Spanish United States (es-US)

This documentation was updated on May 8, 2023.

Creating grammars

The following subsections describe key issues for working with grammar documents in the Spanish language.

Character encoding

Nuance Recognizer has full internal Unicode support. You can create your grammars using UTF-8 or Latin-1 (also known as ISO-8859-1) character encoding. For example, your grammar header might be:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>  



<grammar xml:lang="es-US" version="1.0" root="test">  

In case your keyboard does not match your target language on Windows add the respective keyboard by going to the “Control Panel” click “Regional and Language” and select “Keyboards and languages”.

Below are codes for writing some common Spanish characters. These are useful if you do not have access to a Spanish keyboard, and are typed by pressing the ALT key while entering digits on your keyboard (after typing the last digit, the desired character appears on your screen when you release the Alt key):

Alt/0225 = á	Alt/0250 = ú
Alt/0233 = é	Alt/0252 = ü
Alt/0237 = í	Alt/0241 = ñ
Alt/0243 = ó

alphanum_lc built-in grammar

The alphanum_lc built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and lowercase alphabetic characters, such as “a8f9h23”. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or user id. The “lc” in the name of this built-in means lowercase. The possible characters are the lowercase letters a-z, ñ and the digits 0-9.The character sequences “ch” and “ll” can be spoken as two separate letters, as in “c h” and “l l” or as single letters, as in “doble ele” and “doble erre.” The application layer can adjust the case of the returned letters as needed for further processing.

Note: This grammar replaces the alphanum built-in grammar.

alphanum built-in grammar

(NOTE: for backward-compatibility only. Otherwise, use alphanum_lc builtin)
This grammar has been replaced by the alphanum_lc grammar, but is still available. The alphanum builtin-grammar has been retained for backward-compatibility. For new implementations, please use the alphanum_lc builtin grammar.

The alphanum built-in grammar recognizes a connected string of up to 20 digits and uppercase or lowercase alphabetic characters, such as “A8f9h23”. For example, this grammar could be used to recognize a product code or order number. The possible characters are the uppercase letters A-Z, lowercase letters a-z, and digits 0-9. Uppercase and lowercase letters are homonyms (e.g., “B” and “b”), so the inclusion of both is redundant for the purposes of speech recognition of case insensitive items such as product codes. Thus, the alphanum built-in grammar has been replaced by the alphanum_lc grammar.

boolean built-in grammar

The boolean grammar collects an affirmative or negative response.

Properties

The y and n parameters let you associate any two touchtone buttons as synonyms for yes and no.

Parameter	Description
y	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “sí” (default = 1)
n	Desired DTMF digit to be equivalent to “no” (default = 2)

Examples

Caller says…	MEANING key
sí	true
no	false

ccexpdate built-in grammar

The ccexpdate grammar understands the expiration date on a credit card. Expiration dates are usually a month and a year, and are often embossed on a credit card in the form “mm/yy.” The grammar recognizes variations on the date, for example, “septiembre 2007,” “doce cero siete,” “ocho treinta y uno de cero siete,” “doce diagonal cero siete,” etc.

creditcard built-in grammar

The creditcard grammar understands a caller saying a credit card number, optionally preceding the number with the credit card name or the word “cuenta.” For example, a caller can say, “visa cuenta cuatro cero uno siete…,” “tarjeta mastercard cinco cero cero dos…,” or “cinco cero cero dos….”

currency built-in grammar

The currency grammar collects currency amounts using dólares and centavos. Because some speakers will say “pesos” when referring to dollars, the grammar recognizes peso as a synonym.

MEANING

Contains a string in the following form: currencymain_unit_amount.subunit_amount If the caller explicitly says “dólar,” then a currency value of USD is added as a prefix If the caller explicitly says “peso,” then a currency value of MXN is added as a prefix If the caller does not explicitly indicate the currency type, or if they say “centavos,” then no prefix is added. If the caller omits the main unit or subunit amount, then that field is zero. The string contains a leading zero if the subunit amount is collected without the main unit.

