The Spanish alphabet traditionally consists of the following 29 letters: The Spanish language uses determiners in a similar way to English. ... The Spanish language has nouns that express concrete objects, groups and classes of objects, qualities, feelings and other abstractions. ... The Spanish language has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. ... The Spanish language uses adjectives in a similar way to English and most other Indo-European languages. ... The Spanish language has a relatively large amount of prepositions. ... Spanish verbs are one of the most complex areas of Spanish grammar. ... Main article: Spanish verbs This is a paradigm of Spanish verbs, that is, a set of conjugation tables, for the model regular verbs and for some of the most common irregular verbs (see the article on Spanish irregular verbs for common patterns of irregularity that may help understanding this paradigm). ... Spanish verbs are a complex area of Spanish grammar, with many combinations of tenses, aspects and moods (up to fifty conjugated forms per verb). ...

A, B, C, Ch, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, Ll, M, N, Ñ, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

This includes the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet plus the letter Ñ (representing the voiced, nasal palatal sound represented by /ɲ/ in IPA), and the digraphs ch, ll and rr. The letter A is the first (1st) letter in the Latin alphabet. ... The letter B is the second letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... C is the third letter of the Roman alphabet. ... The letter Ch is a letter in Chamorro, Czech, and Slovak alphabet. ... The letter D is the fourth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... The letter E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. ... The letter F is the sixth (6th) letter in the Latin alphabet. ... G is the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet. ... ... Due to MediaWikis uppercase algorithm, ı (lower case dotless i) will bring you here. ... For the programming language, see J programming language. ... The eleventh letter of the Latin alphabet, K comes from the Greek Κ or κ (Kappa) developed from the Semitic Kap, symbol for an open hand. ... L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages. ... M is the thirteenth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... N is the fourteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... Ñ is to the right of the L on a Spanish keyboard Ñ or enye, (Spanish eñe) represents a palatal nasal (IPA: ). This is reminiscent of as in onion IPA: . It is the fifteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet, alphabetized between N and O. Though English keyboard schemes classify it as... O is the fifteenth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... P is the 16th letter of the Latin alphabet. ... Q is the 17th letter of the Latin alphabet. ... R is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. ... T is the twentieth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... U is the twenty-first letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. ... W is the twenty-third letter of the modern Latin alphabet. ... X is the twenty-fourth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... Y is the twenty-fifth letter of the Latin alphabet. ... Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the English alphabet. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. ... Ñ is to the right of the L on a Spanish keyboard Ñ or enye, (Spanish eñe) represents a palatal nasal (IPA: ). This is reminiscent of as in onion IPA: . It is the fifteenth letter of the Spanish alphabet, alphabetized between N and O. Though English keyboard schemes classify it as... The palatal nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet. ... The letter Ch is a letter in Chamorro, Czech, and Slovak alphabet. ... Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages. ...

Since Ñ is a separate letter, and not an accented character, it is alphabetized after N. So, in English piñata comes before ping-pong (ñ is considered in English to be an accented n), but in Spanish, ping-pong comes first (again, because ñ is a separate letter in Spanish). The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

There are three sounds in the Spanish language which are represented by digraphs, namely ch, ll and rr. Ch and ll are traditionally alphabetized after c and l respectively, and considered to be separate letters just like ñ. However, rr is not sufficiently separate from r to ever have been counted as a separate letter. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The letter Ch is a letter in Chamorro, Czech, and Slovak alphabet. ... Ll/ll is a digraph which occurs in several natural languages. ...

In 1994, the Spanish Academy dropped this custom joining other dictionary makers. It made alphabetization too different from other European languages making it difficult for foreigners to understand. However, many Spanish speakers still use them as separate letters when spelling (whilst others spell them out separately as ce hache and doble ele). The Real Academia Española (Spanish for Royal Spanish Academy; often RAE) is the institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. ... An alphabet is a complete standardized set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents a phoneme of a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it may have been in the past. ...

It also can be noted that it is linguistically incorrect to identify graphs with sounds, but with an orthography as accurate as that of Spanish, it is easy to make this identification. A schematic representation of hearing. ...

