Is there a “th” sound in the Spanish language (aside from the weird way Castillian-speaking Spaniards pronounce the letter s)? Most folks would tell you no, and I was one of them until not long ago when I realized there most definitely is a “th” sound, and those of us who speak Spanish use it a lot, without realizing it. It is found in the letter d.

That letter can be pronounced as a hard d, as in ándale or bandera or comprender, but in about half of the cases, it is pronounced as “th”. As in madre, which is most often pronounced mathre.

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am not an expert on the Spanish language. In fact, even though it was my first language and I spoke and thought and dreamt in Spanish until sometime in my 20s, I have never really studied the language (high school Spanish doesn’t count). I have talked to no experts about this. Neither have I done any studying on the subject. So, what you are reading here comes from my personal observations. And it’s entirely possible that I’m full of mierda 

So, what determines when you use the d sound and when you use the th sound? Placement, it seems. Look at the examples I cited above. If the “d” comes after a vowel, or is between two vowels, it’s pronounced th. In “ándale,” the d follows a consonant. In “madre,” the d comes after a vowel, and in “estado,” the d is between two vowels.

But not all consonants call for a hard d. The word mierda is pronounced miertha, for instance. 

Originally, I had written that if the d comes at the beginning of a sentence, it more often than not is pronounced as a hard d. “Dame la mano,” for instance. Or “Dios te bendiga.” But the more I think about it, the more I realize that is not necessarily so. The d could just as easily be pronounced as th in both cases.

You can even have both pronunciations in a single word. Like “dedo” (finger) or dedicación. You pronounce them detho and dethicación. There’s an exeption here: if the article that precedes the word ends in a vowel, both d’s are pronounced “th.” Una thethicación.  Ese thetho.

Of course, there are always exceptions. The word doctor, for instance, is pronounced either doctor or thoctor. It’s “el doctor” and “la thoctora.” But I bet you nobody would notice if you say “el thoctor.” And if you’re addressing a female doctor, you’d probable say, “Doctora …”

There may be other unwritten rules or exceptions to those rules, but I can’t come up with any.

What is fascinating about this is that it is not something that is taught. Spanish-speakers seem to just automatically pick it up and figure out how to pronounce the letter on their own. It is absorbed, like osmosis. Which is why many non-native Spanish speakers, as good as they are with languages, have a difficult time sounding like a native speaker. I’ve known some non-native speakers who have spent years becoming experts in Spanish, learning the vocabulary and perfecting their accents. Yet, because they never understand some of the intricacies of the language, they will never sound like native speakers.

Next time, children, we’ll explore the b and v sounds in Spanish. Thanks for being so attentive.