Read Selected Letter Groups

Supplied materials

• Paper or a browser scratch area; no audio recording, account or private information is needed.
• For the practice word queso, which supplied spelling-to-sound statement is accurate? Candidate answers: (A) q alone gives a y sound (B) que is pronounced with an English w (C) the final o is always silent (D) the u in qu before e is silent.
• For the practice word guitarra, which supplied spelling-to-sound statement is accurate? Candidate answers: (A) all written letters must sound separately (B) gui has the English j sound (C) the final a is always silent (D) the u in gui is silent.

Learn the idea

Written Spanish gives useful clues to sounds and word boundaries. These text tasks introduce a few spelling and stress patterns; they do not evaluate anyone’s accent or listening ability. A written letter is not always a separate sound. In que/qui and gue/gui, u usually supports the spelling without being pronounced; ü in güe/güi explicitly marks a pronounced u. Initial h is silent in standard ordinary words such as hola.

Inspect the exact supplied letter group. Use qu before e/i for a k-like sound, hard g in gue/gui, silent h in hola and ñ as a sound roughly like ny. The pattern is tied to its written context.

Do not generalize that u is always silent. In pingüino it is pronounced. Soft c/g pronunciation varies with letter context and region; these cases ask only the narrow patterns explicitly supplied.

1. Copy the supplied example and underline its speaker, noun, time cue or evidence words.
2. Apply the shown language rule; keep any required ending, accent or paired punctuation.
3. Solve the changed independent check, then explain why one offered alternative fails.
4. Complete all three new practice cases and use the model to correct the precise word or meaning.

Check your reasoning

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Take it further

For the practice word pingüino, which supplied spelling-to-sound statement is accurate? Candidate answers: (A) the diaeresis ü marks that u is pronounced (B) the dots mark that u is silent (C) the dots mean a word has two stresses (D) ü is the same as ñ. Expected result: the diaeresis ü marks that u is pronounced. Inspect pingüino rather than apply a rule to every letter position. Here the diaeresis ü marks that u is pronounced. The competing statements either pronounce a deliberately silent letter, ignore the marked ü, or assign a different letter’s sound.

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