SPANISH SILENT LETTERS

People mistakenly believe that Spanish is easy and pronounced as it is written. Nothing farther from the truth. It has complicated grammar and complex phonetics which graphemes cannot always reflect. The final /d/ in educated everyday conversation is often silent and we write "libertad" but pronounce it /libertá/ just as we spell majesty "majestad" but say /majestá/. "Amabilidad" ends up as "amabilidá" and "cordialidad" /cordialidá/ and pay no heed to those who might tell you otherwise. I refer you, as usual, to Tomás Navarro Tomás, "Manual de pronunciación española". And likewise, the /j/ of "reloj" is lost, and we say /reló/. Those who say /reloh/ are mockingly called "redichos". In the plural "relojes" the /j/ is pronounced.