This tip will be quicker than the title of this blog post.
Are you ready?
Wrinkle your nose when you say the ñ.
And make a big show of doing it every time you say añadir, niño, español, cumpleaños, etc.
That's it.
How did I come up with this brilliant idea, you ask?
I had these Spanish 1 students back in the day that kept saying anadir during our food unit. They'd be giving directions in a recipe "an-na-day za-na-hooooorrrrr-eee-as".
(Can you hear their amazing pronunciation?)
So I made the entire class repeat añade 80 bajillion times and every time I said it, I'd wrinkle my nose during the ñ.
I had everyone pronounce the English words cannon and canyon. I wrinkled my nose on the second word.
It caught on.
Suddenly everyone was wrinkling their noses.
¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? *wrinkle nose*
Él es un niño. *wrinkle nose*
Añade zanahhhhoooorrrrias. *wrinkle nose*
I never did figure out how to make them stop pronouncing the Hs in Spanish words.
If you've got any tips for helping students improve their Spanish pronunciation, please share them in the comments below!
I've been wrinkling my nose for many years to try to teach the ñ sound. It does indeed work for most students. As for those H's... I once joked with my students that they were driving me to an early grave by pronouncing the H's in Spanish words. One student joked right back, saying something like "SO, Sra., after you're dead, THEN can we pronounce the H's in Spanish?" I replied "Only if you want me to come back and haunt you..." They thought that it would be better just to help each other learn to leave those H's SILENT in Spanish... and it was... and they did!
ReplyDeleteHahahaha that's a great story! :) Thank you for sharing!
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