SWI_literal

Contains the exact text that was recognized.

Examples

Caller says	MEANING
cinco pesos	MXN5.00
cinco centavos	0.05
cinco pesos y cinco centavos	MXN5.05
cinco pesos y veinticinco centavos cinco pesos y veinticinco	MXN5.25
seiscientos veinticinco mil cuatrocientos sesenta y cuatro pesos	MXN625464.00
cuatrocientos doce mil quinientos sesenta pesos con diez centavos	MXN412560.10

date built-in grammar

The date grammar accepts a date spoken in any of several formats.

Recognized phrases include “cuatro de junio,” “cuatro de junio de dos mil uno,” “lunes cuatro de junio,” and “el lunes cuatro de junio.”

The grammar also accepts “anteayer,” “ayer,” “hoy,” “mañana,” and “pasado mañana” which return values of -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2 respectively into the MEANING key.

Examples

Caller says	MEANING key
el cinco de enero de dos mil uno	20010105
ayer	-1
anteayer	-2
hoy	0
mañana	+1
pasado mañana	+2
el cuatro	??????04
el miércoles	(Phrase not recognized)
miércoles doce	??????12
el cuatro de junio junio cuatro	????0604
el cuatro de junio de mil novecientos noventa y siete junio cuatro de mil novecientos noventa y siete	19970604
el cuatro de junio del noventa y siete junio cuatro del noventa y siete	??970604
miércoles el cuatro de junio de mil novecientos noventa y siete	19970604
el seis	??????06
diez, doce	(Phrase not recognized)
diez, doce, noventa y siete	(Phrase not recognized)

digits built-in grammar

Valid characters are the digits 0-9.

number built-in grammar

The number grammar recognizes whole numeric numbers (the caller must not speak the individual digits).

Up to two decimal places are recognized by default; this can be extended to 9 using the maxdecimal parameter. The caller must speak individual digits after the decimal point (natural numbers not allowed).

Examples

Numbers from -999,999,999.99 to 999,999,999.99 are recognized, but by default the minallowed parameter is set to zero, which limits recognition to positive values.

Caller says	MEANING key
veinticinco	25
doce mil trescientos cuarenta y cinco	12345
menos dos	-2
tres punto uno cuatro uno seis	3.1416

phone built-in grammar

The phone grammar collects telephone numbers (landline and cellular) using the North American dialing plan. Callers must speak each digit one at a time.

The grammar accepts 7- and 10-digit North American phone numbers as well as three-digit numbers ending in 11 (for example, “911”). An optional “1” can be placed before the 7- or 10-digit numbers.

Additionally, as stipulated in the VoiceXML specification, the caller may specify an extension, for example, “cinco cuatro dos tres cinco seis cinco siete extension dos mil.” By default, extensions of one to four digits are supported. Natural numbers are allowed for extensions.

Return keys/values

Upon return, the MEANING key is assigned to a 10-character result representing the recognized phone number. A leading “1” is omitted in the return value. For example, if “16789999” is recognized, the return result is “6789999”.

Properties

Property	Description
minextension	Minimum numeric value allowed for an extension.
maxextension	Maximum numeric value allowed for an extension. Set this to -1 to disallow extensions.

Extensions to VoiceXML specification

Nuance has interpreted the VoiceXML specification to limit numbers to North American formats. Also, we have extended the VoiceXML specification with the parameters used to limit the allowed extension numbers.

time built-in grammar

The time grammar recognizes spoken time of day utterances from the caller. Recognized phrases include times given in 12-hour format (for example, “a las cinco”) and 24-hour format (“veintitrés quince”). In addition, it will recognize “qualified” times such as “antes de las cinco” and “como a las cinco.”

Examples

For each entry, the values returned in the MEANING and QUALIFIER keys are shown. (Not shown are the values of the HOUR, MINUTE, and AMPM keys.)

