Spanish Coda Consonants

Spanish is very restrictive with coda consonants. In native words, only /ð/, /l/, /n/. /r/ and /s/ are common. The Castilian Spanish dialect also has the voiceless interdental fricative /θ/. Here are ten words with these five coda consonants:

edad (age)

sed (thirst)

miel (honey)

sal (salt)

con (with)

jamón (ham)

flor (flower)

mar (sea)

dos (two)

más (more)

In Castilian Spanish, the words feliz (happy) and juez (judge) have the voiceless interdental fricative. The /s/ can be replaced with /h/ in dialects such as Andalusian and Caribbean. In these cases, the final consonant in words such as dos and más can be [h].

Unlike languages such as English, Spanish does not allow many consonants in the syllable coda. This is true of not only Spanish but other Romance languages such as Italian and Portuguese. In most varieties of Spanish, only five consonants are common in the syllable coda.