Five vowels, five sounds
English vowels change sound from word to word; Spanish vowels do not. Each one has a single short, clean sound, with no glide at the end:
| Letter | Sound | Example |
|---|---|---|
| a | ah, as in father | casa (house) |
| e | eh, as in bed | mesa (table) |
| i | ee, as in see, but shorter | sí (yes) |
| o | oh, as in note, without the w at the end | ojo (eye) |
| u | oo, as in food | uva (grape) |
The most common beginner mistake is sliding the vowels: saying "no" as English "noh-oo" or "me" as "may". Keep your mouth still at the end of the vowel.
Letters that sound different from English
- h is always silent: hola is OH-lah, hora is OH-rah.
- j, and g before e or i, sound like a strong English h made in the throat: jugo, gente.
- ll and y sound like the y in yes in most of Latin America: calle (KAH-yeh). In Argentina and Uruguay they sound closer to sh.
- r is a quick tap of the tongue, like the tt in American "butter": pero (but). At the start of a word, and written rr, it is rolled: rojo, perro (dog). Pero and perro are different words.
- c before e or i, and z, sound like s in Latin America. In most of Spain they sound like the th in "think": gracias is GRAH-syahs in Mexico and GRAH-thyahs in Madrid.
- qu is a k sound, and the u is silent: queso (KEH-so).
- ñ sounds like the ny in "canyon": año (AH-nyo).
B and V: one sound, two names
In Spanish, b and v are pronounced the same, so vaca (cow) and baca (a car’s roof rack) sound identical. The sound is a b at the start of a phrase and a softer b between vowels, with the lips barely touching.
Because they sound the same, people need a way to tell them apart when spelling aloud. The Real Academia Española recommends be and uve, and uve is standard in Spain. In much of Latin America people say ve, or tell them apart as be larga or be grande and ve corta or ve chica. W is uve doble in Spain and doble ve in most of Latin America.
What happened to ch, ll, and rr?
Older textbooks list ch (che) and ll (elle) as separate letters, and sometimes rr too. Dictionaries stopped sorting ch and ll as separate letters in 1994, and in 2010 the Real Academia Española removed ch and ll from the alphabet. They are now written as two letters each, although their sounds have not changed: ch is the ch in "church", ll is described above, and rr is rolled.
The same 2010 reform recommended ye as the name for y, in place of i griega. You will still hear i griega often, especially from older speakers.
Stress and accent marks
Spanish tells you where the stress falls. Words ending in a vowel, n, or s are stressed on the second-to-last syllable (CA-sa, HA-blan); words ending in any other consonant are stressed on the last syllable (ha-BLAR). An accent mark shows the exceptions: ca-FÉ, ÁR-bol. For the full rules and a copy-and-paste tool, see Spanish accents, and to type them, how to type Spanish accents.
Spelling your name aloud
Letters are feminine, so you say la a, la be, la hache. To spell a word, name the letters one by one; for a double letter, name it twice or say doble: "Ana: a, ene, a." "Allison: a, doble ele, i, ese, o, ene."
- ¿Cómo se escribe? How do you spell it?
- ¿Con be o con ve? With a b or a v?
- Se escribe con hache. It’s spelled with an h.