[Rusty]

Originally Posted by Alfonso

I'm sorry Rusty, I can't really understand your explanation about w, as I would pronounce boot like /bu:t/ (IPA, AFI, I hope it's clear).

BTW, "w" has got its own phoneme in Spanish, /w/, which is said to be "uau". It's a semivowel or semiconsonant sound (depending on the phonetic context) really important in the evolution of the language. Nowadays, it's pronounced, as Rusty said, in loanwords and foreign terms: /w/ (IPA, AFI).

The part I said about pronouncing 'w' like the 'oo' in boot is so that Raji would get the idea that it is pronounced the same way as in English. Most English speakers don't realize that the 'w' is very nearly an 'oo' sound, followed by a vowel (or diphthong). For example, many Spanish-English dictionaries give 'uáter' as the approximate English pronunciation of water, where u = oo.