[SPEAKING SPANISH] The Spanish alphabet.
The Spanish alphabet has every letter that we have in the English alphabet, plus it has one more official letter and three others that sort of act as letters. At one point, four of these were considered separate letters but now [SPEAKING SPANISH], the Spanish Royal Academy, considers just the "Ñ" as a separate letter. The "Ñ" is the one that you see in the word [SPEAKING SPANISH] or [SPEAKING SPANISH], where the N has a little squiggly line on top of it. The others that once were considered separate letters are the "CH", which is the C, H combination, the LL, which is the double L combination, and the RR, which is the double R combination. They are no longer considered separate letters, however they do act as separate letters in the sense that each of them has a different sound than the single letter or than each letter of the combo, as you'll soon see.
But for now, let's focus on the letter names. If you were spelling a person's name out loud, or your own, or giving an email address, you would want to be able to know how to say the letters in a name or an email address. So, this is how you would say these letters. The A in Spanish is [SPEAKING SPANISH].
So, try this after me-- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
That's the C, H combination.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
That's the double L, but it's pronounced [SPEAKING SPANISH] for the letter name.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
That's the one we talked about before, in the word [SPEAKING SPANISH]. Next is-- [SPEAKING SPANISH]
The double R. Then comes-- [SPEAKING SPANISH] --sometimes also called [SPEAKING SPANISH], and [SPEAKING SPANISH].
Notice that both the letter B as in boy and V as in Victor are [SPEAKING SPANISH]. That's because the V in Spanish is pronounced like a B. Therefore, you might hear some Spanish speakers say [SPEAKING SPANISH] versus [SPEAKING SPANISH], which means big B and little B. So, the B as in boy would be [SPEAKING SPANISH], and the V as in Victor would be [SPEAKING SPANISH].
Now, you can practice spelling your name in Spanish. Here's mine-- [SPEAKING SPANISH].
Now you try--
And one more time, here they are again. Try them after me.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
So, how is your Spanish pronunciation?
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
Well, we can help if it's not. Some of you may have a gringo accent right now, but with some practice, you'll find that you can speak Spanish authentically, even if you cannot trill your Rs, like this-- [ROLLS 'R']. The good news is that Spanish sounds as it looks, for the most part, and every vowel has the same pronunciation in every situation. So, the [SPEAKING SPANISH] is always [SPEAKING SPANISH]. It's never any other sound. There are no silent vowels, either. So, it has a very consistent set of rules for the pronunciation.
In Spanish, there were only three stress rules. If you don't know what those are yet, don't let it stress you out. We'll cover that at the end of this lesson. But to give you a comparison, an ESL textbook for learning English as a second language has 35 pages worth of stress rules. So, by contrast, Spanish is much simpler. Once you've learned the sounds and rules in this section, you'll be able to pronounce any word in Spanish correctly, including names. You may not know what they all mean yet, but we'll get to that in future lessons.
Have you ever wondered why a certain word might be used in one Spanish speaking country, but not in another? For example, [SPEAKING SPANISH] is pretty generic, but you would hear it called [SPEAKING SPANISH] in Latin America, while it's called [SPEAKING SPANISH] in [SPEAKING SPANISH]. And in Spain, [SPEAKING SPANISH] refers to a shopping cart, whereas in Latin America, [SPEAKING SPANISH] is a baby stroller. So, what's that about? Also, have you noticed a different pronunciation sometimes for the same word in different Spanish speaking countries? Or perhaps, by different Spanish speaking friends or patients?
Dialectal differences cause this issue in any language that's spoken in more than one tiny, isolated community. And it comes from the fact that the language is spoken in more than one place, therefore time and distance cause the language to change differently in different places. For example, English is spoken in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and countless other countries, and yet in each of those countries, you'll notice that the pronunciation is slightly different, yet you can still understand someone who speaks English from a different country. Also, it can control what words are used in those different dialects to refer to the same thing. For example, in the US, we say restroom or bathroom, and in the United Kingdom they might say loo or water closet or WC or the toilets. So, you still understand what the reference is, it just takes a second to determine exactly what that meaning is in your own dialect.
We can use context clues and we can use deductive reasoning skills to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word. In this course, you will learn what is referred to as Latin American Spanish. This is not a specific dialect spoken just in one region of one country, rather it's a combination of the most common pronunciations and the most commonly used words and the many dialects spoken in the many different Spanish speaking countries throughout Latin America. [SPEAKING SPANISH] or Castilian Spanish is the Spanish that's spoken throughout the majority of Spain. And it is spoken in a few cities, peppered here and there, in Latin America. The two key differences between [SPEAKING SPANISH], Castilian Spanish, and Latin American Spanish are the pronunciation of the double L and of the letters C, Z, and S.
The double L in Latin American Spanish is like the letter Y-- [SPEAKING SPANISH]. So, I am [SPEAKING SPANISH] and I call myself [SPEAKING SPANISH]. However, in Castilian, it's the [SPEAKING SPANISH] sound, like a Z, H. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Stephanie. So, you hear the difference? [SPEAKING SPANISH] Stephanie, but you can understand me either way.
The other key difference is in the pronunciation of the letters S, Z, and the C when it comes before E or I, the soft C. That's because in Latin American Spanish, all three of those sound like a letter S. And I should qualify, It's only the C before E or I, otherwise the C's a hard C, like a K. So, if you see any of those letters, you will pronounce them just as you would the letter S. It would be [SPEAKING SPANISH] and [SPEAKING SPANISH].
However, in Castilian Spanish, in [SPEAKING SPANISH], that sound is more like a "th--", a soft "th--" like as in the word "the" in English, and it would come out like this-- [SPEAKING SPANISH], and that's for all of these letters. The differences are too many to list here, but rest assured, if you learn Latin American Spanish, you'll be understood by the majority of your Spanish speaking patients and clients and most importantly, they'll understand you.
The following chart presents each letter of the Spanish alphabet on the left, with its corresponding pronunciation on the right. Letters with an asterisk are pronounced the same in Spanish as they are in English.
Letter | Sound |
---|---|
a | ah |
b* | as in English |
c* | s (soft) before an "e" or "i;" k (hard) before any other vowel; "cc" is pronounced "ks" |
ch (one letter) | ch |
d | softer than in English in the middle or at the end (in some dialects like "th" at middle or end) |
e | ay |
f* | as in English |
g | h (soft) before an "e" or "i;" g (hard) before other vowels |
h | always silent |
i | ee |
j | h |
k* | as in English |
l* | as in English |
ll (one letter) | y |
m* | as in English |
n* | as in English |
ñ | ny |
o | oh |
p* | as in English |
q | k (never kw) |
r | like "dd" in "ladder;" trilled/repeated at the beginning of a word |
rr (one letter) | trilled/repeated |
s* | as in English |
t | softer than in English in the middle or at the end |
u | oo |
v | like a "b" |
w* | as in English |
x | ks before vowels; s before consonants |
y | ee as a vowel; as in English as a consonant |
z | s |
Note that ch, ll, and rr are no longer considered official letters of the Spanish alphabet; however, many Spanish speakers treat them as such.
For the most part, Spanish sounds as it looks. Each vowel has the same pronunciation in every situation. There are only three stress rules in Spanish. By contrast, a book on English pronunciation contains a section on English stress rules which is 35 pages long! Once you have learned the sounds and rules presented in this section, you will be able to pronounce any word in Spanish!
If you are struggling with a concept or terminology in the course, you may contact PharmacySpanishSupport@capella.edu for assistance.
If you are having technical issues, please contact learningcoach@sophia.org.
Source: This content has been adapted from "Pharmacy Spanish" by Stephanie Langston.