How does Spanish pronounce LL?
Pronunciation 1: LL Sounds Like The English Letter 'Y'
Simply magine replacing any ll with a 'y' and that's it! For example, you would pronounce lluvia (rain) as “yuvia” or se llama as “se yama”. Here are some other common ll words and their pronunciations: llave (key) – yave.
LL, Y – In Colombian Spanish, we pronounce “ll” and “y” the same way. It is like the “y” sound from “you” in English. For example, we pronounce “caballo” (horse) as “ca-ba-yo”. C, S, Z – In Colombian Spanish, we pronounce “s”, “c” and “z” the same way.
In Spain, LL is pronounced more or less like an English J. In llámame (call me) it sounds similar to the J in “jump.” We also pronounce Y at the beginning of a word the same way, as in yema (yolk). In most of Latin America, however, folks take the double-L a little easier and pronounce it like the Y in “yes.”
For example, llegado (arrived) would be pronounced “llegao”. The pronunciation of “ll” is also more commonly pronounced as “j”, which is different to most parts of mainland Spain.
Definitely, the puertorrican pronunciation of the "ll" is more like as in "j" (Joe, Jill, Jack..."poh-joh") and even stronger. You will find all regions of PR pronounce it like that. There is no correct or incorrect Spanish pronunciation of "ll", it is totally a matter of accent and regions.
But in 1994, the Spanish Royal Academy eliminated the LL and CH from the Spanish language alphabet. They made this change to make Spanish more computer and keyboard friendly. This change also streamlines the Spanish alphabet. After all, it's two less letters!
If you mean the J sound as in Jungle or Jane, Venezuelans pronounce it that way. Many Latin American countries pronounce the LL as Y, making llámame (call me) sound YAH-ma-meh, however in Venezuela, it's JAH-ma-meh. Interestngly, the Y is also pronounced J in most cases.
In most Spanish speaking countries the letters y and ll are pronounced like “Y” in “you”, but in the most parts of Argentina they will be pronounced like “zh”. In Buenos Aires it is a bit different than the rest of the country, because they pronounce the ll, sh and y like “sh”.
Like most other Spanish dialects, Dominican Spanish features yeísmo: the sounds represented by ll (the palatal lateral /ʎ/) and y (historically the palatal approximant /ʝ/) have fused into one. This merged phoneme is generally pronounced as a [ʝ] or [dʒ] (these are the sounds in English York and John).
Número 2 – Number 2: /j/
The second way to pronounce the “LL” in Spanish is with a /j/ sound, such as in 'James' or 'jungle'. It's widely used in other parts of Argentina, some parts of Colombia, Venezuela, and some other countries in central America such as Guatemala.
What languages use LL?
I have noticed that all the Romance languages (Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian, and French) usually pronounce the "ll" like the "y" in "yacht".
However, in most of Latin America, it's not pronounced like that, it's pronounced with a “j” sound, e.g. “yo” (meaning “I” in Spanish) is pronounced “joe”, and the same thing goes for the double-L: “ll”, as in “llegar”, which would be pronounced as “yay-gar” in Spain but “jay-gar” in most of Latin America.
Mastering The Spanish J Sound
It's not nearly as tricky for most English speakers as the RR or LL, for example. In reality, however the “jota” (or J) in Spanish makes a unique sound that doesn't really exist in English. You can approximate it with an H sound (such as in “hello” and “hard”).
Usage notes. Since 1994, this letter is treated as if it were two separate l letters for collation purposes only. In 2010, this letter was officially dropped by the RAE from the Spanish alphabet.
In Spanish, the letter l is pronounced exactly as in English. When two of the letter ls are together, ll, the pronunciation is similar to the letter "y" in English. Juan lavó la ropa.
- Eth (ð) The y in ye actually comes from the letter eth, which slowly merged with y over time. ...
- Thorn (þ) Thorn is in many ways the counterpart to eth. ...
