How to Spell in Spanish

While learning a new language, one of the prime concerns of a student is to learn the pronunciations correctly. Spanish being America’s second language, it becomes all the more important to learn it the right way.

While we are used to speaking English, there is no doubt that there is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to the pronunciations. English is not so easy when it comes to pronunciations, which largely vary according to the region and the people. But these problems will most certainly not arise when you are learning languages like French and Spanish. In Spanish, the pronunciation of each letter is more or less fixed. The changes in pronunciation are largely based on the different regions and dialects followed by the people in different parts of Spain. But it remains largely the same. Let us start with Spanish alphabets and the orthoepies of each letter with an example.

Spanish Phonetics

Spanish has 29 alphabets which are 3 more than in English language. The letters, the names of the letters, and the pronunciations are given in the following table.

Alphabet	Alphabet Name	Alphabet Pronunciation
A	Aa	Like ‘aa’ in bar
B	Be	Like ‘B’ in barber
C	Ce	Like ‘S’ in Sea, when followed by ‘I’ and ‘e’ Like ‘K’ in kite, when followed by ‘a’, ‘o’, ‘u’
Ch	Che	Like ‘ch’ in nacho
D	De	Like ‘th’ in father
E	E	Like ‘e’ in egg
F	Efe	Like ‘f’ in fabric
G	Ge	Like ‘g’ in gate when followed by ‘a’,’o’ and ‘u’ like ‘h’ in hate, when followed by ‘e’ and ‘I’
H	Hache	‘H’ is never pronounced
I	I	Like ‘I’ in miss
J	Jota	Like ‘h’ in house
K	Ka	Like ‘k’ in kilometer
L	ele	Like ‘l’ in like
LL	Elle	Like ‘y’ in yam
M	Eme	Like ‘m’ in mouse
N	Ene	Like ‘n’ in nice
ñ	Eñe	Like ‘ny’ in canyon
O	O	Like ‘o’ in note
P	Pe	Like ‘p’ in pay
Q	Cu	Like ‘k’ in karate
R	Ere	Like ‘r’ in rat
S	Ese	Like ‘s’ in silk
T	Te	Like ‘t’ in tin
U	U	Like ‘u’ in fruit
V	Uve	Like ‘b’ in beat
W	Uve Doble	Like ‘w’ in water
X	Equis	Like ‘x’ in Mexico
Y	I Griega	Like ‘y’ in yawn
Z	Zeta	Like ‘s’ in surprise