# hasta luego (pronunciation)



## cirrus

Hello there, me again with another one that I am bashing my head against the wall with. 

No matter how I try, there is no way I can say hasta luego the way Spaniards do.  Whenever I go to Spain I've got to the point people must think I am stalking them, because no matter how often I hear it, I can't produce the sound consistently myself:  Now you know why a tortured soul  mumbles hasta luego to himself from Galerias Preciados down to Sol and back! 

In as far as this is possible on the net, can anyone point out what is it that I am missing? (apart from being brought up bilingual that is).   Am I trying to emphasise the G too much?  I can't imagine I'm the only native English speaker that struggles with this, any tips anyone?

Hasta luego!!


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## Masood

I fully sympathise, _cirrus_. I have the same problem. To me, it sounds like (transliterated) "ta loogho" with a kind of gutteral pronunciation of "gh". I tend to say it as "asta lay_gh_o"

Hasta luego.


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## MCGF

También depende mucho del sitio donde lo escuches, aquí en el sur, tendemos a comernos las palabras "economización del lenguaje" y es algo así como: 
"'ta luego" (y sin mucha gutural de la "g", porque aquí no suena demasiado)


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## Darey

Dear both... the sound for "G" is similar as when you pronounce "gain", just soft "g".


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## Mei

Hola,

Yo también dido "ta luego" aunque a veces digo directamente "talego".

Mei


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## Darey

Mei, if you say "talego" in some situations, people can understand something diferent. On specific language it means money.


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## Alundra

Mei said:
			
		

> Hola,
> 
> Yo también dido "ta luego" aunque a veces digo directamente "talego".
> 
> Mei


 
Yo normalmente digo: Hasta luego... aunque suene algo como

....ta luego....

Y a veces, de broma, por aquí decimos: Hasta Lugo... 

Alundra.


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## Misao

Cirrus...don't worry...don't get depressed about it...

Just have in mind that "h" is voiceless, so /asta luego/, then "g" is pronounced as Darey says, as in "gain" or "google" . 

These are two variations of the pronunciation:

- Ta luego
- Ta lue

Anyway, if you don't get it, just say "ciao"...


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## Mei

Darey said:
			
		

> Mei, if you say "talego" in some situations, people can understand something diferent. On specific language it means money.


 
Yes I know, it means jail too ( http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=talego&dict=esenbut ) 

If I'm with someone and we're saying good bye and I say "talego" you would understand it, right? I mean in that context.

I must say that I would use it as "talego" with young people. If I'm with someone older than me or even someone I don't know I would say "hasta luego".

Mei


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## Darey

yes, Mei, we will understand you in that context. And yes, too, it's better to use "talego" with young people


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## Alundra

Well, Cirrus... anyway... is the same to Spanish speakers when they try speak English... A lot of people say: Espanish instead Spanish... because is easier for them... you can see it odd... they don't realize.

I think each lenguage has its particularities  

Don't worry too much... we understand you for sure.  

Alundra.


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## GiggLiden

it's very difficult (as you've noticed) to teach pronunciation THIS way (here). Like telling a TV watcher ... if you had a SONY TV set, it would look much better .... like this !!

Anyway, just wondering if you're saying either "loogo" or "laygo" ... when it is actually a three-syllable word:
Loo way go

And the letter "h" (as already pointed out) is never pronounced.


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## DuFresne

Try saying "ta lueo", whithout that "G"... 'cause that "G" really sounds too much in Spanish... Try it


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## MCGF

DuFresne said:
			
		

> Try saying "ta lueo", whithout that "G"... 'cause that "G" really sounds too much in Spanish... Try it



Sí, señor, es lo que yo decía de que esa "g" no es demasiado gutural


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## DuFresne

no deberías usar la palabra "gutural" cuando hablas con gente de habla inglesa xD


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## Snoop Puss

The pronunciation of Spanish in Catalonia is bound to be different to the pronunciation elsewhere. But here goes for my rendition:

Luego must be one of the few Spanish words to sound like it has the pronunciation sound schwa in it
(For info on schwa, see http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000383.htm - I reckon the examples "adept" and "synthesis" work the best). Can't find a proper pronunciation for the g - a softened hard g (as if you had a sore throat and didn't want to force it too much).

