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As a Spaniard, I am confused by the "the J is obviously silent". The most neutral pronunciation of José in Spain (the one you would hear in Spanish broadcast ne
by Rygian 5y ago
As a Spaniard, I am confused by the "the J is obviously silent". The most neutral pronunciation of José in Spain (the one you would hear in Spanish broadcast news) is indeed /xo'se/.
Spanish is extremely rich in pronunciation variations, due to the large population spread over several continents, so in most cases when you observe something about "Spanish" you need to focus on a specific region or dialect, for the observation to have a proper context.
- School-Cotton 5y agoIt's also /xo'se/ in Mexico as far as I can tell. I'm not Mexican but I know a lot of Mexicans and am pretty sure that's how they'd pronounce it. I would be very surprised if the "Spanish J" is silent anywhere; the person you're replying to almost certainly just made a mistake.
- kergonath 5y agoFrom my experience, native English speakers have a very hard time pronouncing the Spanish /j/ (or the German /ch/, for that matter, or even the French /r/), so they just pronounce it as a somewhat stressed /h/ (for lack of a better term).
- School-Cotton 5y ago“ch” in German actually represents two different sounds: e.g. the one in “ich” and the one in “Bauch”. I’m a native English speaker and I find those extremely difficult to distinguish. But the French r is fine. (I spoke French to a near-native level 15 years ago; it’s probably decayed to “advanced intermediate” by now).
- FeteCommuniste 5y agoMaybe they got Spanish "J" confused with Spanish "H?" There are some cases like "halar" / "jalar" but I don't think I've seen the name "Hosé" before. :-)