Hola Garry
After analyzing the numerous questions on accents and pronunciation you have posted on the forum it sounds like you are looking to improve not only your listening skills but also your pronunciation and accent in Spanish.
All language learners are confronted with the fact that foreign languages use sounds that may not exist in their own native language. When you need to also learn a new alphabet that corresponds to these sounds, like Russian, Greek or Arabic, you actually question these less. When the alphabet looks like your own native alphabet you will often try to impose your own native pronunciation of those symbols and it’s tricky to get out of that mind set.
Letters that are pronounced completely differently like -z- (zorro) or some of the sounds of -c- (cerebro, cisne) don’t seem to pose as much of a problem to learners as those that are very close to being the same as when using your native pronunciation. This is because their proximity means that for communication purposes it doesn’t matter, you will be understood. If you can’t pronounce the -rr- sound of zorro or perro people will still understand. However, you will hear that a native Spanish speaker says these words differently to how you say them. To take one of your queries, for most English speakers the letter -n- seems to only have one pronunciation. In Spanish it depends what letter comes after it, including the letter of the word that follows it if the -n- is at the end of a word. Most Spanish students will either pick this up naturally or just continue to use their own native pronunciation of -n- and it won’t make any difference to being understood. You will however hear the difference when you focus on these words like you do in a dictation.
There are some resources on this page that you will most likely find useful: Improve Your Spanish Pronunciation.
All of our lessons are created by native Spanish speakers.
Saludos
Shui