Caller says	MEANING	QUALIFIER
ahora	(Phrase not recognized)	--
en media hora	(Phrase not recognized)	--
a mediodía	1200p	exact
a media noche	0000?	exact
antes del mediodía	1200p	before
después de las trece treinta	1330?	after
veinte veinte	2020?	exact
a las ocho y veinte de la mañana a las ocho de la mañana con veinte minutos	0820a	exact
ocho en punto	0800?	exact
ocho y cuarto	0815?	exact
ocho y media	0830?	exact
a las siete y cuarto por la tarde	0715p	exact
cuarto para las ocho al cuarto para las ocho cuarto antes de las ocho quince antes de las ocho	0745?	exact
cinco antes de la una	1255?	exact
al diez para la una	1250?	exact
a las siete y cuarto de la tarde	0715p	exact
alrededor de las trece horas	1300h	approx
a las veinticuatro horas	0000h	exact

zipcode built-in grammar

The zipcode grammar recognizes valid United States ZIP Codes in either five- or nine-digit format.

Return keys/values

Upon return, the key MEANING is assigned to the recognized zipcode, and can contain either five or nine digits.

Vocabulary items and pronunciations

This chapter describes considerations for vocabularies and their pronunciations in Spanish (es-US).

Spanish pronunciations

This section provides detailed reference information to help create pronunciation dictionaries. It is intended for people who have sufficient knowledge of the Spanish language as spoken in the United States. It provides information about transcription and pronunciation.

The type of pronunciation used in SAMPA and the Spanish dictionary conforms to the standard non-regional America Spanish pronunciation.

If you are not sure how a certain word is pronounced you can refer to the IPA transcriptions given there and then convert them into the SAMPA symbols, given in The Spanish symbol set in alphabetical order .

The Spanish phoneme system

The Spanish phoneme system can be conveniently divided into three groups:

• Consonants
• Vowels
• Semi-vowel

Furthermore, it is possible to define six different types of consonants:

• Plosives
• Fricatives
• Affricates
• Nasals
• Laterals
• Trills

Spanish spelling is very regular. This means the relationship between spelling (grapheme) and sound (phoneme) is easy to define since the orthography is very regular and correlates very well with pronunciation. Nevertheless, there are some pronunciation variants, mostly regional variants, that will be explained further in Multiple pronunciations (variants) .

Within the vowel group, a distinction can be made between vowels and semivowels. Furthermore, diphthongs represent an additional characteristic among the group of vowels. Spanish has two groups of diphthongs, increasing diphthongs and decreasing diphthongs.

Exceptional in the case of Spanish is the reduction of the vowel set, which will be explained further on in the subsection Single vowels (monophthongs) .

Spanish symbol set grouped by phoneme classes

Phoneme class	SAMPA	IPA	Examples of usage
Consonants	Plosives	b	b / β
p	p	paso	/paso/
g	g / ɣ	gusto agua	/gusto/ /agwa/
k	k	casa quitar	/kasa/ /kitar/
d	d / ð	donde juzgado nada	/donde/ /xusgado/ /nada/
t	t	nata	/nata/
Fricatives	s	s / z	cinco casa juzgado mismo
x	x	gente jaca	/xente/ /xaka/
f	f	fama	/fama/
j	j	yema	/jema/
Affricates	tS	ʧ	mucho
Nasals	m	m / ɱ	malo convento confuso
n	n / ŋ	nota tengo manco	/nota/ /tengo/ /manko/
J	ɲ	año	/aJo/
Laterals	l	l	lento
Tap	r	ɾ	puro
Trill	rr	r	perro
Vowels	Single vowels	a	a
e	e / ɛ	meseta llover	/meseta/ /jober/
i	ɪ / i	mina	/mina/
o	o / ɔ	oficina ojo	/ofisina/ /oxo/
u	u	pluma	/pluma/
Semi-vowels	j	j / ʎ	piel calle
w	ʊ / w	cual	/kwal/
Decreasing diphthongs	aj	ai	aire
ej	ɛi	veinte	/bejnte/
oj	ɔi	boina	/bojna/
aw	au	áureo	/awreo/
ew	ɛu	éustilo	/ewstilo/
ow	Ǻu	bou	/bow/
Increasing diphthongs	ja	ia	cambiar
je	ie	pie	/pje/
jo	iɔ	piojo	/pjoxo/
ju	iu	viuda	/bjuda/
wa	ua	cuadro	/kwadro/
we	ue	puerto	/pwerto/
wi	ui	cuidar	/kwidar/
wo	uo	cuota	/kwota/

