How to Pronounce the Sounds of the Spanish D 🇲🇽 🇪🇸 

How did you find this lesson? And do you think these Spanish d's are hard to pronounce?

Your ability to educate us on those finer points of this beautiful language are greatly, greatly appreciated. Muchísimas gracias.

l love you so much you are so wonderful teacher

Your pronunciation is perfect for me. You are a terrific teacher. I'm Australian and I love your lessons! So clear with your explanations.

Great video Andrew! You do such a good job of explaining things in detail with examples. Muchas gracias.

Never personally struggled with them but I know some people do. They’re one of my favorite sounds because of how different the tongue placement is when compared to English. For context, the Spanish I speak is of the Spanish variety (as in Europe versus another country in south or Central America).

Your Australian is always flawless! Thank you so much. My Spanish has greatly improved since March. ANIMO!!

Really great topic. Thanks for the great explanation. I had never thought about the the flexibility of vowels in English vs the flexibility of consonants in Spanish. That is a wonderful insight!

I’m constantly on the lookout for the perfect D, so big thanks for this pedagogical video.

Thanks for this really great lesson. Again you cleared up for me some of the variations I hear between native Spanish speakers. In addition to giving solid information on how to sound more like a native you also explain why and what is happening. I think that information is necessary because sometimes when I try to imitate native speakers I don't understand how to mimic them, what parts of my mouth, tongue, or throat to move or how. Now I can pay attention to not using my throat on the softer 'd', and it is working great, I think. Also, by doing that I seem to slide into aspirating a bit, to me that sounds much less gringo. I'll try this out on my tutor at our next class.

Amazing video! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge

Tengo 14 años, gracias por esto!

Excellent content. This video just popped up in my RU-vid feed. I am amazed at how understandable your Spanish accent is for an Australian and how informative the video is. I have been speaking/listening to/reading and writing Spanish as a second language for 65 years. I am a "natural mimic." I recently moved to the state of Veracruz, Mexico from the US and I find myself starting to speak like the locals which is distinctive and amusing. My wife, on the other hand, has great difficulty with speech processing even in English and did not start to speak until she was 4 years old. For example in Spanish she cannot hear the difference between the words "pera" and "para". I am very impressed with your instruction and am going to send this to my wife to see if your instruction can help her.

There were some good pointers in this! 👍

gran vídeo y información gracias

I'm not a teacher, neither I would dare to call myself a "Spanish researcher"; I'm a spanish native speaker who's trying to get an extra mile in my english skills. But with the knowledge I've built trying to get better in the spoken aspect of english I've come with a set of ideas respect to spanish d. I think it's worth sharing not necessarily because it is the ultimate truth, but rather because it is something that I've never seen anyone even insinuating. So, what I'm about to say could be absolutely wrong... Most spanish learners I've heard are oblivious to the "allophonance" of the sounds [ð] and [d] as described in the IPA. That is wrong all together. But that's not the whole thing, as some learners that get that under their belt still pronounce the d sound in a way that's "particular" for natives speakers. Most english natives speakers who learn spanish pronounce the letter d in a way that sounds off. Not that's straight up wrong, but rather off. I believe that that "offness" comes from the fact that when they pronounce [d] (the d sound) as "strongly" as in english in all situations. At least in my accent, I feel like [d] in spanish is very very similar to the one in english when it is the first sound right after silence but not when it is not; when it is preceded by other sound. Putting that in other words is that the d sound in spanish is pretty much the same as it is in english when you start to speak but not when you are already speaking. For example, pronouncing the first d in the word "Dedo" as you would in english is ok if you pronounce the word in isolation. However when you say "Quiero ese dedo" for example, pronouncing it exactly as you would in english sounds very bold or strong. So it sounds off unless you do it sporadically as a way to put enphasis in the word. But if you stopped the cadence of the phrase(as when you are trying to remember what you want to say), it is ok. For example "Quiero ese ...Ehhh...Mhh..... dedo!". Do you get what I'm saying? So when you're already speaking, the d sounds is softer when it is preceded by other sound compared to when you start with it. That softness is product of not actually blocking the air going through your mouth when you pronounce the d sound but getting close to do so I believe. This is a bit of a sidenote and also a hot take, I'm gonna mess with the IPA real quick, feel free to crucify me if you feel like it lol This situation is an example of why I don't like the IPA as a way to "understand" sounds. As there are some aspects or details that go unrepresented, under the radar, aspects that in some cases could be very important, specially as you try to upscale your proficiency closer and closer to excelence. The IPA flaws get in the way of fine tuning your understanding of spoken language at least that goes for english(and spanish) in my opinion. Not only that it is non useful in that regard, but that sometimes you can derive important misconceptions out of it. The way it works makes it so easy to draw wrong conclusions. But getting on-topic again... I'm a spanish native speaker from Uruguay/Maldonado, Maldonado is a suburban city and you could consider my accent as such. Which is a world different compared to the accent of people that live far from cities. Hope this can be useful. Whether to give you an actual soultion that is useful or at least to open up some mental gates/bring some different ideas into the table. If you notice any error or thing that sounds weird in this comment, then feel free to make me notice it, I will really appreciate it. Truly, have a good day :)

This happens also with the letters G and B, they get soft sometimes like in beber, the second B is softer than the first one

Another amazing video from you my friend !

