A
The Spanish letter A is pronounced “ah,” as in father or wander.
Pronunciation Guides
Spanish Pronunciation
Pronunciación
Spanish pronunciation is fairly straight-forward, because there are regular rules for the pronunciation of each letter and letter combination, with very few exceptions. Most letters represent a single sound, though the pronunciation of some letters depends on the location of the letter in the word and the letters beside it.
Lessons by level: A1 | A2 | B1 | B2 | C1 What’s my level?
Please note that these lessons are only a guideline for the Spanish that I know, which is Castilian Spanish. There are many regional variations in Spanish pronunciation.
Accents
Accents may look strange to anyone whose native language doesn’t have any, but they are extremely important in Spanish. Leaving off the accent on a word is a spelling mistake, and may cause confusion. There are three different Spanish accents
Acute Accent: á, é, í, ó, ú
The Spanish acute accent serves two purposes: it alters word stress or distinguishes between two otherwise identical words.
A2 - Low-Intermediate Spanish • accents • spelling
Advanced Pronunciation
Spanish pronunciation is phonemic, meaning that according to the pronunciation rules, in a given use, each letter is always pronounced a certain way. Many Spanish letters have only one pronunciation, making them especially easy to learn. But certain consonants have two pronunciations depending on where/how they are used. That's what this lesson is about. Take a look at this summary of "dual-pronunciation" letters, and then click on the individual letters for more in-depth explanations.
Alphabet
The traditional Spanish alphabet has 30 letters: the 26 letters you already know from the English alphabet, plus 4 others. The letters that are the same are pronounced differently, so take a moment to learn the Spanish alphabet.
A1 - Beginning Spanish • spelling
And + Or
The words "and" and "or" are coordinating conjunctions. In Spanish, these two words have a few different forms depending on what they’re used with.
B
The Spanish letter B has two pronunciations, depending on where it’s found in the word.
C
The Spanish letter C can be pronounced in two different ways.
CH
In Spanish, CH was traditionally considered a single letter. It’s pronounced like the ch in the English words "chat" and "chess."
Contractions
Contractions in Spanish and English are very different, because English contractions, such as it is > it’s, are considered somewhat informal and are optional. In Spanish, however, contractions are required, and there are essentially 3 types.