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Possible inaccurate information about n, m, ɲ

There is a note next to /n/, /m/, /ɲ/ that says, "The nasal consonants /n, m, ɲ/ contrast only before vowels". I have strong doubts about the accuracy of that statement, at least regarding /n/ and /m/, because /ɲ/ is not used before a consonant, if I'm not mistaken. I believe /n/ and /m/ do contrast also before consonants, like in the words "mantel" and "femtogramo". If a general Spanish speaker is reading those words, probably the reader will be intent in contrasting /n/ and /m/. Although contrast may not occur in some cases, that does not mean that it is the rule that they only contrast before vowels. Thinker78 (talk) 04:59, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@Thinker78: I don't see a reason why a native Spanish speaker wouldn't pronounce femtogramo as [fenˈtoɣɾamo] (if I got the stress right, maybe it's [fentoˈɣɾamo]). The surname of Carlos Slim is always pronounced [ezˈlin] when it occurs in isolation. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Take a look at Spanish phonology#Nasals and laterals, which explains the situation with sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:30, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

ð??? Really???

ð is the sound at the beginning of "this", "there", "those", etc. The sound of ð requires the speaker to place the tip of his/her tongue between his/her frontal teeth or, at least, under the upper frontal teeth. Definitely, there is contact with such teeth and the very tip of the tongue goes beyond the teeth... We never do that in Spanish. I am a Spanish native speaker. And even when pronouncing really fast, my tongue never comes out at all. The "d" in Spanish is pronounced by placing a great part of the tip of the tongue on the BACK of the frontal upper teeth.

When pronouncing dádiva, arder and admirar, perhaps and only perhaps, the tip goes a little bit lower but not enough to be trapped by the teeth. I won't make any changes because this is backed by the book from some guys who seem to have enough credentials (Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté). Maybe there is no IPA symbol for this "lower" d and they decided to use ð. But, I really think this will slow down the learning of many people and might be even misleading. I have spoken with Spaniards, Uruguayans, Argentinians, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Venezuelans, Peruvians, Bolivians, etc. from different regions and backgrounds. No trace of ð at all, at least not the "pure" ð.

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 15:32, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

There are a number of realizations of [ð]. What you are talking about is sometimes called interdental or laminal dental, where the point of constriction is not on the tip of the tongue, but the blade so that the tip sticks out more. There is also a more apical realization, which is typical for Spanish, that uses the same IPA character. It is valid to use ⟨ð⟩ for both of these and there is no alternate symbol, nor is there a typical manner of distinguishing the two, since no language contrasts them. So there's no inaccuracy here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:22, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

"avgano". This made me laugh.

If I pronounced afgano as "avgano" no one would understand me. If this is based on research... well, no doubt we've really gone astray. I might acknowledge that some "lazy" people might mispronounce some words but you should rely on the official standard pronunciation. Besides, remember that we should not present the pronunciation of uneducated people here. Otherwise we are contributing to the propagation of bad pronunciation habits.

When we, Spanish speakers, want to make a difference between "Baca" (a surname) and "vaca", "botar" y "votar", etc. We use /b/ for the first case and /v/ for the second. But, when speaking fast, most times both sounds clash into /b/.

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 16:07, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

I was a little surprised, too. But it's well-sourced. Do you have sourcing that says otherwise? There could even be dialectal variation on that. The features in question aren't necessarily those of uneducated speakers, but of colloquial speech. We do want to steer towards being descriptive, rather than prescriptive. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:57, 19 December 2018 (UTC)