Lesson 1.2 · Unit 1 · Structures

The letters, and the five sounds that never change

English spelling is a poor guide to English sound, so students expect Spanish to be as hard. It is not. Spanish spelling is almost phonetic: a letter makes its sound and keeps it. The whole system rests on five vowels, and if those five are right, the language already sounds Spanish. This lesson gives you the alphabet and the vowels. Say every example aloud, slowly at first.

The method
  1. Spanish has 27 letters. They are the 26 English letters plus ñ (eñe). The letters k and w appear only in borrowed words such as kilo and web.
  2. The letter names. a (ah), be (beh), ce (seh), de (deh), e (eh), efe (EH-feh), ge (heh), hache (AH-cheh), i (ee), jota (HOH-tah), ka (kah), ele (EH-leh), eme (EH-meh), ene (EH-neh), eñe (EH-nyeh).
  3. The letter names, continued. o (oh), pe (peh), cu (koo), erre (EH-rreh), ese (EH-seh), te (teh), u (oo), uve (OO-beh), doble ve (DOH-bleh beh), equis (EH-kees), ye (yeh), zeta (SEH-tah).
  4. There are five vowel sounds. a as in "father", e as in "bet", i as in "machine", o as in "go" without the glide, and u as in "rule".
  5. A vowel never changes. English reduces unstressed vowels to a lazy "uh": the "a" in "banana" is three different sounds. In Spanish every a is the same clear sound, stressed or not. Banana is bah-NAH-nah.
  6. Keep vowels short and pure. English "o" slides into "oo" and "e" slides into "ee". Spanish does not slide. Hold the mouth still: no is a short, steady "noh", not "no-oo".
  7. The letter h is silent. Hola is OH-lah, hotel is oh-TEL, and hay is eye. Only in ch does h do any work.
  8. Spell your name aloud. You will do this on the phone and at a desk. Say the letter names: Luis is ele, u, i, ese. Use doble ve or uve doble for w, and ye or i griega for y.

Where students lose marks: the lazy vowel. Reading casa as "KAY-suh" instead of KAH-sah makes the word almost unrecognizable to a Spanish speaker. Say each vowel in full, the way you would at the top of a vowel list.

Worked example

The problem. Pronounce Ana María Salazar and spell the first name and the family name aloud in Spanish.

Step one: split the name into words. Three words: Ana, María and Salazar.

Step two: find the vowels. Ana has a and a. María has a, i, a. Salazar has a, a, a. Every one of those a sounds is the same: "ah".

Step three: pronounce Ana. AH-nah. No "uh", no "ay".

Step four: pronounce María. mah-REE-ah. The i is the "ee" of "machine", and the written accent in María marks the stress (Lesson 1.4).

Step five: pronounce Salazar. sah-lah-SAHR. Three identical a sounds. The z is an "s" in Latin America (Lesson 1.3).

Step six: spell Ana aloud. a, ene, a.

Step seven: spell Salazar aloud. ese, a, ele, a, zeta, a, erre.

Step eight: check yourself. Every vowel was one clean sound, no vowel was reduced, and the letter names were Spanish, not English: Spanish a is "ah", not "ay", and Spanish e is "eh", not "ee".

Practice · 10 problems

Problems 1 to 5 are routine. Problems 6 to 10 are multi-step or ask for reasoning.

  1. How many letters does the Spanish alphabet have, and which one does English lack?
    Show the full solution

    It has 27 letters. The extra letter is ñ, called eñe. 27; ñ

  2. How do you say the vowel e in Spanish, with an English comparison?
    Show the full solution

    It is "eh", as in "bet", never the "ee" of the English letter name. "eh"

  3. Which letter is silent in hotel?
    Show the full solution

    The h is always silent in Spanish, so the word begins with the sound of o: oh-TEL. h

  4. Name the five Spanish vowels in order.
    Show the full solution

    a, e, i, o, u, pronounced ah, eh, ee, oh, oo. a, e, i, o, u

  5. Spell Luis aloud with Spanish letter names.
    Show the full solution

    L is ele, u is u (oo), i is i (ee), s is ese. ele, u, i, ese

  6. Give an English respelling of banana and say what it shows about Spanish vowels.
    Show the full solution

    bah-NAH-nah. All three vowels are the same clear "ah". English has three different sounds in "banana", while Spanish keeps one. bah-NAH-nah

  7. Which two of these are pronounced alike: hay, ay, ahí?
    Show the full solution

    Hay and ay both sound like the English word "eye", because the h is silent. Ahí is ah-EE. hay and ay

  8. Pronounce año and say what the mark over the letter does.
    Show the full solution

    AH-nyoh. The tilde makes n into a different letter, ñ, sounding like the "ny" in "canyon". It is part of the spelling, not an accent. AH-nyoh

  9. Find the error: a student reads pato as "PAY-toe".
    Show the full solution

    The student glided both vowels as English does. Spanish a is a flat "ah" and o is a short "oh" with no glide: PAH-toh. PAH-toh

  10. You are on the phone and must spell Ximena Vega. Write the letter names you would say for the first name.
    Show the full solution

    X is equis, i is i, m is eme, e is e, n is ene, a is a. equis, i, eme, e, ene, a

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