The Spanish alphabet

The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters (that is, one more than English, German, or French, and six more than Italian), which are a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, and z. Five of them are vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) and the remaining 22 are consonants.

The Spanish alphabet pronunciation is very simple. Unlike other languages, each letter of the Spanish alphabet represents just one sound (except for some cases that we will see later). Therefore, once you learn how to pronounce each letter, you will be able to read any word in Spanish.

Apart from those 27 letters, there are cases in which two letters combine to form one sound. These are called “digraphs”, and there are five of them in Spanish: ch, ll, gu, qu, and rr. They are a combination of two letters, but they represent just one sound.

Apart from that, the only difficulty that a Spanish learner may have in his/her private Spanish lessons or in his/her Spanish courses in group is that there are some consonants in the Spanish alphabet (namely, c, z, q, and g) that have different pronunciations depending on the vowel they go with. We will see the pronunciation of c, z, k, and q in Spanish in our next post, and later we will post a grammar exercise for the pronunciation of g and j in Spanish.

Download this grammar exercise on the Spanish alphabet and practice Spanish writing and pronunciation. And remember: If you want to have a reference book containing in one volume all the Spanish grammar you need to know, with few explanations and a lot of schemes, check our Spanish grammar book. And, if you want to go deeper in the study of the Spanish language, visit our Spanish school in Madrid. We hope you enjoy and learn!