L schwa weigh go

A bit like Bulaweyo only different: without the Bu and with a g instead of the y!


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## victoria luz

About the pronunciation of spanish G between 2 vowels: perhaps it would help if you try and pronounce it as a french R (or as a GHAIN in arabic, for those who speak it)

Vic ---> goes to the english-french  and to the arabic forum threads and offers same advice


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## Soy Yo

I'm not suggesting you substitute Portuguese for Castillian...but the logo of "até logo" sounds a bit like the luego you're hearing in Madrid.  So just say: ah(s)ta lwawgo (soft g)

Forgive my "phonetic" rendering.


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## elionor

cirrus said:
			
		

> Hello there, me again with another one that I am bashing my head against the wall with.
> 
> No matter how I try, there is no way I can say hasta luego the way Spaniards do. Whenever I go to Spain I've got to the point people must think I am stalking them, because no matter how often I hear it, I can't produce the sound consistently myself: Now you know why a tortured soul mumbles hasta luego to himself from Galerias Preciados down to Sol and back!
> 
> In as far as this is possible on the net, can anyone point out what is it that I am missing? (apart from being brought up bilingual that is). Am I trying to emphasise the G too much? I can't imagine I'm the only native English speaker that struggles with this, any tips anyone?
> 
> Hasta luego!!



It's difficult to say what you're doing wrong, because I've never heard you saying "Hasta luego"!!!! Is there a sound which presents more difficulty than other, or is it just the whole sentence?

Maybe the problem you've had is that sometimes we speak too quickly, and it's been difficult for you to identify the sounds.

Send me a private mail if you want to talk with skyp.
"hasta luego" shouldn't be so difficult to pronounce!!!


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## argencine

I have an Idea: 

Try this: 
*AS* ( wht you win a pocker)  ---- ti*TA*nic-----*LUE* ------*GO* out
Say the bold letter in high voice.!!!


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## DaleC

I'll tell you how I achieved this sound you're after. 



			
				cirrus said:
			
		

> No matter how I try, there is no way I can say hasta luego the way Spaniards do.
> Am I trying to emphasise the G too much?


 
Apparently, the part that gives you trouble is the 'g' pronounced as a fricative, not as a stop (obstruent). You didn't mention having a problem with saying 'w' right after tongue tip 'L'. 

I suggest directing your attention to two muscle actions. 

When you pronounce [g], an obstruent, as in 'get-go', there is muscle action (or a set of muscle actions) vertically at the back of the tongue to raise the tongue to touch the velum ("soft palate"). Thus the high point of the tongue's hump is toward the back. Simultaneously, there is muscle action right in front of the point of contact between tongue and velum, and this action is directed *backward and slightly upward*. The second muscle action helps create the hump in the right place. 

The same two sets of muscles are used to make the fricative, [g] (for which the IPA symbol is a decursivized form of lower case gamma from the Greek alphabet). This is the "voiced velar fricative", the voiced counterpart to the Spanish 'j'. To achieve [g] instead of [g], you just have to balance the two muscle pulls differently. 

For me, the key to acquiring [g] was to focus on *the backward muscle pull in front of* the "point of articulation". Of course, if this muscle contraction were to be unopposed, you would pull the vertical side of the tongue against the throat, so there will be some muscle action to hold the body of the tongue in place. But do focus mainly on the front side of the hump (front being in between the point of articulation and the lips). 

Articulations in which the mouth and nose are shut completely are called obstruents. Some obstruents are p, t, k; b, d, g. Each obstruent has a corresponding sound which is articulated with a narrow passage instead of with complete closure. When the passage is narrow and the exhalation is strong, the breath backs up behind the bottleneck. The resulting sound is called a fricative because of the friction caused by breath as it makes as it moves through the constriction. 

Here are the correlated pairs of obstruent and fricative: 

p/f, t/s, k/j, b/v, d/z, g/g. 

