1.2: El alfabeto (el abecedario)

The alphabet

Pronunciation

Alphabet chart

Letra	Nombre	Ejemplo	Pronunciación
A	a	Argentina, América	“ah” in “aloha”
B	be	Bolivia, Belén	bebé
C	ce	Carlos, Cecilia	C + a/o/u/consonante = kuh & C + e/i = suh
Ch	che	China, chico	"ch" (like "chair", "chin")
D	de	Dolores, Dinamarca	“d” sound, softens between two vowels
E	e	Elena, elefante	“ay” (like “may”)
F	efe	Francia, Fabio
G	ge	Gustavo, gato, gente	G + a/o/u/consonante = guh & G + e/i = hey, Himalaya
H	hache	Humberto, hola	The ‘h’ is SILENT, thus “hola” sounds the same as “ola”
I	i	Isabel, iglesia	“ee” (like “me”, “see”, “pea”)
J	jota	Japón, jalapeño	Like the sound “h” in English (as “home”)
K	ka	Keiko, Kodac
L	ele	Laura, Lupita
Ll	elle	lleno, llanta	The Ll makes a “y” sound
M	eme	Marta, Martín
N	ene	Nicaragua, nada
Ñ	eñe	piña, años	ñ = “ny” as in “opinion”
O	o	Octavio, Olga	“o” as in “Ohio”
P	pe	Pablo, pasta
Qu	cu	queso, quince	The vowel “u” goes with letter Q but not pronounced. The vowel(s) after ‘qu' is pronounced as in “keso” for "queso".
R, RR	ere, erre	Ricardo, caro, carro	The R is rolled if a word begins with R or if RR
S	ese	Sergio, Suzana
T	te	Teresa, Tomás, té
U	u	Uruguay, último	“oo” sound like “moon”
V	ve	Valencia, verde	“b” sound, some countries a little softer
W	doble ve	Washington
X	equis	México, examen	"h" sound as in México ("mé-hee-co"); and “ks” sound, like “ek-samen”
Y	i griega	yogur, ya
Z	zeta	Zacatecas, lápiz	“s” sound

Some Variations

As with any language, there are regional variations within the Spanish language.

• The letter V can be pronounced “ve” or “uve”;
• The letter W can be “doble ve”, “ve doble”, “doble uve” or “uve doble”
• The letter Y can be “ye” or “i griega”
• Some countries say the double R as “erre” while others say “doble ere”
• The Y and LL are pronounced like a “shuh” or “zhuh” in Argentina and Uruguay.
• For the letter X there are a few words that make a “huh” sound instead of the KS. They are older words (usually names Xavier = Javier, Ximena = Jimena), like México and Don Quixote.
• In Spain, the letters Z and “ce” and “ci” make a “thuh” sound instead of the “S” sound. Thus “cinco” in Spain is pronounced as “thinko” (not as “sinko”).

Pronunciación de las vocales

The key to your Spanish pronunciation and comprehension is mastery of the vowels.

There is only one way to pronounce each of these letters.

A – ah (in “aloha”)

E – eh (in “elephant”)

I – ee (in “eagle”)

O – oh (in “Ohio”)

U – oo (in “soup”)