Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [477]
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PRONUNCIATION
Spanish pronunciation is easy, as most of the sounds are also found in English. If you follow our pronunciation guides (included alongside the Spanish phrases), you’ll have no problems being understood.
Peruvian Spanish is considered one of the language’s ‘cleanest’ dialects – enunciation is relatively clear, pronunciation is very similar to Castilian Spanish (the official language of Spain), and slang is a lot less common than in other parts of Latin America.
Vowels
There are four sounds that roughly correspond to diphthongs (vowel sound combinations) in English.
a as the ‘a’ in ‘fa ther’
ai as in ‘aisle’
ay as in ‘say’
e as the ‘e’ in ‘met’
ee as the ‘ee’ in ‘meet’
o as the ‘o’ in ‘more’ (without the ‘r’)
oo as the ‘oo’ in ‘zoo’
ow as in ‘how’
oy as in ‘boy’
Consonants
Pronunciation of Spanish consonants is similar to their English counterparts. The exceptions are given in the following list.
kh as the throaty ‘ch’ in the Scottish loch
ny as the ‘ny’ in ‘canyon’
r as in ‘run’ but stronger and rolled, especially at the beginning of a word and in all words withrr
s not lisped (unlike in Spain)
The letter ‘h’ is invariably silent (ie never pronounced) in Spanish.
Note also that the Spanishb and v sounds are very similar – they are both pronounced as a very soft ‘v’ in English (somewhere between ‘b’ and ‘v’).
You may also hear some variations in spoken Spanish as part of the regional accents across Peru (and Latin America in general). The most notable of these variations is the pronunciation of the letter ll. In some parts of Peru (and the continent) it’s pronounced as the ‘lli’ in ‘million,’ however in most areas it’s pronounced as ‘y’ (eg as in ‘yes’), and this is how it’s represented in our pronunciation guides, so you won’t have problems being understood.
Word Stress
In general, words ending in vowels or the letters n or s have stress on the next-to-last syllable, while those with other endings have stress on the last syllable. Thus vaca (cow) and caballos (horses) both carry stress on the next-to-last syllable, while ciudad (city) and infeliz (unhappy) are both stressed on the last syllable.
Written accents will almost always appear in words that don’t follow the rules above, eg sótano (basement), América and porción (portion). When counting syllables, be sure to remember that diphthongs (vowel combinations, such as the ue in puede) constitute only one. When a word with a written accent appears in capital letters, the accent is often not written, but is still pronounced.
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GENDER & PLURALS
Spanish nouns are either masculine or feminine, and there are rules to help determine gender (with the obligatory exceptions). Feminine nouns generally end with -a or with the groups -ción, -sión or -dad. Other endings typically signify a masculine noun. Endings for adjectives also change to agree with the gender of the noun they modify (masculine/feminine -o/-a). Where both masculine and feminine forms are included in this language guide, they are separated by a slash, with the masculine form first, eg perdido/a.
If a noun or adjective ends in a vowel, the plural is formed by adding s to the end. If it ends in a consonant, the plural is formed by adding es to the end.
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ACCOMMODATIONS
* * *
MAKING A RESERVATION
To … A …
From … De …
Date Fecha
I’d like to book … Quisiera reservar …
in the name of … en nombre de …
for the nights of … para las noches del …
credit card … tarjeta de crédito …
number número
expiry date fecha de vencimiento
Please confirm … Puede confirmar …
availability la disponibilidad
price el precio
* * *
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