CONTEXTS - The Rough Guide to Panama - page 459

LANGUAGE
Spanish is the national and official language of Panama and the first language of more
than two million of the population. A recorded thirteen other first languages are spoken
across the country, including English , which is used by many black Afro-Antilleans -
though outside Panama City and the touristy areas of Bocas del Toro and Boquete, it's
not widely spoken. Learning at least the basics of Spanish will make your travels con-
siderably easier and reap countless rewards in terms of reception and understanding of
people and places.
Pronunciation and word stress
In Spanish, each word is pronounced as written according to the following guide:
A somewhere between the “A” sound of “back” and that of “f a ther”
E as in “g e t”
I as in “pol i ce”
O as in “h o t”
U as in “r u le”
C is soft before E and I, otherwise hard; cerca is pronounced “SERka”.
G works the same way - a guttural “H” sound (like the “ch” in “loch”) before E or I, a hard
G elsewhere; gigante is pronounced “HiGANte”.
H is always silent.
J is the same sound as a guttural “G”; jamón is pronounced “ham ON”.
LL sounds like an English Y; tortilla is pronounced “torTIya”.
N is as in English, unless there is a “~” over it, when it becomes like the N in “onion”;
mañana is pronounced “maNYAna”.
QU is pronounced like an English “K” as in “kick”.
R is rolled, RR doubly so.
V sounds like a cross between B and V, vino almost becoming “beano”.
X is a soft “SH”, so that Xela becomes “SHEla”; between vowels it has an “H” sound -
México is pronounced “ME-hi-ko”.
Z is the same as a soft C; cerveza is pronounced “serVEsa”.
Getting the word stress right makes a big difference: PAgo means “I pay”, paGÓ she/he
paid. The rule is simple: if a word ends in a vowel, “s” or “n”, the stress is on the syllable