Page:Appleton's Guide to Mexico.djvu/374

The vowels are pronounced as follows:

a,	like	a	in	father.
e,	”	a	”	mate.
I,	”	e	”	me.
o,	”	o	”	go.
u,	”	oo	”	boot.
y,	”	y	”	liberty.

y is a vowel when it stands by itself, or at the end of a word, or of a syllable immediately followed by a consonant.

The consonants are pronounced as follows:

b,	like	b in baby (b is often erroneously sounded like v).
c,[1]	”	th in theft.
ch,	”	ch in chess.
d,	”	d in day and fed.
f,	”	f in effect.
g,	”	h in ham, he.
h,	”	h silent in heir.
j,	”	h strongly aspirated in home.
l,	”	l in labial, elect.
ll,	”	II in brilliant.
m,	”	m in amen.
n,	”	n in energy, no.
ñ,	”	n (somewhat nasal) in onion.
p,	”	p in paper.
q	”	q in piquet, quint.
r,	”	r soft in erect.
r,	”	r or rr (very harsh) in horror
s,	”	ss in senseless.
t,	”	t in tent.
v,	”	v in velvet
x,	”	x (cs) in maxim.
y,	”	y softer than g or j in gentry, jet.
z,	”	z like th, lisped z, in thermal.

1. C, before a, o, u, l, r, and when it is at the end of a syllable, sounds like k in English.