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About unaspirated voiceless consonant and voiced consonants.
For example, in pa.pe.pi.po.pu and ba.be.bi.bo.bu, ta.te.ti.to.tu and da.de.di.do.du, ca.co.cu and ga.go.gu, their pronunciations are too much alike for me.
Do Spanish native speakers if in a sentence hear an unknown word like these four words dentro - dendro - tendro - tentro, would you recognize them and write them correctly? They sound the same for me.
Also, can anybody give me some advices about how to speak them correctly?
We don't normally mix up those sounds in Spanish.
The Spanish 'p/b' pair is basically the same as in English. The only difference is that in English 'p' is a little more "explosive". (BTW, recall that in Spanish there is no difference between 'v' and 'b', if an English pronounce an English 'v' we will interpret the same as a 'b')
Regarding the pair 't/d', again, it's similar to English. But, again, English 't' is more explosive (we, Spanish, hear the English 't' in 'into' as a somewhat intermediate between our smoother Spanish 't' and the 'ch' sound). The Spanish 'd' sound is also smoother that the English, I'd say that it should be regarded as an intermediate between the normal English 'd' and the consonant in the word 'the', but (important!) always keeping the tongue behind the teeth. That's why we, Spanish speakers listening to English, have trouble in distinguishing 'then' and 'den'.
The general pattern, as you see, is that Spanish consonants (t,d,p,b,c,g) tend to be smoother or weaker.
In some languages, the difference between voiced/voiceless consonants is unimportant; they do, nevertheless, differentiate between aspired and non-aspired consonants. The main example for this is Chinese. I guess this is the case with your mother language.
Native Spanish speakers usually have no problems telling a voiced (b, d, g) consonant from its corresponding voiceless (p, t, k). But, to us, pairs of aspired-non aspired consonants sound just the same. A native Spanish speaker will not be able to differentiate Chinese pairs such as x/sh, q/ch, j/zh and the like, while a native Chinese speaker has no difficulty with them.
As for advice on how to pronounce these consonants correctly, it is difficult to do unless we know what is your mother language and how does its consonant system work.
Based on my own experience, I would say that these misunderstandings never happen with Spanish words in a normal conversation. All of the pairs I could think of are so removed from each other in meaning and function that it's hard to imagine a situation where they could be mistaken:
The confusion, however, is possible with people's surnames. For example, a name such as "Marcelino Patrón" is sometimes mistaken for "Marcelino Padrón". But, again, I would say it is difficult to find pairs of surnames affected by this problem.
Spanish has two series of phonemical stops: voiceless /p t k/ and voiced /b d g/ (for their orthographical representation, see final note).*
Spanish voiceless stops are, phonetically, always unaspirated voiceless stops: [p t k]. The voiced stops, however, are commonly realized phonetically as voiced approximants or fricatives: [β ð ɣ]. This is a kind of lenition (meaning "weakening, softening", from Latin lenis weak"). They only appear as stops after a pause (such as in the beginning of a phrase) or a nasal consonant.
So in most cases the main phonetical clue that distinguishes (phonemical) voiceless from voiced stops, in Spanish, is the presence or absence of lenition.
English voiceless stops are aspirated ([pʰ tʰ kʰ]) word-initially and syllable-initially in stressed syllables. English voiced stops are phonetically only partially voiced, but they are definitely realized as stops (they don't experience lenition).
So for English speakers the main phonetical clue when contrasting voiceless and voiced stops is the presence or absence of aspiration.
Summarizing, this is distribution of phonetical stops in Spanish and English:
---------+----------
SPANISH | ENGLISH
---------+----------
p t k | pʰ tʰ kʰ
| p t k
---------+----------
β ð ɣ | b d g
b d g |
---------+----------
Spanish /p t k/ are like English /p t k/ in spot, steam, sky. Spanish intervocalic /d/ is close to English /ð/ in this, those. Spanish /b d g/ after pause or nasal consonant are mostly as in English.
Spanish speakers learn to "tune in" to certain phonetic distinctions and ignore others. Most Spanish speakers wouldn't believe the two d's in dedo are not the same sound, just as most English speakers wouldn't believe the two p's in paper are different.
In rapid speech, or with too much ambient noise, or in an otherwise non-optimal setting, Spanish speakers might confuse /p/ and /b/ or /t/ and /d/ or /k/ and /g/, but in most cases (as in every other language, since the setting is rarely optimal) context is enough to avoid the confusion.
As with any new language, one must learn to discern these contrasts and "tune out" the ones found in one's own language that interfere.
* Orthography: The sounds /p t d/ are always represented as p, t, d; /b/ is commonly b or v (there's no difference, repeat, no difference in Spanish between those, no matter what other people tell you!); /k/ is usually c before a, o, u and qu before e, i, except in a few borrowings that employ k, and /g/ is g before a, o, u, ü and gu before e, i.
First of all these three words: dendro, tendro, tentro don't exist in the Spanish language. So if you here something like that, you must be hearing dentro that means inside
pa.pe.pi.po.pu for the sound of the p is really like the English one, close your lips and blow the air, the word POWER is a good example to know how to say it.
ba.be.bi.bo.bu this sound is the opposite of the p, you have to close your lips but you have to aspire(?) the air, the word BYE is a good example to know how to say it.
ta.te.ti.to.tu this sound is made with the tongue and the palate and blowing the air, the word TEA is a good example to know how to say it.
da.de.di.do.du this sound is made with the tongue and the palate too, but just don't blow the air, is a lot like the sound th in English the=*de* or da. DICE is a good example to know how to say it.
ca.que.qui.co.cu this sound is made in the deep palate and the tongue at middle height, blowing a little air. the same as k, the word CAMERA is a good example to know how to say it.
ga.gue.gui.go.gu this sound is made in the deep palate and the tongue at middle height, but you have to aspire(?) the air. The word GAIN is a good example to know how to say it.
This is a good statr but I think that Spanish emphasize more the pronunciation of the consonants.
To answer your question briefly: Any native speaker of Spanish should be able to identify which of the words mentioned above are being used, without hesitation. It must be noted that the "d" sound varies, as does the "b" sound, depending on their position in a word or a sentence. For example, in the word "dado" there are 2 "d's". The first one is stronger than the second one. That is because the first "d" is at the beginning of the word. The second one is between 2 vowels and is pronounced more like the "th" in the word "mother", but much much much softer, so soft that the tongue does not actually come into contact with the upper teeth. Having said that, the first "d" in the word "dado" can also be pronounced like the second it is preceded by a vowel sound. Example: No le he dado nada de comer a mi gato hoy. La primera "d" en "dado" se pronuncia igual a la segunda. Y, por supuesto, igual a "d" en "de" y la "d" en "nada". Ninguna de estas "d" se pronuncia de manera fuerte. La lengua no llega a tocar los dientes superiores.
