🇪🇸 For 590 million speakers worldwide
Spanish has just 5 vowel sounds; English has around 20. Most Spanish-speaker errors are vowel-length errors — plus a few consonant habits imported from Spanish spelling.
Master the schwa. Reducing unstressed vowels instantly makes Spanish-accented English sound dramatically more native.
Why it happens: Spanish has one "i" sound (like English long E), so ship and sheep merge.
The fix: Relax your mouth completely for short I — no smile, half the length.
Full guide to /ɪ/ with practice words →Why it happens: Every Spanish vowel is pronounced fully; English reduces most unstressed vowels to schwa.
The fix: Pick the stressed syllable, then deliberately mumble every other vowel.
Full guide to /ə/ with practice words →Why it happens: Spanish never starts a word with S + consonant, so "school" becomes "eschool".
The fix: Whisper a long sssss, then glide straight into the word: "ssss-chool".
Full guide to /s/ with practice words →Why it happens: Spanish B and V are the same sound, so "very" becomes "berry".
The fix: Bite your bottom lip gently with your top teeth and buzz.
Full guide to /v/ with practice words →Why it happens: Spanish J is a throaty H, and Y/J blur — "jam" drifts toward "yam".
The fix: Start the sound with a firm D touch: D + ZH = J.
Full guide to /dʒ/ with practice words →Why it happens: Final -ing tends to gain a hard G or K: "sing-g".
The fix: End the word with your tongue at the back — never release it.
Full guide to /ŋ/ with practice words →These pairs target exactly the contrasts above. Tap to hear each word.
🎧 Train these pairs in the listening game →