As a US American from the West Coast, I pronounce “d” as in did, donut, don’t, with the tip of my tongue slightly back at the upper middle of my mouth. I notice you put your tongue tip slightly forward up when demonstrating the hard “d.” You very slightly “soften” a hard “d” more in line with the Spanish way to pronounce “d.” Your hard “d” still isn’t quite as “hard” as ours. Interesting and no big deal. It’s just fun to pick up on nuances. It’d be fun to watch a video where, say, 5 native Spanish speakers pronounce the same words and listen to the regionalism and nuances.

Excellent.

Hi can you make a video about entonces, idk when to use it but i keep hearing people saying it, ty

Awesome lesson man, thanks!

amazing video, thank you

This was a great great great explanation. Love your videos. Thank you!

Great information. Thanks!!

Excellent video. Comprehensive and in depth. Appreciate you not over-simplifying. At 5:17, did you mean "not preceded by an n or an l," rather than "not followed by an n or an l"?

I'm going to Spain in the summer for an extended stay this summer and I'm finding your videos really helpful. But I'm really struggling with understanding when "le," "la," or "lo" is attached to a verb versus when it's not (i.e. echarle, verla) and when/ how to use it. Could you help me out?

Hahaha I never paid attention to this in English , it is a lot to retain for a life long English speaker albeit an American English speaker!

Nice explanation and presentation! Only critique I'd add is that the syllable initial or post n or l 'd' sound is not palatal but dental and not voiced as hard as "our" d.

that's good, 'd' is pronounced as 'd' when at the start of a word or after 'n' or 'l', otherwise pronounced as 'th'. When I first learnt English, I used to pronounce 'th' as 'd' for a long time.

Hola Andrew. I went through your videos and didn't see this one. I do multiple online lessons every day. I have for over 5 years. But I've never understood the moving pronoun (i.e., se levanta vs levantese / te sientes vs siéntate / me ducha vs ducharme). Can you please do a video that explains this in lay terms (you're very good at that). For most things, I find I remember best with a mental "hook" -- something I can memorize to help me remember until it becomes natural. Please help me find a hook for the floating pronouns. Please do a video. I can't be the only person who is confused by the "floating pronouns".

Thank goodness I'm in Colommbia!! 🇨🇴

Good video!

in this song antes de las seis shakira sings de D in dejar en a strange way. Also covers made from this song psanish speakers don;t prnounce it like a D. Could you epxlain why?

In your clip of Irish English from "Banshees of Inisherin" the character pronounces 'there' as /ˈðɛɹ/, not /ˈdɛɹ/ .

can you do eres vs esta?

In standard Spanish, the D is an approximant (soft or lazy) only between vowels, or in vowel + D + R + vowel, and it is a plosive (hard or strong) in the other cases, even at the end of speech. I realized about that by analizing it as a native speaker. To do it, we can use the standard English-TH sound (voiced) and turn it to a plosive or to an approximant. 'Cause both are dental.

When I was a child I learn to pronounce using the book "La cartilla micho". You will need a spanish native to indicate each sound 😅

When I found out that R has 2 allophones in Portuguese, I thought that was weird. Then I realized that even English has such situations: eg, t in tip and trip.

‘Baseball bat’ is a masculine object in Spanish, but in the Walking Dead, Negan named his baseball bat ‘Lucile’, a female…I wonder whether they referred to the bat as masculine or feminine in the subs 🤔

REQUEST : hay que VS hay de

Cubans are confused when I say TODO.. they think I say TORO

bruh the scottish accent 0:49😭😭😭😭

What I hear is the tip of the tongue touching between the alveolar ridge and the front teeth (alveolar/dental) for the hard D (initial and after n,l etc.) and something approaching th (still only upper teeth) for the rest.. I could be wrong. Not a native or an expert, but speak multiple languages with different consonant sounds and have some background in phonetics.. To me, no Spanish d I've ever heard sounds like the English one though.

Do you everget to d

You forgot the letter B in your list of variable consonants. Just as in another video i was looking at she left out the letter D which is why i'm watching your video.

I'm not so sure about that American pronounciation of day. 😅

Sowas hat man uns im Spanischunterricht nicht beigebracht, da wurde und gesagt, das d ist genauso wie ein deutsches d

This is nonsense. As a Spanish native speaker, there are no double sounds for D or most letters in Spanish. The only few exceptions are G (ga, go, gu are different from ge, gi), C (the same principle: ca, co, cu, are different from ce, ci), R (depending on the position) and finally Y (which can be used as a vowel or a consonant).

Still can’t tell the difference

This is not true. COnsonants in English do vary a lot too. Just compare the american flapped t for example or the bunched r

Watched at 2x speed cause you keep yapping.

Okay, so I watched this whole video hoping you would teach the proper pronunciation of Madrid. So disappointed. ;)

I cannot endorse your, so-called, American English _day_ . Needs work.