How to pronounce "Esto te va a ayudar"

[Kraut]

How many "a" do Spanish people pronounce in "Esto te va a ayudar". Can one pronounce two glottal stops: "va.a.ayudar"? How normal would that sound?

[Rey]

How many "a" do Spanish people pronounce in "Esto te va a ayudar". Can one pronounce two glottal stops: "va.a.ayudar"? How normal would that sound?

Short answer:

What I usually do as a Spanish native speaker from Spain:

Informally speaking, I speak quickly and I usually pronounce two 'a' (one glottal stop): "Esto te vaa.ayudar" (First 'a' with a long sound, second one with a normal duration). [But other people do it in the other way: "Esto te va.aayudar" (First 'a' with a normal duration, second one with a long sound).]

When I am in a formal situation and/or with people that Spanish is not their native language -call me 'old-fashioned'-, I speak slower on purpose and pronounce the three 'a' of the sentence with two glottal stops.

There are people who usually speak even more informally and quicker than me; they do not glottal stop at all. One long 'a' and it is over.

Other story is the increasing ignorance of some young 'native' Spanish speakers who don't know that the expression 'ir a ayudar' requires the preposition 'a'...

Spanish, as long as I know, formally has no liaison as French languague does, with the exception of poetic 'sinalefa', which is not exactly the same.

[Querneus]

Other story is the increasing ignorance of some young 'native' Spanish speakers who don't know that the expression 'ir a ayudar' requires the preposition 'a'...

I think this is just a misspelling due to sound, since the two a's can be reduced to one in speech, sounding like "ir ayudar". So, basically a Spanish equivalent of the "they're" ~ "there" ~ "their" confusion English speakers do. I mean, on the other hand I can't imagine these same "young native Spanish speakers" saying or writing "ir traer" or "voy decir" (unless they speak an unusual dialect, equivalent to an English speaker saying "we is"...).

I'd personally accept your pronunciations, and also "esto te va.ayudar" with two a's, and even "esto te vayudar" with a single [a] sound. Very common to hear this phrase from a doctor (or from my parents when they hand out homemade remedies the placebo effect...). It varies... My dialect (that of San Salvador, El Salvador) may or may not be unusual in how it compresses these identical vowels next to each other this way. For that matter I also tend to pronounce "¿Qué es eso?" as queseso (que-sé-so), "No olvides eso" as "nolvideseso", and so on.

Some sound recordings I just made:
https://voca.ro/18FVxJJrYieP

[Rey]

I have come across the 17th 'duda' at the book "Las 500 dudas más frecuentes del español", by "Instituto Cervantes", at page 31. (Fifth Edition, Barcelona, December 2013, ISBN 978-84-670-3981-8)

Copy:

"17. ¿Cuántas veces se pronuncia la o en alcohol? Se debe pronunciar como un sonido más largo que una o normal..."

It explains plainly what to do at most cases with two vocals of the same type in the same word con autoridad solvente, but not three in three different words.

I still think the answer I wrote before is still correct in most cases.

[Kullman]

How many "a" do Spanish people pronounce in "Esto te va a ayudar". Can one pronounce two glottal stops: "va.a.ayudar"? How normal would that sound?

I have been repeating the phrase a few times, and I always pronounce the three "a"... Sometimes I said "Esto te va-a ayudar" and sometimes "Esto te va a-ayudar", depending of the entonation or the speed, but I never missed one single "a".

Anyways, missing the article could be a common occurance when speaking "castrapo", which is a castillian variant spoken by some galician speakers when switching to spanish, and is heavily influenced by their first language, as galician translation for that phrase would be "vaiche axudar".

[Rey]

I have been repeating the phrase a few times, and I always pronounce the three "a"... Sometimes I said "Esto te va-a ayudar" and sometimes "Esto te va a-ayudar", depending of the entonation or the speed, but I never missed one single "a".

Possibly, in "el habla esmerada" is the correct option, as I observed before, because the three same "a" at the example are in three separated words, and this requires in a normative speaking two glottal stops .

Anyways, missing the article could be a common occurance when speaking "castrapo", which is a castillian variant spoken by some galician speakers when switching to spanish, and is heavily influenced by their first language, as galician translation for that phrase would be "vaiche axudar".

Probably true.

Informally speaking, as a native Eastern Andalusian (With some influence of "Panocho" variant, which is a Spanish/Castillian variant spoken mainly by people from Murcia and some old Eastern Andalusian people. And, of course, some Catalan/Valencian influence) I insist on that I speak Spanish very quickly at informal contexts, and it makes me fall in some "vulgarismos" from time to time. At formal contexts I try to speak as "esmerada" [neat] as possible. And deliberatelly I speak slower than usual.