Spanish Consonants

What Are Spanish Consonants?

A consonant (la consonante in Spanish) is a speech sound produced by creating some form of blockage or narrowing in the mouth using the tongue or lips. Spanish has a relatively small and regular consonant system that consists of 19 consonant sounds.

List of Spanish Consonants

Here is a list of Spanish consonants along with their articulation features and examples. Note that there is not a one to one correspondence between the consonant sounds and the Spanish alphabet, as some sounds are represented by more than one letter or digraph. Sounds that are only used in Spain are highlighted in the table.

	Voicing	Place & manner	Example
/p/	voiceless	bilabial stop	pan
/b/	voiced	bilabial stop	boca, vaca
/t/	voiceless	dental stop	taza
/d/	voiced	dental stop	dedo
/k/	voiceless	velar stop	cabeza, queso
/g/	voiced	velar stop	gato
/f/	voiceless	labiodental fricative	foto
/θ/	voiceless	interdental fricative	cielo, zorro
/s/	voiceless	alveolar fricative	sapo, cero, zona
/x/	voiceless	velar fricative	jota, gente
/χ/	voiced	velar fricative	junto, girar
/tʃ/	voiceless	postalveolar affricate	chico
/m/	voiced	bilabial nasal	mano
/n/	voiced	alveolar nasal	nada
/ɲ/	voiced	palatal nasal	niño
/l/	voiced	alveolar lateral	luna
/ʝ/	voiced	palatal fricative	yo, llevar
/ɾ/	voiced	alveolar rhotic (tap)	pero
/r/	voiced	alveolar rhotic (thrill)	río, perro

Features of Consonants

Each consonant can be characterized based on three features:

1. Voicing: whether the vocal cords vibrate or not.

Voiced consonants: /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /ɲ/, /l/, /ɾ/, /r/, /ʝ/, /χ/ (Spain only)

Voiceless consonants: /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /x/, /tʃ/, /θ/ (Spain only)

2. Place of articulation: in which part of the mouth it is produced.

Bilabial (both lips): /p/, /b/, /m/

Labiodental (lip + teeth): /f/

Dental (tongue touches the back of upper teeth): /t/, /d/

Interdental (tongue between upper and lower teeth): /θ/ (Spain only)

Alveolar (tongue touches the ridge behind teeth): /s/, /n/, /l/, /ɾ/, /r/

Postalveolar (tongue placed behind the alveolar ridge): /tʃ/

Palatal (the middle of the tongue comes close to or touches the hard palate): /ɲ/, /ʝ/

Velar (back of the tongue touches the soft palate): /k/, /g/, /x/, /χ/ (Spain only)

3. Manner of articulation: how the airflow is modified.

Plosive (stop): the airflow is completely blocked, then released: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, /g/

Fricative: air passes through a narrow space with friction: /f/, /s/, /x/, /ʝ/, /θ/ and /χ/ (Spain only)

Affricate: combination of plosive and affricate: /tʃ/

Nasal: air passes through the nose: /m/, /n/, /ɲ/

Lateral: air passes along the sides of the tongue: /l/

Rhotic: tongue vibration or a single tap: /r/, /ɾ/

Approximants

Spanish has three approximant consonants (/β/, /ð/, /ɣ/) which are produced by a slight narrowing of the airflow, without a full blockage. These sounds are allophones for /b/, /d/, and /g/ respectively, and appear only when the phoneme is used between vowels or specific consonants.