How to correct/improve 's-' pronunciation at the beginning of a sentence?

Question

As a native Spanish speaker, I tend to mispronounce some letters or words in English. One of them is the 's' sound at the beginning of a word, for example, I pronounce: - 'slang' as /eslaŋ/ instead of /slæŋ/, or - 'Spanish' as /ˈespan.ɪʃ/ instead of /ˈspæn.ɪʃ/, or - 'standard' as /ˈestandaɹd/ instead of /ˈstændəd/ I can easily hear the difference between /es/ and /s/, or between /eso/ and /es/, but I find really difficult to hear the difference between /espi/ and /spi/, because, I think, there is no /s/-CONSONANT-VOWEL sound in Spanish and my ears aren't use to hear such combination (so, my mind just create the /e/ sound at the beginning for consistence). So, my question is: Are you aware of any technique that help me to correct my pronunciation?, or any technique that help me to rewire my brain to be able to hear and pronounce better? Note: I took the IPA transcription from https://en.wiktionary.org

Answer 1

This is a great question! You hit the nail on the head with what your brain is doing when saying these words. There are no Spanish words with /s/+consonant beginning the word. This “initial consonant cluster” does not follow Spanish language rules. The Spanish language rule is that if /s/+consonant appears in the initial position of a word, then it is preceded by a vowel, ex: Estefania vs Stephanie. So to answer your question, you would need to participate in accent reduction lessons or therapy. It would be to train your brain to get used to the new sound, or lack of sound on those words.

On your own, you can try making lists of English words that have initial consonant clusters and begin with /s/. Be aware of where your tongue is and what your voice is doing when beginning that word. /s/ is a “voiceless” phoneme so your voice should not be on when saying that letter. When you add /e/ in front of the word it turns your voice on. Establishing that new habit of tongue and voice coordination takes practice. May benefit from a speech language pathologist specializing in voice and accent reduction.

Answer 2

Hello Nicolas,

You can experiment with the following methods, and see which one works better for you.

Mentally associate the "s" at the beginning of English words with "si" in Spanish. It will be more precise when you land on the "s", and more likely that you will only say "s" instead of "es".

As for rewiring...listen to your favorite journalists, speakers, podcasts, for just a few minutes. During that time, look for the sound "s" at the beginning of words. You'll be training your ear. Do this regularly, and see if it makes a difference for you.

Let me know how these techniques work for you, and anything you discover along the way.

Have fun with this!

Estrella