I've done some light study in Spanish, and I notice that...?

Question

...not every word is said verbatim all the time by native Spanish-speakers. Some of the words seem to flow together as if it was one word. Why is that? Is it like contractions in English (is not-isn't)?

Answer 1

Yes. Of course, it sounds like that to someone who doesn't speak any foreign language. We hear sounds, and try to make out many words in what sounds like a run of many syllables strung together. We don't usually pronounce each word separately. But it is too fast for our minds to separate the words out. Spanish, French, German...and other languages. But just think---English sounds just that way, too, to foreign language speakers. It must sound sometimes like an auctioneer speeding through hundreds of words !

Answer 2

I've been studying Spanish for a few years now. When I first started studying, it all sounded like one long word to me too. Now that I have studied and practiced alot, and am able to converse in Spanish, I can hear and seperate the individual words in a sentence. As you improve your vocabs, sentence structure etc, and as you practice speaking it more and more, you will learn to tell the words apart from each other. When you don't know the vocabulary, you don't know where one word ends and another begins. It's the same for someone who doesn't speak any English. We sound like we're saying one long word or several long words, especially when talking fast.

Answer 3

A characteristic of spoken Spanish is elision, known as 'sinalefa'. This isn't the same as 'isn't', it occurs within a breath group - unlike German, where it sounds as if there is a glottal stop between each word. I remember a phrase in my early learning of Spanish: 'El campesino va a la aldea' which sounded more like 'El campesino valaldea'. Tricky initially, but when you recognise that Spanish words, apart from the short prepositions and definite article, all have a tonic accent on one syllable, your brain 'sorts' the string into words. Give it time.

Answer 4

To be honest, non of the words are flow together as if ot one word, it just seems that way ... its just that you have not gotten used to the language ...

one knows the language and just talks and talks and it seems that way ... and there is no contraction like : (is not - isn't) in spanish ...

i was seeing the web page left by someone above ..

la artista sound as lartista yeah but
the elephant sounds the same as thelephant

is just that we prounonce the letters fast and it seems as liason ...

unlike french nous avons
nous avouns it sounds as nouzavons ... that would be a liason

Answer 5

Yes, we have the same thing in English. It depends on the regions where the Spanish speaker is coming from, some regions pronounce and enunciate their words differently.

Answer 6

This is known as elision, a very common feature in spoken Spanish. This link may help a litte in explaining what it is about. As you have observed, elision is a feature of English too, as in the word "isn't". http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:MMYTGLesJ14J:spanish.about.com/cs/pronunciation/g/elisiongl.htm+spanish+elision&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us