Of course, in most dialects of Spanish, [v] is not an independent sound, but rather [b, v] count as variants of a "single sound" in the *underlying sound structure *of the language. In other languages, * and [v] are "separate sounds" in the respective sound structures or systems. But in any language, from a strictly anatomical perspective,  is a sound where the mouth is shut and [v] is a sound where it isn't quite shut.*


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## Soy Yo

argencine said:
			
		

> I have an Idea:
> 
> Try this:
> *AS* ( wht you win a pocker) ---- ti*TA*nic-----*LUE* ------*GO* out
> Say the bold letter in high voice.!!!


 
 This may work for a Spanish speaker, but I'm not sure it does for an English speaker.

Better for an English speaker but still not perfect.

Wizard of *OZ *(but sibilant *S* sound rather than English *Z)*
Wichi*TA*
*LOG-O*ff (drop the f sound)

*Oh well... *SAY IT FAST AND HOPE NO ONE NOTICES  *OZ-TA-LOGO...*


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## Philippa

Hi Cirrus
Do you think the problem is actually how to pronounce the g (or another part of it) or is it that it is a commonly used phrase and gets rushed, half swallowed and pronounced in an informal way?
When I was a beginner I was told it wasn't pronounced ¡Hasta luego! but more like 'Ata logo'. I have stuck to not pronoucing it how it looks (although I end up pronoucing it 'fully' in my Spanish club when I'm specifically pronouncing it for the kids). I said it like 'ata logo' quite happily to lots of shop keepers in Spain in the summer and no-one looked at me oddly, allthough to be fair I was leaving so I may not have noticed their confused expressions!!
¡Hasta luego!
Philippa


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## cirrus

I think you've hit the nail on the head, it's that I can't stop myself making the G good and clear when in fact people are swallowing it all over the place.  Also the input about the schwa (how unspanish is that) confirms what has been gnawing away at me for some time now.  

Also I think it is one of those things where despite having spoken Spanish for over twenty years I just need to accept that there are some bits where I will always sound foreign, no matter how often I practice a word.  Generally it doesn't worry me in the slightest but I still nourish fantasies about being able to get away with not being noticed for the odd phrase or two.  

Gracias a todos por las pistas!


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## Snoop Puss

Fret not. I've lived in Barcelona for 14 years. I can just about fool people in Catalan - they think I'm from Catalunya Nord (the bit of Catalonia that's in France) - but there's no way I'll ever pass for a Spaniard.


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## epraes

Personally, I say something like "stalueo" when I speak casually...


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## GiggLiden

NO WONDER I can't understand a WORD they're saying when Spanish-speakers get together and slalom-race a few sentences past my untrained ears !!!


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## JB

Well, I don't know to what extent your question is just venting, and to what extent you really want to get it down, but to be serious, here are a couple of thoughts.

1.  I've known American teachers of Spanish, with a command of the langauge that surpasses mine, whose pronunciation sucks.  Pronunciation is sort of a separate skill, that many never learn or work on.

2.  If you have the funds to higher a "dialect coach" from "the industry" (film, T.V.) you may find someone who can't speak Spanish, but can correct your accent.

3.  In Los Angeles, a attended a "Stage Dialects" class in the Theatre Arts dept. of a local 2-year college, where fees are nominal, and got the same benefit.  

4.  If a you have access to a Theatre Arts dept. that teaches "speech for the stage" or something similar, using techniques of Patsy Rodenberg, Kristin Linklater, or Cicely Berry (big names in the field) you may find yourself discovering all sorts of subtle muscular tensions and facial nuances you never knew you had; and that awareness will improve your ability to manipulate sounds foreign to your upbringing.

It's best to have a coach or teacher, who can watch you and tell you things that you obviously can't get from the forum, like, for example, drop your jaw a little (or raise it), etc.

