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The Spanish Alphabet

Here is the traditional Spanish alphabet. The current Spanish alphabet is made up of the letters with numbers above them, and is also sorted in that order. Please read the notes and sections below. (Blue and red letters are a part of the normal English alphabet).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
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
Notes about Ñ

N and Ñ are considered two different letters. They are alphabetized as separate letters, so Ñ always comes after N, regardless of where it appears in the word. Ex: muñeca comes after municipal.
Notes about CH and LL

CH and LL are no longer distinct letters of the alphabet. In 1994, the Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) declared that they should be treated as digraphs for collation purposes. Accordingly, words beginning with CH and LL are now alphabetized under C and L, respectively. In 2010, the Real Academia Española declared that CH and LL would no longer be treated as letters, bringing the total number of letters of the alphabet down to 27.
Notes about K and W

K and W are part of the alphabet but are mostly seen in foreign derived words and names, such as karate and whiskey. For instance, kilo is commonly used to refer to a kilogram.

Consonants

Although the above will help you understand, proper pronunciation of Spanish consonants is a bit more complicated:

Most of the consonants are pronounced as they are in American English with these exceptions:

  • The same sound for e and i is written like que and qui, where the u is silent (IPA: /ke/ and /ki/).
  • The same sound for e and i is written like gue and gui, where the u is silent (IPA: /ge/ and /gi/).

Vowels

The pronunciation of vowels is as follows:

The "u" is always silent after "q" (as in "qué" pronounced keh).

Spanish also uses the ¨ (diaeresis) diacritic mark over the vowel u to indicate that it is pronounced separately in places where it would normally be silent. For example, in words such as vergüenza ("shame") or pingüino ("penguin"), the u is pronounced as in the English "w" and so forms a diphthong with the following vowel: [we] and [wi] respectively. It is also used to preserve sound in stem changes and in commands. y [?] "Reyes" similar to the y of "yet", but more voiced (in some parts of Latin America it is pronounced as s in "vision" [?] or sh in "flash" [?]) At the end of a word or when it means "and" ("y") it is pronounced like i. Link to audio files.