoxville English Spanish Accent Reduction

9. Ship/Sheep

Another one of these English words where the relaxed i /I/ tends to get replaced with a tense
e /i/, making it sheep. Spanish-speakers often make vowel sounds tense, or long, and
confuse pairs of short and long English vowel sounds like ship and sheep both in
comprehension and speaking.

knoxville spanish accent

Just imagine how this works for sheet and

8. Joke/Yolk or Jess/Yes

In most Spanish dialects, the sounds for English letter J /d/ and English letter Y /j/ are
allophones, meaning that they can subsitute for one another. So the Spanish word ella can be
pronounced with either sound. Thus, it can be difficult for Spanish-speakers to learn to
differentiate between the two sounds. Many people who speak Spanish pronounce the letter J like
the letter Y, or pronounce the letter Y like the letter J.

So, if you tell someone: That is a funny joke, and if you mispronounce the J, joke will sound
like yolk (meaning the yellow part of an egg), which is difficult to understand. Likewise, if you
pronounce the Y as J and say Yes I do, then Yes sounds like Jess and someone may think
you are speaking to someone named Jess.

Spanish Speakers Mispronounce

7. Focus/F***us

In English, our letter O is actually a diphthong, /o/. The key to saying this correctly is
remembering to make the o a long one, with the lips closing down throughout the sound. Many
however replace the long o with uh, making it fuhcus. Look at that word again. Ladies and
gentlemen, if theres one thing I want you to do today, its f***us! You may get in trouble for
that one!
6. Kitchen/Chicken

This is a common mispronunciation for many English learners and not just Spanish-speakers. While
learning English, some speakers say chicken instead of kitchen. To make it clear, we usually
prepare chicken in a kitchen.

5. Ask/Aks/Axe

Spanish-speakers while learning English often mispronounce ask as axe. So, if you say : You
dont have to axe me why, it certainly doesnt mean what you want to say!

Spanish Speakers Can't Pronounce

What were you thinking of?

4. Fifth/Fiss

Particularly when it comes to final consonant clusters in English, Spanish-speakers can suffer both
from adding extra syllables (e.g. three syllables for advanced with the final e pronounced) and
swallowing sounds to make it match the desired number of syllables (e.g. fifths sounding like
fiss). With words that are similar in Spanish and English, they can also often try to make the
English word match the Spanish number of syllables.

3. Comma/Coma

Spanish Speakers Mispronounce

Perhaps more importantly, they can also have problems with the two closest sounds to an o
sound in not , making comma and coma difficult to distinguish.

2. Pull/Pool

Most Spanish-speakers have difficulty distinguishing between /u/ and //. While /u/ is very
similar to the Spanish letter u, it is actually long, or tense. // is considered short or lax,
without the tightly-rounded lips. Its important to note that pull and pool are not homophones.

1. Stop/Estop

Spanish Speakers Mispronounce

Yes, there are accent differences, but there are also a few common pronunciation mistakes
Spanish learners of English can make. Some tend to want to add an e to the beginning of words
that start with s followed by a consonant, making the word stop sound like estop.