The pronunciation of the letters in the Spanish alphabet
Any dictionary should give you some hints about Spanish pronunciation. The rules described below are valid for the Castilian
Spanish (spoken by the majority of Spanish people) only. Most of the below examples are Spanish cities; else, the example is written in italic.
And the blue marked words are attempts to give a figured pronunciation.
b sometimes is pronounced "b" and sometimes "v"; you never know...: beber (to drink) is pronounced
bevér , but Bilbao is bilbáo .
c followed by a, o, u is pronounced like "k": cacofonía (cacophony) or Cuenca.
c followed by e, i, is pronounced like "th" as in "cloth" (never as in "the"): Ceuta the-ú-ta.
Now, try Cáceres: kátheres .
ch is pronounced "tsh", as in the English word "check": Che Guevara, Chinchón.
g followed by a, o, u is pronounced like "g" in "gold": Granada.
g followed by e, i, is pronounced as in "Loch
Ness": "Ginebra" (swiss city).
j is pronounced as in "Loch Ness": Jaén, Jijón.
ll is pronounced more or less like "y" as in "yes". It is not exactly that, but they will understand...: Valladolid bayadolid .
ñ is pronounced more or less like "ni" as in "genious": Peñíscola.
qu is pronounced like the letter "k" (unlike Italian): Quevedo kevédo (a district of Madrid).
r is always rolled: Teruel ter-u-él.
rr is rolled more: Torrevieja torrrrrevié"ch"a (it is difficult, I know...).
v sometimes is pronounced "v" and sometimes "b"...: Vitoria vitória but
Valladolid bayadolid .
x is a substitute for many letters used in autonomic languages (they hate the word "dialect"): it may be pronounced like "ch",
"j" or "s", at least, and as far as I remember; examples: Xijón or Xixón is equal to Jijón;
Xábia is pronounced sávia , and it is the word for Jávea "ch"ávea . Just copy the Spaniard in his use of this letter.
z is pronounced like "th" as in "cloth" (never as in "the"): Zaragoza.
the vocals are pronounced the Latin way:
"a" as in "duck" (the British way, he ? not the Irish one...)
"e" as in "Carmen" or the English word "check".
"i" as in "inn".
"o" as in "on" or in "duck" (the Irish way, this time, not the British one...).
"u" as in "who".
"y" as in "yes".
In many dictionaries, the words starting with the letters "ch", "ll" and "ñ" have their own chapter, after the respective letters "c", "n", "l".
Accentuation
Rule number one: where ever you meet an accent on a word, use it !
Else, use the next to last syllable. Using this rule and the accent, you will land in correctly in about 80 % of the cases.
The other rules are much more complicated and could be the object of a book, but you will admit that if you do right in eighty percent of the cases with these simple lines,
the question may be asked: is it worth to learn ninety-six pages more to make sure to be right in one hundred percent of the cases ?