Spanish consonants

The standard Spanish consonant system is generally considered to have:

• Six plosives
• Four fricatives
• One affricative
• Three nasals
• One lateral
• One tap
• One trill

The sample words given below demonstrate the different contexts in which the sounds can appear. A short explanation is also given.

Plosives

There are three voiced and three voiceless plosives in Spanish, which can be arranged in pairs as shown below:

Voiced	Voiceless
/b/	basura invierno wáter
/g/	guisar ángulo
/d/	donde andar caldo

Fricatives

There are four fricatives in Spanish, /s/, /x/, /f/, and /j/:

/s/	cero acceder pez sal arsenal dos	/sero/ /akseder/ /pes/ /sal/ /arsenal/ /dos/
/x/	gente caja boj	/xente/ /kaxa/ /box/
/f/	fama fiel	/fama/ /fjel/
/j/	yodo reyes	/jodo/ /rrejes/

Affricates

In the Spanish SAMPA symbol set there is one affricate, /tS/. Affricates in SAMPA are always represented by two single phonemes.

/tS/	chucho cacharro	/tSutSo/ /katSarro/

Nasals

There are three nasals in Spanish, /m/, /n/, and /J/:

/m/	mano ambos convento confusión tándem	/mano/ /ambos/ /kombento/ /komfusjon/ /tandem/
/n/	nota antes carne canción	/nota/ /antes/ /karne/ /kansjon/
/J/	ñoño año	/JoJo/ /aJo/

Laterals

There is one lateral in the Spanish SAMPA set, /l/:

/l/	lento palco alar leal	/lento/ /palko/ /alar/ /leal/

Tap and trill

Spanish has one tap and one trill; both are pronounced with the tip of the tongue: /r/ and /rr/.

/r/	cero parar artificio	/sero/ /parar/ /artifisjo/
/rr/	ratón carro alrededor enrubiar desrizar	/rraton/ /karro/ /alrrededor/ /enrrubjar/ /desrrisar/

Spanish vowels

This section discusses the Spanish vowels in these groupings:

• Single vowels (monophthongs)
• Semi-vowels
• Diphthongs

Single vowels (monophthongs)

Generally, the Spanish language has nine distinguishable monophthongs:

• the vowel /a/
• two representations for each of the vowels <e>, <i>, <o>, and <u> (formed basically as a long and a short variant)

Since these vowels have similar pronunciation, and the different phonemes do not carry important information to convey the meaning of a word, it was decided to use only one phoneme for each vowel. Subsequent speech recognition testing has shown very good results for this practice. The main advantage for transcription is that it reduces the amount of phonemes to be considered and, at the same time, reduces a possible error source.

SAMPA	Examples
/a/	amar desatar boca
/e/	enano camelar célebre
/i/	icono desinflar tití
/o/	olor déspota campo
/u/	humano reputación menú

Semi-vowels

In this Spanish SAMPA phoneme inventory, two semi-vowels are to be found, /j/ and /w/. For example:

/j/	ciudad cambiar piel piojo llanto calle	/sjudad/ /kambjar/ /pjel/ /pjoxo/ /janto/ /kaje/
/w/	agua tuerto	/agwa/ /twerto/

/j/ is used as a fricative consonant as well. For example:

/j/	yema	/jema/

Diphthongs

In Spanish diphtongs are normally formed by the combination of a strong vowel (a, e, o) and a weak vowel (i, u). The vowel forms the nucleus of the syllable. The reduced vowel set (see Single vowels (monophthongs) ) also applies to the diphthongs.