5. Lastly:  Two book/tape courses  (I don't get a percentage).  In the U.S. they are available at libraries.  I believe you have libraries in England as well.
a. _ How to Pronounce Spanish Correctly_  published by Passport Books.  One tape with exercises you can spend hours on (pronunciation,. not grammar or vocabulary) and a booklet with info and diagrams that may be new to you if this area of study is new.
b.  _Pronounce it Perfectly in Spanish,_ by Barron's.  This has 3 tapes and a much more detailed book.  My experience is that most people get imtimidated by it, as it is so detailed; so, I recommend the former book if you can get it.

Finally finally, I remember attending once a party, hosted by a couple from Chile, with _hispanohablantes_ of various countries in attendance.  One from Spain told me his home town, and I remembered it was of historical importance, but couldn't remember why.  After a moment's thought, he remembered and said, what sounded to me, _El Thee._  (Pronounce the _th_ unvoiced, as in ''think''.)  After repeating it a few times, I finally realized what he was saying:  _El Cid _(my pronunciation is sort of Latin American academic neutral witih a Mexican twist.)  At which point my host cracked up, enjoying the differences in our sounds.  

Well, I hope the long lecture was worth reading.  If you're able to make use of any of it, send me a private message some day.  Suerte.


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## SofiaB

Haz clic aqui: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/frameset.php?frame1=talk
entra el texto y puedes oir la pronuciación de español e inglés. Hay voces masculinas y femininas de Europa y America


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## epraes

Well, this "machine" speaks really well, but nobody says "hasta luego" that slow... and the problem I think is that, when someone speaks fast, tends to avoid pronouncing some sounds.

A friend of mine, for instance, says something similar to "staló" and it sounds completely "hasta luego" to our ears. Other people say "taluego" or "talogo" or "taloo"...


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## GiggLiden

jbruceismay said:
			
		

> Well, I don't know to what extent your question is just venting, and to what extent you really want to get it down, but to be serious, here are a couple of thoughts.
> 
> 1. I've known American teachers of Spanish, with a command of the langauge that surpasses mine, whose pronunciation sucks. Pronunciation is sort of a separate skill, that many never learn or work on.
> 
> 2. If you have the funds to higher a "dialect coach" from "the industry" (film, T.V.) you may find someone who can't speak Spanish, but can correct your accent.
> 
> 3. In Los Angeles, a attended a "Stage Dialects" class in the Theatre Arts dept. of a local 2-year college, where fees are nominal, and got the same benefit.
> 
> 4. If a you have access to a Theatre Arts dept. that teaches "speech for the stage" or something similar, using techniques of Patsy Rodenberg, Kristin Linklater, or Cicely Berry (big names in the field) you may find yourself discovering all sorts of subtle muscular tensions and facial nuances you never knew you had; and that awareness will improve your ability to manipulate sounds foreign to your upbringing.
> 
> It's best to have a coach or teacher, who can watch you and tell you things that you obviously can't get from the forum, like, for example, drop your jaw a little (or raise it), etc.
> 
> 5. Lastly: Two book/tape courses (I don't get a percentage). In the U.S. they are available at libraries. I believe you have libraries in England as well.
> a. _ How to Pronounce Spanish Correctly_ published by Passport Books. One tape with exercises you can spend hours on (pronunciation,. not grammar or vocabulary) and a booklet with info and diagrams that may be new to you if this area of study is new.
> b.  _Pronounce it Perfectly in Spanish,_ by Barron's. This has 3 tapes and a much more detailed book. My experience is that most people get imtimidated by it, as it is so detailed; so, I recommend the former book if you can get it.
> 
> Finally finally, I remember attending once a party, hosted by a couple from Chile, with _hispanohablantes_ of various countries in attendance. One from Spain told me his home town, and I remembered it was of historical importance, but couldn't remember why. After a moment's thought, he remembered and said, what sounded to me, _El Thee._  (Pronounce the _th_ unvoiced, as in ''think''.)  After repeating it a few times, I finally realized what he was saying:  _El Cid _(my pronunciation is sort of Latin American academic neutral witih a Mexican twist.) At which point my host cracked up, enjoying the differences in our sounds.
> 
> Well, I hope the long lecture was worth reading. If you're able to make use of any of it, send me a private message some day. Suerte.