K is not often found in Spanish words, and W still less; they only appear in words taken from other languages.

By default, the stress in a word falls on the penult if the word ends with a vowel, n, or s, and on the ultima otherwise. Wherever the stress does not follow this rule, it must be indicated with an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú, called acento agudo or simply acento in Spanish) over the relevant vowel. The acute accent over a stressed vowel also acts as a diæresis to prevent the formation of a diphthong, as in país, which has two syllables, not one. In addition, the acute accent distinguishes interrogative pronouns from their relative counterparts (¿dónde? but donde) and various other words that are otherwise spelt the same (si 'if' but sí 'yes'). In linguistics, stress is the emphasis given to some syllables (often no more than one in each word, but in many languages, long words have a secondary stress a few syllables away from the primary stress, as in the words cóunterfòil or còunterintélligence. ... The acute accent ( Â´ ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin script. ... In linguistics, a diaeresis or dieresis (AE) (from Greek διαιρειν (diaerein), to divide) is the modification of a syllable by distinctly pronouncing one of its vowels. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Spanish also uses the diæresis (diéresis) over u (ü) in the two combinations güe and güi to indicate that the u is pronounced ([gwe] and [gwi]), as it would ordinarily be silent in gue and gui. Occasionally it occurs in poetry over the first vowel of a diphthong to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the metre (vïuda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This diæresis and the acute accent are not enough to make separate letters out of á, é, í, ó, ú and ü.

Letter names

See International Phonetic Alphabet for the symbols used to represent pronunciation. This table does not feature the traditional names of the letters Ch and Ll, which are called Che /tʃe/ and elle /'eʎe/. These names are habitually used in spelling. For example, chillón is spelt out as che, i, elle, o con acento, ene. The International Phonetic Alphabet. ...

The fact that these are separate letters is not supposed to affect capitalisation. Therefore, the word chillón in a text written in all caps should be CHILLÓN and not ChILLÓN, and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written Chillón, not CHillón. This rule is respected with Ch, but with Ll one does sometimes see lifts with buttons marked LLamar. A modern elevator has buttons to allow passengers to select the desired floor. ...

Pronunciations of C, Z

For more information, see Spanish dialects and varieties. There are a series of significant differences in the way the Spanish language is spoken in the 20 or so countries and territories where it is an official language. ...

The pronunciation of the letters c and z varies. For the most part, Spain is only the country that makes use of the /θe/ and /'θeta/ pronunciations for c and z, respectively.

Most former-Spanish colonies, particularly those in North and South America, pronounce c and z with a sound much like that of the letter 's', coming off as /se/ and /'seta/.

Alternative names

The letters b and v were originally simply known as be and ve and pronounced accordingly. However, now that Spanish no longer distinguishes between these sounds, it has become necessary to add something to the names to tell them apart. The table above gives the standard names used in Spain. You may encounter some of the alternative names. Mexicans often say be grande/ve chica; Argentinians, be larga/ve corta; Catalans, be alta/ve baja. Some people give examples of words spelt with the letter e.g. be de burro/ve de vaca.

It is sometimes suggested that the name of the letter R is ere when it is single, and erre when it is double.

I is occasionally known as i latina (Latin i) to distinguish it from Y, which is known as i griega (Greek i). The latter is a late borrowing from the Greek letter υ (upsilon). In turn, the letter Y is occasionally known as ye. Upsilon (upper case , lower case ) is the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet. ...

W can be doble ve, ve doble, or doble u.

Z is usually called ceta or zeta (both pronounced the same), or occasionally ceda or zeda (again, both pronounced the same).

See also

• Spelling reform of the Spanish language

Natural languages often develop cumbersome manners of spelling words. ...

External links

• Spanish Alphabet — Interactive Spanish Alphabet. You will learn how to pronounce all the letters by themselves and in several words.
• http://spanish.allinfo-about.com/pronunciation/pr-alphabet.html — Site including .wav files with the pronunciations of all of the traditional 30 letters of the Spanish alphabet.
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Pronouncing_Spanish_words — Wikibook with extensive coverage of the Spanish letter pronunciation.