second language learners. In Standard European Spanish, the voiced obstruents before a pause are devoiced and laxed to , as in club ('[social] club'), sed ('thirst'), zigzag . However, word-final is rare, and even more so. They are restricted mostly to loanwords and foreign names, such as the first name of former Real Madrid sports director Predrag Mijatović, which is pronounced ; and after another consonant, the voiced obstruent may even be deleted, as in iceberg, pronounced . In Madrid and its environs, sed is alternatively pronunced , where the aforementioned alternative pronunciation of word-final as coexists with the standard realization, but is otherwise nonstandard. Loan sounds The fricative may also appear in borrowings from other languages, such as Nahuatl and English. In addition, the affricates and also occur in Nahuatl borrowings. That said, the onset cluster is permitted in most of Latin America, the Canaries, and the northwest of Spain, and the fact that it is pronounced in the same amount of time as the other voiceless stop + lateral clusters and support an analysis of the sequence as a cluster rather than an affricate in Mexican Spanish. Sample This sample is an adaptation of Aesop's "El Viento del Norte y el Sol" (The North Wind and the Sun) read by a man from Northern Mexico born in the late 1980s. As usual in Mexican Spanish, and are not present. Orthographic version El Viento del Norte y el Sol discutían por saber quién era el más fuerte de los dos. Mientras discutían, se acercó un viajero cubierto en un cálido abrigo. Entonces decidieron que el más fuerte sería quien lograse despojar al viajero de su abrigo. El Viento del Norte empezó, soplando tan fuerte como podía, pero entre más fuerte soplaba, el viajero más se arropaba. Entonces, el Viento desistió. Se llegó el turno del Sol, quien comenzó a brillar con fuerza. Esto hizo que el viajero sintiera calor y por ello se quitó su abrigo. Entonces el Viento del Norte tuvo que reconocer que el Sol era el más fuerte de los dos. Phonemic transcription Phonetic transcription See also History of the Spanish language List of phonetics topics Spanish dialects and varieties Stress in Spanish Notes References Further reading External links Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: Castilian Spanish – audio samples Phonology