2. If you have the funds to higher a "dialect coach" from "the industry" (film, T.V.) you may find someone who can't speak Spanish, but can correct your accent.

That's ONE way to bring your linguistic talents to a hire level !!!
  

Teasing aside, jbruce, that's a nice list of suggestions, and if he follows all of them, he'll end up sounding just like Desi Arnaz!

Getting a vocabulary is the easy part. Absorbing all the nuances of sound production is a life-time endeavor. I know people who came from Germany 50 years ago, and they STILL sound like tshermens. (Probably because they didn't _try_ very hard to get rid of the "exent.")

To get the hang of it, I have a set of Spanish language CDs that I carry in my car. I play them whenever I drive some place. It's very repetitive, but, as you suggested, that IS a good way to  carve the sounds into your own linguistic RAM.

Ciao, amigo ... or, as I'm learning here ... stalego! 

[gig]


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## JB

epraes said:
			
		

> A friend of mine, for instance, says something similar to "staló" and it sounds completely "hasta luego" to our ears. Other people say "taluego" or "talogo" or "taloo"...


 
1.  Gigg:  Thanks for the higher/hire correction.  Makes me think of the "pacheco" thread.

2.  I can't recall the technical term in linguistics, but this (see above quote) phonemonon is a natural tendency in language.  "God be with you" eventually became goodbye, and now "bye," and seems to be turning into "bah".  _Trans-ducir_ became _tras-ducir_ and finally (at least so far) _tra-ducir _(hyphen added for clarity).  So maybe in a couple of generations people saying "ta" will be amazed to learn of its etymological origins, back in the 20th century.  

Ta ta.  y _Novemo._


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## GiggLiden

jbruceismay said:
			
		

> 1.  Gigg:  Thanks for the higher/hire correction.  Makes me think of the "pacheco" thread.
> 
> 2.  I can't recall the technical term in linguistics(1), but this (see above quote) phonemonon(2) is a natural tendency in language. "God be with you" eventually became goodbye, and now "bye," and seems to be turning into "bah"(3).  _Trans-ducir_ became _tras-ducir_ and finally (at least so far) _tra-ducir _(hyphen added for clarity). So maybe in a couple of generations people saying "ta" will be amazed to learn of its etymological origins, back in the 20th century.
> 
> Ta ta.  y _Novemo._



Would you settle for ...
(1) metamorphose
(1) phenomenon (your "phonemonon" totally cracked me up. From telephone to phonemonon is but a short trip. And you're trippin', good buddy   
(3) Airline stewardesses have transformed this into ... bubbye

This whole discussion has really been an enlightening experience. I've been SO careful to let "hasta luego"  come trippingly from the tongue with precision elocution. No wonder the Guatemalan chaps who come here to blow leaves and shovel snow giggle at me behind my back. I might as well be wearing a sandwich board that says ... "come and look at the funny gringo with his crazy Spanish !!!"

stalego, amigo !!!
Did it sound ok now???


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## oxazol

Hello everybody
I think that the problem is the diptong ue ( because in for the french is similar) I propose something:
*"AS"* "ti*TA*nic" "*L* "*WE*b" "*GO*ld" (The sound of go it isn't like in go because in this case the sound of "o" is very caracteristic of english and is different in spanish) The stress is in LWE


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## Dr. Quizá

In this case, as in others, you must take into consideration that the Spanish phonetic system has, to say, "different priorities" compared to the English one. Spanish phonemes are way sharper and more differentiated than the English ones, so there are a wide spectrum of sounds that can be easily identified as the standar phonemes despite they sound far from those standar ones when isolated.

I mean that English speakers think usually they're are making awful noises when they're really being understood. I say something like "t'lueo" and although it makes no sense when is read I doubt there is a Spaniard can't understand it when is spoken.


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## broud

I don't know if my suggestion breaks any forum-rules ...

