Are you fairly proficient, or even fluent, in Spanish but find that people have a hard time understanding your accent? Or, perhaps you're a beginner and when you speak the response you get is a pained look of confusion? There are many details in our pronunciation that we may not notice but impact how we sound to a native speaker's ears. Examining these details can truly improve your Spanish accent.

When we begin learning a language, everything is new, different, and exciting! The tendency is to focus primarily on the major differences. This is natural of course, however, if we don't take the time to examine the less obvious differences in pronunciation, we're likely to carry these "non-native habits" of pronunciation well into advanced stages where it becomes more difficult to unlearn.

While most of the time Spanish learners are bombarded by the difficulty of producing the rolled "r", they often neglect the letters that are similar to their English counterparts, but slightly different. For example, take a look at the following consonants: p, t, c, k. Most students were probably taught that they are "just like in English" and then giving more instruction on rolling their "r's". But, we're going to take a closer look at them.

What do these seemingly random mix of letters have in common? They share the property of being aspirated in English. What is aspiration you ask? Basically, it means a puff of air emanates from your mouth when you begin to pronounce the letter. You can test this for yourself by first placing the palm of your hand a couple inches away from the front of your mouth. Now say the following words:

pill

tall

corn

kill

Notice that for all the words you should feel a little blast of air coming from your mouth at the beginning of the word. That's aspiration! The problem is that in Spanish, none of these consonants are ever aspirated. So, what does an un-aspirated version of these consonants sound like? Well, in English we do have these un-aspirated versions of p, t, hard c, and k. However, they only occur when the letters follow a consonant. So, let's try this next set of words and again put your hand in front of your mouth as you do this.

spill

stall

scorn

skill

Did you feel the difference when you pronounced p, t, c, and k? If not, try comparing the two words side by side:

pill spill

tall stall

corn scorn

kill skill

How about now? Do you see how there isn't a blast of air coming from your mouth when you say the second word in each pair? That is how you pronounce the p, t, hard c, and k" in Spanish all the time. Now try some Spanish words:

pero

todo

calma

kilo

If you're still having trouble with pronouncing these letters as un-aspirated, you can try this exercise. Go back to the un-aspirated English words and insert a space between the initial "s" and the following consonant. Repeat each word several times.

s--pill...s--pill...s--pill...s--pill...s--pill...

s--tall...s--tall...s--tall...s--tall...s--tall...

s--corn...s--corn...s--corn...s--corn...s--corn...

s--kill...s--kill...s--kill...s--kill...s--kill...

Now, increase the pause in between the "s" and the un-aspirated consonant and reduce the "s" to a whisper.

s----pill...s----pill...s----pill...s----pill...s----pill...

s----tall...s----tall...s----tall...s----tall...s----tall...

s----corn...s----corn...s----corn...s----corn...s----corn...

s----kill...s----kill...s----kill...s----kill...s----kill...

Next drop, the "s" altogether and you should be producing the un-aspirated version of the consonant.

pill...pill...pill...pill...pill...

tall...tall...tall...tall...tall...

corn...corn...corn...corn...corn...

kill...kill...kill...kill...kill...

Hope that helps! If you make these changes, you should definitely see an improvement in your Spanish accent. It takes time to incorporate these changes into your pronunciation, so be patient. There are many other details like these that so often get overlooked by many Spanish learners. If you're interested in reading more, you can visit my blog Gringo No Mas http://gringonomas.blogspot.com/.

For those of you that have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, you can also practice improving your accent on the go and listen to native speakers with this iPhone App for Spanish Pronunciation http://www.decoderapp.com/.

PT Gardner is a polyglot and language enthusiast who can entertain himself for hours with a dictionary. Most recently, he has done work for Greenhorn Media, an educational media company that develops language learning resources.