1.4: Vocabulario - El alfabeto
- Page ID
- 261958
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- Recognize the sounds of letters in Spanish
EL ALFABETO
These are the 27 letters in the alphabet as established by the Spanish Royal Academy of the Spanish Language:
| Letra (Nombre) | Archivo de audio (audio file) | Pronunciación | Ejemplo |
| a (a) | "ah" in aloha | Ana, Argentina | |
| b (be) | "beh" in baby | Benecio, Brasil | |
| c (ce) | C + a/o/u/consonante = "kah" C + e/i = "seh" C + h = "ch" in Chinese |
Carlos, Colombia César, Canadá Chile |
|
| d (de) | "deh" in dinosaur (softens between vowels) | delicioso, Dallas | |
| e (e) | "eh" in egg | Estela, Ecuador | |
| f (efe) | "f" in family | Fátima, Filipinas | |
| g (ge) | G + a/o/u/consonante = "guh" G + e/i = "heh" (similar to English "h", but produced from the back, near the throat, and with more friction) |
Gabriel, Guatemala Gilberto, Génova |
|
| h (hache) | The "h" is silent in Spanish. Hola is pronounced as "ola". | hasta, Honduras | |
| i (i) | "ee" in bee | Ignacio, Indonesia | |
| j (jota) | "heh" (pronounced like Spanish g before e/i) |
Josefina, Japón | |
| k (ka) | "kah" in kangaroo | Kaled, Kenia | |
| l (ele) | "l" in lion | laboratorio, Laos | |
| m (eme) | "m" in monkey | Marco, Managua | |
| n (ene) | "n" in nose | Nayeli, Nicaragua | |
| ñ (eñe) | "ny" as in minions | montaña, España | |
|
o (o) |
"o" in open | Olivia, Oaxaca | |
| p (p) | "p" in panda | Pedro, Perú | |
| q (cu) | The vowel U goes with letter Q but is not pronounced. This letter combination is pronounced as a "k" sound, and the vowels after QU is pronounced as in "kinoa" for "quinoa". | queso, Quito | |
| r (erre) | The R is rolled if a word begins with R or when written as RR. To pronounce the R sound in Spanish, you need to place the tip of your tongue above the back of your teeth, on the roof of your mouth (similar to where you place it to pronounce a D). |
Rocío, Roma | |
| s (ese) | "s" in sunny | sol, Sevilla | |
| t (te) | "t" in tree | Tomás, Taiwán | |
| u (u) | "oo" in food | urbano, Uruguay | |
| v (ve) | Pronounced as a “b” sound. Some countries may pronounce it a little softer. | Valeria, Venezuela | |
| w (doble v) | "w" in wifi | kiwi, Washington | |
| x (equis) | H sound as in México (mé-hee-ko). KS sound as in examen (ek-samen). |
Ximena, texto | |
| y (ye, i griega) | "y" in yo-yo | yogur, Yemen | |
| z (zeta) |
|
S sound | Zacarías, Zaragoza |
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 letter Z and letter combinations CE and CI make a "thuh" sound instead of the "S" sound. Thus "cinco" in Spain is pronounced as "thinko" (not as "sinko")
Some Questions
¿Cómo se escribe ____? (How do you spell/write ____?)
____ se escribe __-__-__-__. (____ is spelled/written __-__-__-__.)
¿Cómo se deletrea ____? (How do you spell ____?)
____ se deletrea __-__-__-__. (____ is spelled __-__-__-__.)
Digraphs
There are several consonant clusters in Spanish that you will need to know how to pronounce:
ch (ce-hache)
ll (doble ele)
qu (cu-u)
rr (doble erre)
Accent marks
Spanish only uses the acute accent mark, and when it appears, it makes that syllable receive the stress in the word, making that syllable louder.
¡Ajá!
bebé
quiquiriquí
¡Achú!
How do I type special characters?
The tilde over the letter ‘n’, the accent marks that are sometimes needed over vowels, and the upside-down question mark and exclamation point are all symbols that don’t appear in the standard English-language QWERTY keyboard. How can you type them? There are several ways, depending on your device and the program you’re using.
Most programs will have a menu option to Insert Special Character, and you can scroll through until you find the one you want to use. The Windows operating system lets you toggle between different language keyboards, and the one for Spanish has keys for the ñ, for example (it’s where the semicolon is on the qwerty keyboard), and shortcuts for putting accent marks on vowels (tap the apostrophe and then e to produce é, for example). Here’s a youtube video explaining how it works: https://youtu.be/tHx20SBc4jI. The Apple operating systems have similar keyboard shortcuts (hold down option and e, then tap e, to produce é, for example). Newer macOS computers also let you press and hold a vowel to choose the accented version. Here’s a youtube video explaining how to type special characters on a Mac: https://youtu.be/VaeqmJi2kAw. On an iOS device, you tap and hold the character to bring up a menu of special characters.
Click here to see the access codes for your device: https://sip.la.psu.edu/blp/tech-support/accents .
Exploring things you never knew your devices could do will be part of the fun of learning Spanish!
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Add texts here. Do not delete this text first.
The tilde over the letter ‘n’, the accent marks that are sometimes needed over vowels, and the upside-down question mark and exclamation point are all symbols that don’t appear in the standard English-language qwerty keyboard. How can you type them? There are several ways, depending on your device and the program you’re using.
Most programs will have a menu option to Insert Special Character, and you can scroll through until you find the one you want to use. The Windows operating system lets you toggle between different language keyboards, and the one for Spanish has keys for the ñ, for example (it’s where the semicolon is on the qwerty keyboard), and shortcuts for putting accent marks on vowels (tap the apostrophe and then e to produce é, for example). Here’s a youtube video explaining how it works: https://youtu.be/tHx20SBc4jI. The Apple operating systems have similar keyboard shortcuts (hold down option and e, then tap e, to produce é, for example). Newer macOS computers also let you press and hold a vowel to choose the accented version. Here’s a youtube video explaining how to type special characters on a Mac: https://youtu.be/VaeqmJi2kAw. On an iOS device, you tap and hold the character to bring up a menu of special characters.Click here to see the access codes for your device: https://sip.la.psu.edu/blp/tech-support/accents .
Exploring things you never knew your devices could do will be part of the fun of learning Spanish!
Contributors and Attributions
- Typebar in closeup. Authored by: Csabi Elter. Located at: https://unsplash.com/photos/IIDxzNru2GY. License: Other. License Terms: https://unsplash.com/license
- El alfabeto. Authored by: SUNY Oneonta with Lumen Learning. Provided by: SUNY Oneonta. License: CC BY: Attribution
- Some Variations from 1.2.1: El alfabeto (el abecedario). Authored by: M. Barrio De Mendoza, K Gutiérrez, H.Ho, C. Lin, & A Stere Lugo. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.