Why don't you record yourself pronouncing _Hasta Luego? _If you upload the file somewhere on the internet we can hear it and tell you what's wrong about your pronunciation


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## Killter

epraes said:


> Well, this "machine" speaks really well, but nobody says "hasta luego" that slow... and the problem I think is that, when someone speaks fast, tends to avoid pronouncing some sounds.
> 
> A friend of mine, for instance, says something similar to "staló" and it sounds completely "hasta luego" to our ears. Other people say "taluego" or "talogo" or "taloo"...


Esto es exactamente que escucho aquí en Valencia...muchísimas gracias!


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## Sendro Páez

For those of you who may feel curious, here ( http://es.forvo.com/search/hasta luego/ ) you'll find sixteen samples that do not match the actual neck-breaking thing we say in everyday conversations...


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## A huevo

DaleC said:


> I'll tell you how I achieved this sound you're after.
> 
> 
> 
> Apparently, the part that gives you trouble is the 'g' pronounced as a fricative, not as a stop (obstruent). You didn't mention having a problem with saying 'w' right after tongue tip 'L'.
> 
> I suggest directing your attention to two muscle actions.
> 
> When you pronounce [g], an obstruent, as in 'get-go', there is muscle action (or a set of muscle actions) vertically at the back of the tongue to raise the tongue to touch the velum ("soft palate"). Thus the high point of the tongue's hump is toward the back. Simultaneously, there is muscle action right in front of the point of contact between tongue and velum, and this action is directed *backward and slightly upward*. The second muscle action helps create the hump in the right place.
> 
> The same two sets of muscles are used to make the fricative, [g] (for which the IPA symbol is a decursivized form of lower case gamma from the Greek alphabet). This is the "voiced velar fricative", the voiced counterpart to the Spanish 'j'. To achieve [g] instead of [g], you just have to balance the two muscle pulls differently.
> 
> For me, the key to acquiring [g] was to focus on *the backward muscle pull in front of* the "point of articulation". Of course, if this muscle contraction were to be unopposed, you would pull the vertical side of the tongue against the throat, so there will be some muscle action to hold the body of the tongue in place. But do focus mainly on the front side of the hump (front being in between the point of articulation and the lips).
> 
> Articulations in which the mouth and nose are shut completely are called obstruents. Some obstruents are p, t, k; b, d, g. Each obstruent has a corresponding sound which is articulated with a narrow passage instead of with complete closure. When the passage is narrow and the exhalation is strong, the breath backs up behind the bottleneck. The resulting sound is called a fricative because of the friction caused by breath as it makes as it moves through the constriction.
> 
> Here are the correlated pairs of obstruent and fricative:
> 
> p/f, t/s, k/j, b/v, d/z, g/g.
> 
> Of course, in most dialects of Spanish, [v] is not an independent sound, but rather [b, v] count as variants of a "single sound" in the *underlying sound structure *of the language. In other languages, * and [v] are "separate sounds" in the respective sound structures or systems. But in any language, from a strictly anatomical perspective,  is a sound where the mouth is shut and [v] is a sound where it isn't quite shut.*




I know that this is not really helpful for the original question, but I feel I need to clarify a few things that DaleC wrote with regard to articulatory phonetics.

"Articulations in which the mouth and nose are shut completely are called obstruents." ---No, this is called holding your breath. The sounds that obstruct airflow to different degrees are all obstruents, namely stops (plosives), fricatives and affricates. Fricatives are a type of obstruent, not a contrastive category. [g] is a stop, and [ɣ] is fricative (although it's most commonly described as an approximant, as its standard sound is usually somewhere between a fricative and a vowel).

There is no {b}/[v] contrast in most dialects of Spanish because [v] is not commonly found. Also, {b} and [v] differ in both manner and mode of articulation, so they don't contrast with each other. With regard to voicing, {b} contrasts with [p], and [v] contrasts with [f]. Putting [v] and everything else aside, in Spanish, the phoneme /b/ has the allophones {b}  and [β̞], the first plosive, and the second an approximant.

*The "b" should have [ ] around it and not { }, but it would appear correctly on wordreference with normal brackets for some reason.


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