This study examines the acoustic realization of quantitative rhythm, intonation, and nuclear stress in Spanish-speaking learners of English as a second language. It also considers speech rate as a relevant factor in L2 prosodic processing. Fifteen university students from the University of Valencia completed a controlled reading task based on a short poem containing 23 rhyming words. Acoustic analyses were conducted using Praat, focusing on rhythm (%V, nPVI-V, and articulation rate), intonation (pitch range, mean F0, and boundary tones), and nuclear stress (prominence cues). Results indicated that participants produced a higher %V, less durational variability, and reduced vowel reduction, all of which illustrate the persistence of a syllable-timed transfer from Spanish. Patterns of intonation revealed a limited pitch range and a prevalence of falling contours, making them less adaptable to context. In addition, Nuclear stress was accurately placed in only 50% of contexts, with errors involving both reliance on penultimate-stress tendencies in Spanish and problems with contrastive stress. Overall, the results suggest that prosodic transfer remains active even at advanced proficiency levels and highlight the pedagogical importance of explicit training in rhythm, pitch modulation, and stress placement in English language teaching.
