El domingo, 1ro de marzo de 2009, a las 2:15, Sue escribió:

> With regard to Spanish and the pronunciation of "x" :
> Actually, I have seen this addressed in a book I own called,
> "How to Pronounce Spanish Correctly." The example you give
> does show an inconsistency. But my book says that "when the
> letter X occurs before another consonant, it is generally
> pronounced as an S.

No estoy completamente de acuerdo con eso. En general, cuando la
letra 'x' precede a una consonante, el sonido es [ks] o [É¡s].

El sonido [s] en esos casos es vulgar, pero hay excepciones
generalizadas, como por ejemplo <excepto> y sus derivadas, que
comúnmente se pronuncian con [s].

> Also, "the Spanish X is generally
> pronounced as a "gs" sound--with a very soft "g"---or as "ks."

Verdad, [ks] prevalece cuando la palabra se enfatiza.

Creo que vale la pena mencionar que los angloparlantes
normalmente pronuncian la 'x' como [gz], sonido que no existe en
español. Ejemplo: <exam, exist, example>.

Una excepción que se me ocurre es:

extinct [ɪkˈstɪŋkt]

> There is a footnote given with regard to the X. It says that
> "extra" and "texto" should be pronounced as gs or ks.

Sí, como [ks] normalmente.

> Also,
> sometimes X is pronounced like the Spanish J. Examples:
> México, Mexicano, Texas, Quixote.

Sí, los dos sonidos son comunes: [x] o [É£] (que normalmente se
corresponden con la 'j' en español) y [ks].

A quién le interese profundizar en este tema le recomiendo leer:

<http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltGUIBusDPD?clave=x>


Ignacio

--

> > > Unlike Spanish, which is completely phonetic,
> >
> > That may have once been true, but nowadays I would say it is
> > phonetic to a great extent - not completely.
> >
> > An example that immediately springs to mind is that of the
> > words <excepto> and <exceso>. For the former, I often hear
> > the compound <-xc-> pronounced as [s] (as if the <-x-> were
> > not there), whereas for the latter, I hear <-xc-> pronounced
> > phonetically, [ks].