The Spanish Alphabet: Pronunciation and Updates

Jenny is my little cousin, and when I was a teenager, she taught me something about the Spanish alphabet that I did not know. 

Once, she approached me and said with a smiley face, “Tati, I learned the alphabet today.” I immediately asked her to recite it to me. “Listen,” she said, “a, b, c, d…” I soon stopped her and said, “Honey, you forgot one letter.” She looked at me and said, “No, I didn’t.”

That little girl was right. She hadn’t forgotten any letter. “Ch” was not part of the alphabet anymore. Let me tell you a bit more about this.

The Spanish Alphabet 

The Spanish alphabet is currently made up of the following 27 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z. Each letter represents a sound. 

The orthography used in the Spanish language also includes the following 5 digraphs: ch, ll, rr, gu, qu. A digraph is a combination of two letters that represent one sound. For example, the digraph “ch” represents the sound /tʃ/, as in “chip.” 

Digraphs continue to be used in the Spanish language. The novelty here is that they are not considered letters of the Spanish alphabet anymore. Before 1994, the digraphs “ch” and “ll” were part of it.  

Pronunciation of the 27 Letters of the Spanish Alphabet 

Let’s learn how to pronounce each letter of the current Spanish alphabet with the following audio samples!

Notice that each audio contains a letter accompanied by its Spanish name. Click on the play button to listen to the correct pronunciation of each letter.

Interesting Fact: The sound /v/ does not exist in Spanish. That’s why the letters “b” and “v” are pronounced with the sound /b/. 

The following letters of the Spanish alphabet have more than one valid name in areas where Spanish is spoken: b, v, w, y, i. 

In a congress held in 1994, the Association of Academies of the Spanish Language decided to promote the use of one unique name for each letter of the Spanish alphabet.

The following chart contains the 27 letters of the Spanish alphabet and its 5 digraphs. Read the spelling next to each letter as you would in English to get the current pronunciation of each letter name.  

Pronunciation of the 5 Digraphs of the Spanish Orthography 

The five digraphs of the orthography of the Spanish language are the following: ch, ll, rr, gu, qu. Each digraph or combination of two letters represents a sound.