- Wynn (ƿ) Wynn was incorporated into our alphabet to represent today's w sound. ...
- Yogh (ȝ) ...
- Ash (æ) ...
- Ethel (œ)
Swap that Shushing for a Y
Beyond the intonation, the most distinctive feature of Argentinian speech is the amount of soft “shushing” sounds – but the SH is not a letter that appears frequently in the Spanish dictionary. In reality, that /SH/ sound is meant to be a Y or LL. So flip that ¡Esha me shamo sha!
On the other hand, in some countries such as Argentina and Uruguay, vos actually replaces both tú AND usted to form a singular formal / informal pronoun.
It sounds a whole lot like Italian to the untrained ear, and that's because it comes from Italian. Since the 1800s, there have been quite a few waves of immigrants from Italy who ended up settling in Buenos Aires. Their Italian accents rubbed off on the locals, and thus the intonation that you can still hear today.
While most of Spain and spanish-speaking Latin America will pronounce Y like in English in the word you, in some regions, in particular in the South of Argentina including Buenos Aires and in Uruguay, the pronunciation is more like J in English joy.
Is Double LL pronounced in French?
The double “l” in French can also be tricky as it has two pronunciations, either as a single “l” or as a “y”. Although there are some exceptions, the general rule is that “ll” is pronounced as “y” when there is a vowel before “ill”.
American English largely goes one way (single “l”) and British English goes the other (“ll”). A general rule is that the Brits tack an extra “l” when adding a suffix to a multisyllabic word which already ends in an “l” e.g, cancel, marvel, travel.
In formal language theory, an LL grammar is a context-free grammar that can be parsed by an LL parser, which parses the input from Left to right, and constructs a Leftmost derivation of the sentence (hence LL, compared with LR parser that constructs a rightmost derivation).
Meaning of 'll in English
short form of will: I'll see you next week.
I'll is the contraction of I will. The contraction is a spoken form and not used in writing unless it is to mimic speech. Therefore avoid writing I'll as this shows ignorance and non-differentiation between written and spoken language.
There's a high chance that if you pronounce ll as “y,” you'll be understood in most Spanish-speaking countries. Depending on the region though, the sound of ll can be similar to the letter “j” as well. This can apply to regular words that have the letter combination ll (for example, llamar).
In Spanish, the letter l is pronounced exactly as in English. When two of the letter ls are together, ll, the pronunciation is similar to the letter "y" in English. Juan lavó la ropa.
If you mean the J sound as in Jungle or Jane, Venezuelans pronounce it that way. Many Latin American countries pronounce the LL as Y, making llámame (call me) sound YAH-ma-meh, however in Venezuela, it's JAH-ma-meh. Interestngly, the Y is also pronounced J in most cases.
However, in most of Latin America, it's not pronounced like that, it's pronounced with a “j” sound, e.g. “yo” (meaning “I” in Spanish) is pronounced “joe”, and the same thing goes for the double-L: “ll”, as in “llegar”, which would be pronounced as “yay-gar” in Spain but “jay-gar” in most of Latin America.
The /ɪ/ sound (“ih”) is a short quick vowel in Canadian English. For example, “sit”. It often gets confused with /i/ (“ee”) as in “seat” Learn how to make the sound, listen to the difference between /ɪ/ and common substitutions and then practice saying /ɪ/ in words and sentences.
What is ll used for?
We commonly use 'll as the short form of will and shall. In speaking, will and shall are usually contracted to 'll, especially after subject pronouns (I, we, you, they, he, she, it): We'll meet you outside the coffee shop. (more common in speaking than We will meet you …)
contraction of I will or I shall: I'll want to see your tax records.
In formal language theory, an LL grammar is a context-free grammar that can be parsed by an LL parser, which parses the input from Left to right, and constructs a Leftmost derivation of the sentence (hence LL, compared with LR parser that constructs a rightmost derivation).