Letters Of The Spanish Alphabet

Learn the letters of the Spanish Alphabet, how to pronounce them, along with some Spanish vocab.

NOTE: If you would like to start with letter A jump on over to my Spanish pronunciation page

The letter/vowel O (oh)

The letter o is another of the Spanish vowels and is pronounced similar to that of the o in toll or no, but a tiny bit shorter of a sound. So instead of opening your mouth as much as you do when you pronounce the o English, the trick is to only do the last part only. To make sense of this, say o and the last movement your mouth makes (at the end of the o) is where you start the o in Spanish.

ojo (oh-hhoh) eye
oro (oh-roh) gold
loco (loh-koh) crazy

The letter P (peh)

The letter p is pronounced similar to the p in the word pot or spot, minus the trailing breath. So you would just "swallow" the breath and keep the p short.

papel (pah-pel) paper
papá (pah-pa) dad/father
hipo (ee-poh) hiccup

The letter Q (koo)

The letter k is one of the letters of the Spanish alphabet that is rarely used, but when the language requires a k sound, the letter q is placed in front of the vowels e and i, which becomes a qu pronounced just like the English k.

my favorite thing to eat cheese is one of those words

queso (keh-soh) cheese
paquete (pah-keh-teh) package
pequeño (peh-keh-nyoh) small

In some cases the u in the ue combo is mute, and the Spanish diphthong is pronounced as e (eh).

[The Spanish pronunciation of "e" NOT the English pronunciation]

The u becomes silent when the ue is preceded by a q.

parque (pahr-keh) a park
queso (keh-soh) cheese
quemar (keh-mahr) to burn

Alternately, the same rule applies for ui combinations. The u in the ui becomes silent and is pronounced like the Spanish letter i (ee).

quiero (kyeh-roh) I want
siguiente (see-gyehn-teh) following
quien (kyehn) who

The letter R (eh-reh)

The letter r is one of those letters of the Spanish alphabet that often confuses people, it is nothing like the r in English, and if it appears at the beginning of the word, it is pronounced like the double rr, which is trilled or rolled with the tongue.

reto (rreh-toh) challenge
raíz (rrah-ees) root/origin
rico (ree-koh) rich

If it is not the first letter of the word the single r is pronounced much like the dd in ladder.

pero (peh-roh) but
cero (seh-roh) zero
hablar (hab-lahr) to speak

The letter RR (eh-rreh)

the pronunciation of one of those unique double Spanish letters, the rr is over on the second page in this sequence at my pronounce Spanish page where I talk about all the double letters.

The letters S (eh-seh)

The letter s is another one of the letters of the Spanish alphabet that sounds very similar to the English pronunciation of the letter s, like in salt or slow, except it is pronounced with a shorter s.

sol (sohl) sun
chicas (chee-kahs) girls
ser (sehr) to be

The letter T (teh)

is similar to the t in total, however it is pronounced with a short burst and the tip of the tongue positioned between both sets of teeth. So instead of touching the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth just touch the back of your front top teeth, without the puff of air, when pronouncing the Spanish t.

The difference in the sound is very subtle. Keep in mind that Spanish does not use th or tt combinations. Therefore, any words that are similar to the those in English just use one t instead of two.