I just started a new series of Spanish classes and, as always, I explained to the new students that one of the major differences between our two languages, English and Spanish, lies in the different sounds—simple and combined—that exist between them.

There are 23 sounds, or phonemes, in Latin American Spanish, and 24 in the language as spoken in Spain. There are 57 or more in English, primarily because it is possible to change the sound…