El Alphabeto
Spanish is easy to pronounce since most letters (or phonemes) have just one sound. The following list and flashcards will help you learn what each letter can sound like. A key point to remember is that Spanish letters tend to be less “breathy”.
| a | ah | Close to “ah.” This is similar to the sound you make when the dentist tells you to open your mouth and say “ah”. |
| b | beh | The Spanish b is a bit softer than in English, and almost sounds like a “v”. |
| c | ceh | Usually sounds like k. Before e or i, it sounds like an s. (In Spain, instead of sounding like an “s”, it is like a “th”, as in “thanks”. |
| ch | cheh | Sounds like the ch in “chocolate” in English. |
| d | deh | This ones sounds somewhere in between an English “d” and “th”, as in “the”. |
| e | eh | Close to “eh.” It sounds somewhere in between the e in “bet” and “cake”. |
| f | effe | This is same as f in English. |
| g | ge | Usually sounds like an English “g”, as in “goofy”. Before e or i, it sounds like a harsh h (similar to the Spanish j). |
| h | hache | Usually, this sound is silent. However, it would still be pronounced like a harsh h for words that do not have a Spanish translation: Hollywood, Hawái, etc. |
| i | i | Similar to “ee”, as in “cheese”, but shorter. When it is before the vowels a, e, and o, it forms a y sound. |
| j | jota | Similar to the English h sound, but it varies from country to country. It can vary from region to region, sometimes sounding harsher. It never sounds like an English j. |
| k | kah | Rarely used in Spanish and generally only used in certain foreign words. |
| l | ele | Similar to the English l. |
| ll | elle | Not officially a letter anymore, but it used to be. It usually sounds like a y. In some regions it may sound like the g in genre. |
| m | eme | Similar to the English m. |
| n | ene | Similar to the English n. |
| ñ | eñe | Similar to ni in onion or ny in canyon. |
| o | oh | Similar to the English o, but shorter. |
| p | peh | Similar to the English p, but shorter. |
| q | koo | Same sound as the letter k, and always followed by the letter u. |
| r | ere | Somewhere in between an English d and r, being much more like a d. When you have rr you have to roll (trill) the rr. |
| s | ese | Similar to the English s. |
| t | te | Similar to the English t, but softer. |
| u | u | Similar to the “oo” in tool, but shorter. |
| v | veh | Almost identical to the Spanish b, but just a little softer. |
| w | doble veh | Same as the English w, but not a letter native to Spanish. (Usually, to get the w sound, you would use the letter u with another vowel after it) |
| x | equis | When between vowels and at the end of a word, it sounds like the English ks sound, although in some places, like México, it can sound like an English h. If it is at the beginning of a word, it sounds like the letter s. |
| y | y griega | Most of the time, it sounds like the English y in yes. |
| z | zeta | Usually pronounced like the English s. In many parts of Spain it can sound like the th in thanks. |
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