Spanish Alphabet and Basic Pronunciation Rules

¿Cómo se escribe? (How is it spelled?)

The following is the Spanish alphabet. It has 29 letters of which 5 are vocals (a, e, i, o, u). The name of each letter is given in the brackets.

EL ALFABETO

Vocales

a   e   i   o   u

Consonantes

b (be)   c (ce)    ch (che)    d (de)    f (efe)  g (ge)   h (hache)   j (jota)   

k (ka)     l (ele)  ll (elle)   m (eme)   n (ene)         ñ (eñe)     p (pe)   q (cu)  

r (erre)    s (ese)   t (te)   v (uve)     w (uve doble)    x (equis)   y (i griega) 

z (zeta)

If your mother language has some letters with umlaut such as Ö, Ü-----we have those letters in Turkish, some other languages like German have them as well-----or other special letters like Ç, Ş, I  you may express them as follows while spelling

• Ö: o con puntos
• Ü: u con puntos

"con" means with and "punto" means point. So, you simply say o with points. Our teacher told us that technically it is correct to use "diéresis" instead of "puntos" but in conversations one should use puntos

• Ç: c con cedilla
• Ş: s con cedilla
• I: i sin punto (sin:without)

¿Cómo se pronuncia? (How is it pronounced?)

In Spanish, there are basically nineletters whose pronunciations need special attention: j, h, b, v, g, c, ch, ll, ñ

1. j: make a strong h sound coming from the throat
2. h: it is not at all pronounced in Spanish
3. b: as we are used to pronounce it in English if it is the first letter of the word (lips touch each other). If b is not the first letter of the word make a sound as if you are going to say "b" but don't touch the lips with each other
4. there is no v sound in Spanish. When you see "v" in a word, apply the rules for the pronunciation of  "b". (see 3)
5. g: 

• if "e" or "i" follows "g" then it is pronounced as j in Spanish (example in Spanish: general)
• if "a" or "u" or "o" follows "g" then it is pronounced as guitar in English  (examples in Spanish: gorila, guitarra)

    6.  c:

• if "e" or "i" follows c, then it is pronounced as "z" (ex. cinko)
• if "a", "o", "u" follows c, then it is pronounced as "k" in  kilo in English (ex. casa)

     7. ch: pronounce it like you pronounce chair in English.

     8. ll: make "y" sound

     9. ñ: make an n-y sound one after the other. (If on the keyboard there is no ñ letter, it is written as ny)

Simple Spanish Conversations

I have started taking Spanish lessons from a Cuban recently. I have a lovely teacher and I enjoy learning this language very much. And in this blog I'd like to share what I learn in those lessons. I hope to find other people who want to learn Spanish, who have been learning Spanish or who already can speak Spanish. Hopefully, I will have opportunities to exchange information with you.

I think almost every beginning Spanish course starts with the following typical conversations. Because learning dialogs is probably the best method to get to know a new foreign language. Everything seems to be so complicated at the beginning. That's why I think for the beginning there is really no way but memorizing the fixed expressions even if you cannot explain every sentence grammatically.

These are the questions and answers we practiced in the first lesson.

Pink is the question (Pregunta); orange is the answer (Respuesta).

---

ASKING PERSONAL INFORMATION

¿Cómo te IIamas? (What is your name? Actually, something like how are you called)                                                                                

Me IIamo Alicia (My name is Alicia)
¿y de appellido ? (and the surname?)
Martínez
¿Cómo se escribe? (How do you spell it?)
M-A-R-T-í-N-E-Z

¿De dónde eres?  (Where do you come from?, Where are you from?)

(Yo) soy de Mexico  (I come from Mexico)

¿Dónde vives?  (Where do you live?)

vivo en Madrid (I live in Madrid)

¿Cuántos años tienes? (How old are you? Actually s.thing like how many years do you have?)

tengo treinta y dos años (I am 32 years old)

¿En qué trabajas? (What is your occupation?)

soy ingeniera (I am an engineer)

¿Dónde trabajas? (Where do you work?)

trabajo en un restaurante (I work at a restaurant)

---

Already in my first Spanish class, I came across one thing peculiar to Spanish: they put an inverse question mark at the beginning of a question. Because in Spanish there is no difference between a question and an answer (if it is a yes/no question). While speaking they make it correctly understood by emphasizing with the voice but since in a text they don't have  this opportunity they need to show if the sentence is a question by adding the inverse question mark at the beginning of the sentence. Well, that is, at least how the teacher explained it to me. 

I don't think that is one of the first things you ask to a person whom you just got to know, but the following is also from my first lesson on Spanish

---

MARITAL STATUS

¿ eres casada?  (Are you married?)--if the person is female the version ending with "a" is used

¿ eres casado? (Are you married?)..if the person is male the version ending with "e" is used

no, soy soltero (No, I am single)

• similar sentences can be constructed for single, widowed  (eres soltero, eres viudo) etc.
• "m" stands for male and  "f" for female

soltera (f) / soltero (m)  ----------->  single

casada (f) / casado(m)  ----------->  married

viuda (f) / viudo(m)   --------------> widowed

divorciada (f) / divorciado(m)  ------->  divorced

---

Spanish has gender differences. Above, casado/casada etc. are adjectives and based on the gender of the person you speak to those adjectives get different endings. We learned a little bit on the gender issues but I will come to that point in one of the next posts.

RECOMMENDED READING: