Features of the Puerto Rican accent in spoken Spanish:
Seseo
This refers to the changing of the sound of the "C" or "Z" for the sound of an "S". Examples include "sapato" instead of "zapato" and "asul" instead of "azul". This is also common in most other Latin-American countries.
Aspiration or elimination of the /s/
This usually occurs before a consonant or at the end of a word, /s/ is debuccalized to [h] or eliminated altogether. Examples include [las muˈxeɾeh] instead of [las muˈxeɾes] (las mujeres, 'the women') [loh ðoh] instead of [los ðos] (los dos, 'the two'). This is also common in other Caribbean basin Spanish-speaking countries.
Elimination of /d/ between vowels
This usually happens usually near the end of a word. Examples include [ehˈtao] instead of [esˈtaðo] (estado, 'state'), and [ˈto.o] instead of [ˈtoɾo] (todo, 'all').
Elimination of /d/ at the end of a word
In this case, a stress is usually placed on the final vowel. Examples include [pä're] instead of [pä'reð] (pared, 'wall') and [mäð'ɾi] instead of [mäð'ɾið] (Madrid).
Change of /r/ to /x/
Many rural Puerto Ricans do not roll their tongues on the double "r" sound in words (ex. "arroz" or "carro"), making it sound like the Scottish loch. This is a characteristic associated most closely with the area around Ponce (when a person drags their r's, they are automatically catalogued as ponceños, or a citizen of Ponce or any country area of Puerto Rico).
Shortening of words
Puerto Ricans also often shorten words by eliminating whole syllables. A good example is the words "para" and "padre" ("for" and "father"). Puerto Ricans might pronounce those as "pa'" ("para") and "pai" ("father"). Also the word "madre" ("mother") they pronounce as "mai"
We are sooo lazy when we talk lol