Take care with hiatus. They are also formed as a conjunction of two vowels, but each vowel forms the nucleus of a different syllable. For example:

pi-a-no	/piano/
con-ti-nú-a	/kontinua/

In the Spanish language six decreasing /aj/, /ej/, /oj/, /aw/, /ew/, /ow/ and eight increasing diphthongs /ja/, /je/, /jo/, /ju/, /wa/, /we/, /wi/, /wo/ can be distinguished.

Decreasing diphthongs

Decreasing diphthongs have the first vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocal organs move from an open position into a closed position.

/aj/	aire desairar hay	/ajre/ /desajrar/ /aj/
/ej/	veinte rey	/bejnte/ /rrej/
/oj/	boina voy	/bojna/ /boj/
/aw/	áureo	/awreo/
/ew/	éustilo	/ewstilo/
/ow/	bou	/bow/

Increasing diphthongs

Increasing diphthongs have the second vowel as the nucleus of the syllable. The vocal organs–especially the tongue–move from a closed into an open position.

/ja/	cambiar	/kambjar/
/je/	pie	/pje/
/jo/	piojo	/pjoxo/
/ju/	viuda	/bjuda/
/wa/	cuadro	/kwadro/
/we/	cuenca	/kwenka/
/wi/	cuidar	/kwidar/
/wo/	cuota	/kwota/

Specific pronunciation transcription methods

Initial <h>

The initial h should always be ignored in transcription as it is not pronounced in Spanish. For example:

hotel	/otel/
ahora	/aora/

Transcription of the tap /r/ and trill /rr/

The tap /r/ appears in the middle of a word between two vowels, between a vowel and a consonant and between a consonant and a vowel other than <n>, <l>, or <s>. It also occurs at the end of a word. For example:

cero	/sero/
artificio	/artifisjo/
apresar	/apresar/

The trill /rr/ appears in the middle of a word as <rr> between two vowels, preceded by the letters <n>, <l>, or <s>, or as initial <r>. For example:

carro	/karro/
enrubiar	/enrrubjar/
alrededor	/alrrededor/
desrizar	/desrrisar/
ratón	/rraton/

Transcription of the nasals /J/ and /n/

The Spanish letter <ñ> is always represented by the Spanish SAMPA symbol /J/. For example:

año	/aJo/
muñeca	/muJeka/

The Spanish nasal /n/ appears before the phonemes /g/, /k/, and /x/. For example:

tengo	/tengo/
donjuanesco	/donxwanesko/
nunca	/nunka/
inquirir	/inkirir/

Assimilation

In Spanish only the /n/ can be assimilated:

nb	/mb/	convento	/kombento/
nf	/mf/	confuso	/komfuso/
nv	/mb/	invita	/imbita/

Pronunciation of foreign words

To transcribe foreign words, you must use the Spanish SAMPA symbols.

If you use a different symbol set your system will be incapable of understanding the input.

Every language has a different phoneme inventory, so you may have problems in covering each and every sound. In order to get a Spanish transcription which is closest to the transcription in the original language, the Spanish SAMPA symbols that most resemble the SAMPA symbols of the foreign languages are the ones to be used.

For example:

bordeaux	/bordo/

The original transcription ‘bORDo’ cannot be realized because the French symbols ‘O’ and ‘R’ do not belong to the Spanish SAMPA symbol set. Therefore, these symbols have to be replaced by the Spanish symbols which are closest to the French ones. In this case /o/ replaces ‘O’ and /r/ replaces ‘R’.

