Pronunciation varies from country to country and from region to region, just as English pronunciation varies from one place to another. In general terms, the speech of the Americas shows many common features akin to southern Spanish variants, especially to western Andalusia (Seville, Cádiz) and the
Canary Islands. Coastal language vernaculars throughout Hispanic America show particularly strong similarities to Atlantic-Andalusian speech patterns while inland regions in Mexico and Andean countries are not similar to any particular dialect in Spain. • Most Spaniards pronounce and (before and ) as (called or ). Conversely, most Hispanic Americans have , lacking a distinction between this phoneme and . However, is also typical of the speech of many
Andalusians and all
Canary islanders. Andalusia's and the Canary Islands' predominant position in the conquest and subsequent immigration to Hispanic America from Spain is thought to be the reason for the absence of this distinction in most Latin American Spanish dialects. • Most of Spain, particularly the regions that have a distinctive phoneme, realize with the tip of tongue against the alveolar ridge. Phonetically this is an
"apico-alveolar" "grave" sibilant , with a weak "hushing" sound reminiscent of fricatives. To a Hispanic American, Andalusian or Canary Island Spanish speaker, the in Spanish dialects from northern Spain might sound close to like English as in
she. However, this apico-alveolar realization of is not uncommon in some Latin American Spanish dialects which lack ; some inland Colombian Spanish (particularly Antioquia) and Andean regions of Peru and Bolivia also have an apico-alveolar . • The second-person familiar plural pronoun is not generally used in daily speech in Hispanic American dialects of Spanish; the formal is used at all levels of familiarity. However, and its conjugations are known and seen occasionally in writing or oratory, especially in formal, ritualized contexts. • Hispanic America virtually lacks the found in a good deal of Spain, with this feature only being found commonly in
Paraguay and the highlands of
Ecuador. • As mentioned, Anglicisms are far more common in Hispanic America than in Spain, due to the stronger and more direct US influence. Anglicisms in Chile and Argentina are even very common mostly because of the influence of British settlers there. • Equally,
Indigenous languages have left their mark on Latin American Spanish, a fact which is particularly evident in vocabulary to do with flora, fauna and cultural habits. Nevertheless, European Spanish has also absorbed numerous words of Amerindian origin, although for historical reasons, the vast majority of these are taken from Nahuatl and various Caribbean languages. •
Arabic-derived words with Latinate doublets are common in Latin American Spanish, being influenced by Andalusian Spanish, such as ("bedroom") instead of standard , , and many others and ("jewel") instead of standard . In this sense Latin American Spanish is closer to the dialects spoken in the south of Spain. • See
List of words having different meanings in Spain and Hispanic America. • Most Hispanic American Spanish usually features : there is no distinction between and . However realization varies greatly from region to region. Chileans pronounce these 2 graphemes as , for example. However, yeísmo is an expanding and now dominant feature of
European Spanish, particularly in urban speech (Madrid, Toledo) and especially in
Andalusia and the
Canary Islands, though in some rural areas has not completely disappeared. Speakers of
Rioplatense Spanish pronounce both and as or . The traditional pronunciation of the digraph as is preserved in some dialects along the
Andes range, especially in inland
Peru, the Sierra of
Ecuador, and the
Colombia highlands (Santander, Boyacá, Nariño), northern Argentina, all
Bolivia and
Paraguay; the Indigenous languages of these regions (
Quechua,
Guarani and
Aymara) have as a distinct phoneme. • Most speakers of coastal dialects may
debuccalize or
aspirate syllable-final to , or drop it entirely, so that ("s/he is") sounds like or , as in southern Spain (
Andalusia,
Extremadura,
Murcia,
Castile–La Mancha (except the northeast),
Madrid, the
Canary Islands,
Ceuta and
Melilla). • (before or ) and are usually
aspirated to in Caribbean and other coastal language vernaculars, as well as in all of Colombia and southern Mexico, as in much of southern Spain. In other Latin American dialects, the sound is closer to , and often firmly strong (rough) in Peruvian Spanish dialect. Very often, especially in Argentina and Chile, becomes fronter when preceding high vowels (these speakers approach to the realization of
German in ich); in other phonological environments it is pronounced either or . • In many Caribbean varieties, the phonemes and at the end of a syllable sound alike or can be exchanged: >
ca[r]do,
cardo >
ca[l]do; some people assimilate the phonemes /l/, /r/ or /s/ to a following consonant, so the words , and may be pronounced ['atta]; in the situation of in word-final position, it becomes silent, giving Caribbean dialects of Spanish a partial
non-rhoticity. This happens at a reduced level in Ecuador and Chile as well. It is a feature brought from Extremadura and westernmost Andalusia. • In many Andean regions, the
alveolar trill of and is realized as an
retroflex fricative or or even as a voiced apico-alveolar . The alveolar approximant realization is particularly associated with an Indigenous substrate and it is quite common in Andean regions, especially in inland Ecuador, Peru, most of Bolivia and in parts of northern Argentina and Paraguay. That phonetic is also heard in Costa Rica, except pronounced as [z]. • In Belize, Puerto Rico, and
Colombian islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, aside from , , and , syllable-final can be realized as , an influence of
American English to Puerto Rican dialect and
British English to Belizean dialect and Colombian dialect of Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina (in the case of the latter three, it is not exclusive to Colombians whose ancestors traced back to Spanish period before British invasion, under British territorial rule, and recovery of Spanish control, but is also used by
Raizals, whites of British descent, and descendants of mainland Colombians); (verse) becomes , aside from , , or , (winter) becomes , aside from , , or , and (scarlet) becomes , aside from , , or []. In word-final position, will usually be one of the following: • a trill, a tap, an approximant, , or elided when followed by a consonant or a pause, as in ('paternal love'); • a tap, an approximant, or when followed by a vowel-initial word, as in ('eternal love'). • In Chile and Costa Rica, consonant cluster [t] can be pronounced [], , or [], making 'four' and 'work' pronounced as [ and [ respectively. This is an influence of
Mapudungun in Chile{{cite web • The
voiced consonants , , and are pronounced as
plosives after and sometimes before any consonant in most of
Colombian Spanish dialects (rather than the
fricative or
approximant that is characteristic of most other dialects): , , , , —rather than the , , , , of Spain and the rest of Spanish America. A notable exception is the
Department of Nariño and most
speech (Atlantic coastal dialects) which feature the soft, fricative realizations common to all other Hispanic American and European dialects. • Word-final is velar in much Latin American Spanish speech; this means a word like (bread) is often articulated . To an English-speaker, those speakers that have a velar nasal for word-final make sound like
pang. Velarization of word-final is so widespread in the Americas that it is easier to mention those regions that maintain an alveolar : most of Mexico, Colombia (except for coastal dialects) and Argentina (except for some northern regions). Elsewhere, velarization is common, although alveolar word-final can appear among some educated speakers, especially in the media or in singing. Velar word-final is also frequent in Spain, especially in southern Spanish dialects (Andalusia and the Canary Islands) and in the Northwest: Galicia, Asturias and León. == Local variations ==