232 CultureShock! Bolivia
English-speaking tongue: the rolled ‘rr’ sounds like a trill, and
the j (or g when it comes before e or i) sounds like a heavily
aspirated ‘h’.
For English speakers, Spanish is one of the most
pronounceable languages in the world.Vocabulary
Once you’ve settled into the sounds, take advantage of the
numerous cognates—words that are identical or nearly the
same in both English and Spanish (for example, all words
from English with a ‘tion’, and their derivatives, are the same
in Spanish, with a ‘ción’ ending).
Invitación—invitation
Invitar—to invite
Invitado—guest
These two simple and basic principles, simple vowel
phonetics and cognates, will allow most sceptics who think
they can’t learn a foreign language to acquire a rudimentary
knowledge of Spanish in a short time.