Differences Between American and Castilian Spanish

I gotcha now Mi5 Mick. I checked the word WAS in the dictionary and to my surprise, according to the pronunciation chart the S in WAS is actually a Z. WOW, you do learn new things everyday. I always thought it was an S and pronounced it likewise. Are there anymore hidden little Z gems in other words Mi5 Mick. I'm dying to find out. ;-)

<< Truth to what? And what do you mean BY SOME??? >>

The Spanish destruction of the Aztec empire, their culture and civilisation - "some" as in partial, not total. Not just some genetic DNA in a population.
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/nativeamericans/aztec.htm
http://linux1.tlc.north.denver.k12.co.us/~gmoreno/gmoreno/Aztec_Empire.html

<< are there anymore hidden little Z gems in other words >>

Was, has, is, hers: end in "z". Theirs, cabs, pads, bags, balls, hams, hands, pans, saws, haves, hays; these endings are pronounced with a "z" sound and this is usually the case for other words of the same endings.

Around 30% of English words come from French, so as in French when you see an "s" alone in between syllables it is normally "z" sounding. However, double "ss" is sounded "s", usually. One exception that comes to mind is Missouri; sounds like "Mizouri".

OK, I said that I use the "th" sound since I was 3; what I wanted to say is that I use the "th" sound since I was 3 because I learnt ENGLISH when I was 3. Sounds better?...

Am I 13? No more, since the next week I'm 14. Yes, yes, if you think I'm bigger, maybe is because my IQ is 127 (but I took this IQ test on the Internet; in another test my IQ was almast 140).

Xatufan wrote:
<<Yes, yes, if you think I'm bigger, maybe is because my IQ is 127 (but I took this IQ test on the Internet; in another test my IQ was almast 140). >>

That explains everything. ;-) Yes, you are very bright boy Xatufan.

Mi5 Mick wrote:
<<Was, has, is, hers: end in "z". Theirs, cabs, pads, bags, balls, hams, hands, pans, saws, haves, hays; these endings are pronounced with a "z" sound and this is usually the case for other words of the same endings. >>

I almost fell out of my chair when I read this. This is all news to me. I can't believe I had lived in ignorance for this long. I honestly believed they were pronounced with an S. I owe an apology to US Americans who swap the "s" with the letter "z". I think they should also extend this practice to words such as WAS (WAZ) and these other words that I just recently found out that also have a secretly hidden(to me anyways) Z in their pronunciation: PLEASE (PLEAZE) and MUSIC (MUZIC). I'm sure there are many more.

P.S
Nice, interesting website Mi5 Mick. A hadn't come across that one before.

Mi5Mick,

you wrote :"Around 30% of English words come from French, so as in French when you see an "s" alone in between syllables it is normally "z" sounding. However, double "ss" is sounded "s", usually. One exception that comes to mind is Missouri; sounds like "Mizouri". "


Examples in french please?

Here are some French/English cognates. In both languages the "s" is pronounced /z/:
accusation
amuse
centralisation
feasible/faisable
fusible
guise
lasagne
magnesium
miserable
music/musique
nasal
peasant/paysan
phase
pleasant/plaisant
positive
visible
visit/visite
vase

But there are so many irregular words in English were the isolated "s" is pronounced /s/ as in 'misuse' or /Z/ in 'vision'. So maybe it's not a good idea to generalise in English as you can in French for /z/.

But I'm certain "ss" and 'c' before 'i' or 'e' are pronounced /s/ more than 90% of the time:
ace
acid
assume
assassin
cereal
decision
face
possible
etc

http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-ascii.htm

interesting,

like Cesar! Cesare

And what about "poison"? It is a beautiful word...

Para mí también fue una sorpresa el que la "s" suene como "z" sobre todo por que en México es indistinto.
La ventaja de combinar varias fuentes de información con el diccionario, es indiscutible.
Hace unos meses conocí a una española, Eva Rivas, quien me ha parecido una persona sumamente amable y culta (no generalizo) con quien he podido platicar de distintos tópicos como: ETA, la posición de España ante el mundo, Aznar e IRAQ, etc.
Su acento es muy suave y no tan marcado como lo hemos estigmatizado en México por algunos medios de entretenimiento. Me ha parecido agradable su acento, aunque ella comenta que al provenir de una región montañosa, aún en España, en otras zonas le identifican de inmediato.
Por cierto, habla Inglés fluido, pero con acento Español -suena divertido-
Saludos.

Por Diossssssh, tío! No sé, me gusta hablar con acento español, lo que a mis compañeros causa una gran admiración y siempre me piden que lo haga.

quuisiera tomar clases de ingles porque me encanta el idioma pero no tengo las facilidades necesarias para pagar un curso que pudo hacer ante ese problema
si deseo viajar al extranjero

Agradecería ver mayúsculas, comas y puntos en tus escritos. Te ruego no imites algunos anglófonos jóvenes a quienes les ha dado por hacer lo que haces. Por cierto, imagino que "yanett" debe ser "Jeanette" en inglés i francés i Juanita en el original español y García va en mayúscula y lleva un acento encima de la "i".
Ya que dispones de Internet puedes hacer grandes cosas para mejorar tu inglés. Te deseo mucha suerte. De veras.

He puesto unas cuantas "i" donde corresponden "y". Ya sabéis que soy catalán y escribo más en mi lengua que en castellano. Os ruego me perdonéis por no haber revisado el texto.

¡¡¡Mi abuelita también escribe "i" en vez de "y"!!! Pero ella es ecuatoriana. Quizás sea porque hace muchisisísimo tiempo se escribía "i" también en español...

Don't be so cruel with Yanett. She's just a bit clueless...