Moreover, there has been a re-adaptation of the Spanish phoneme /tS/ in order to get the phoneme ‘S’. The phoneme ‘S’ does not exist in Spanish as a single phoneme although it does exist in combination with the plosive /t/ to form the affricate /tS/. In other words, there has been a reinterpretation of /tS/ to get the phoneme ‘S’ to match the transcription of foreign words containing the ‘S’ phoneme.

For example:

beige	beS
beige<bejs>	bejs
beige<bejx>	bejx

In this example, the base form contains the ‘S’ phoneme and is closest to the original transcription, while the other two variants show other phonetic variations closer to the Spanish pronunciation.

For the most common cases we offer transcription examples. In some of the cases we provide one transcription whereas in other cases, a second or even third variant are introduced. The need of these variants show that the Spanish speaker pronounces the foreign word using the Spanish phonetic set.

French <g> and <j>

Try to apply a pronunciation that has been adapted to Spanish, for example:

collage	kolas
déjà_vu	desabu
rouge	rrus

The original transcriptions ‘kolaZ’, ‘deZavy’, and ‘RuZ’ cannot be realized because the French symbols ‘Z’, ‘v’, ‘y’, and ‘R’ are not part of the Spanish SAMPA symbol set.

Double <l> in foreign Words

The grapheme <ll> can be well represented by the Spanish SAMPA symbol /l/. For example:

Nelly Nelly<neji>	neli neji
allegro	alegro

Foreign vowels

Even with English vowels you have to try to apply a pronunciation that has been adapted to Spanish, for example:

buggy buggy<bugi>	bagi bugi
cross-country	kroskantri

The original transcriptions ‘bVgI’ and ‘krQskVntrI’ cannot be realized because the English symbols ‘V’, ‘I’, and ‘‘Q’ are not part of the Spanish SAMPA set.

French nasals

Try to apply a pronunciation that has been adapted to Spanish, for example:

bombon	/bombon/

The original transcription ‘bo~bo~’ cannot be realized because the French symbol ‘o~’ is not part of the Spanish SAMPA symbol set.

Multiple pronunciations (variants)

The type of pronunciation used in SAMPA and the Spanish dictionary conforms to the standard non-regional American Spanish pronunciation. Other varieties can also occur in an application. If they markedly differ from the standard form, they should be transcribed as separate variants in the format below:

cansado	kansado
cansado <kansao>	kansao

In this section, the most common pronunciation variants of the Spanish language are listed. In some regions it may be helpful to consider different ways of pronunciation.

Reduction of -ado (such as in some Caribbean regions)

Words ending with -ado are sometimes reduced to -ao. For example:

jorobado	/xorobado/ versus /xorobao/
cansado	/kansado/ versus /kansao/

The Spanish symbol set in alphabetical order:

SAMPA	IPA	Examples of usage
a	a	mano
aj	ai	aire
aw	au	áureo
b	b / β	basta cabo
d	d / ð	donde juzgado nada
e	e / ɛ	meseta llover
ej	ɛi	veinte
ew	ɛu	éustilo
f	f	fama
g	g / ɣ	gusto agua
i	ɪ / i	mina
j	j	yema
j	j / ʎ	piel calle
J	ɲ	año
ja	ia	cambiar
je	ie	pie
jo	iɔ	piojo
ju	iu	viuda
k	k	casa quitar
l	l	lento
m	m / ɱ	malo convento confuso
n	n / ŋ	nota tengo manco
o	o / ɔ	oficina ojo
oj	ɔi	boina
ow	ɔu	bou
p	p	paso
r	ɾ	puro
rr	r	perro
s	s / z	cinco casa juzgado mismo
t	t	nata
tS	ʧ	mucho
u	u	pluma
w	ʊ/ w	cual
wa	wa	cuadro
we	we	puerto
wi	wi	cuidar
wo	wo	cuota
x	x	gente jaca