Learn about the Spanish alphabet
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Intro |
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| Michael: Is the Spanish alphabet the same as the English alphabet? |
| Ninoska: And if not, what are the differences? |
| Michael: At SpanishPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Sofia Soto Flores, a kindergarten student, is studying the alphabet with her mom, Alejandra Flores Estrada. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is that?" |
| Sofia Soto Flores: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Dialogue |
| Sofia Soto Flores: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Alejandra Flores Estrada: Es la ñ. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sofia Soto Flores: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Michael: "What letter is that?" |
| Alejandra Flores Estrada: Es la ñ. |
| Michael: "It's ñ." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: You may have noticed that the Spanish alphabet and the English alphabet are essentially the same, but there are indeed a few minor differences. The letter |
| Ninoska: eñe |
| Michael: is the only letter in the Spanish alphabet that you won't find in English. Furthermore, while the sound exists in many other languages, it's usually expressed with either a different letter or with a combination of two letters. For example, in a similar Romance language, Italian, there is a word we all know that contains this sound, namely, |
| Ninoska: lasagne |
| Michael: and it is spelled with the letters gn. Similarly, in Portuguese, the word |
| Ninoska: caminho |
| Michael: contains this sound, but it's spelled with the letters nh. |
| There are many words in Spanish that contain the letter ñ, and some might have a completely different meaning if they're mistakenly pronounced with the letter n. For example, the word |
| Ninoska: caña |
| Michael: has a few different meanings, such as fishing rod, reed, or even a small glass of beer! However, it does not share any of its meanings with the word |
| Ninoska: cana, |
| Michael: which is the word for a white or gray hair. |
| Also, if you want to ask someone how old they are, remember to always ask |
| Ninoska: ¿Cuántos años tienes? |
| Michael: instead of |
| Ninoska: ¿Cuántos anos tienes? |
| Michael: because the latter has a much different meaning, and it's definitely not what you want to ask! |
| In addition to |
| Ninoska: eñe, |
| Michael: there are a few other letters in the Spanish alphabet that can contain symbols that aren't found in English. To be specific, these letters are the five Spanish vowels, or |
| Ninoska: vocales, |
| Michael: which can be marked with a small line on top of them known as accent marks, or, in Spanish, |
| Ninoska: tildes |
| Michael: or |
| Ninoska: acentos. |
| Michael: However, we do not consider these marked vowels to be different letters in the alphabet, since they don't cause any differences in pronunciation, unlike what happens in some Germanic languages such as German or Swedish, for example. They are simply there to help you know which syllable is stressed in a specific word. For example, the word |
| Ninoska: canto, |
| Michael: which means "I sing," doesn't have an accent mark, and if we know the rules, we know that the stressed syllable is the first one. But then there is a very similar word, |
| Ninoska: cantó, |
| Michael: which has a very similar spelling, but has an accent mark on top of the last vowel, o. This means that the stressed syllable is the last one, so it will be pronounced slightly differently, and it has the different meaning of "he or she sang." |
| Another example of a word with an accent mark is the word |
| Ninoska: cámara, |
| Michael: which is almost the same as the English word "camera." The accent on the first a of this word helps us know that the first syllable is to be stressed. |
| In addition to accent marks, albeit not as common, we should also mention that Spanish words may have a diacritic known as the diaeresis, or |
| Ninoska: diéresis. |
| Michael: In case you're wondering, that's what we call the two dots on top of the u, always between a g and an e or i. Usually, Spanish is pronounced just the way it is spelled, but there are a couple exceptions. Let's look at two different words. The word "guitar" or |
| Ninoska: guitarra, |
| Michael: has a letter u between the g and the i, but it's not pronounced in Spanish or in English. This is a rule in Spanish: there's a series of combinations where the letter u is not pronounced. In particular, when q or g are followed by u and then the vowels e or i, they're pronounced |
| Ninoska: que, qui, gue, and gui. |
| Michael: However, sometimes Spanish does require that we pronounce that u. The way to indicate this is to add two dots, or as we called it before, a diaeresis, on top of the u. Here's an example of a word that requires a diaeresis: |
| Ninoska: pingüino, |
| Michael: which means "penguin." As it is in English, the u is pronounced, but Spanish requires a diaeresis so that it's not mistakenly pronounced without a u, as in |
| Ninoska: pinguino. |
| Practice Section |
| Michael: Let's review the sample conversation. Try to respond to the following prompts by saying the Spanish translation out loud. Then, repeat after Ninoska with the focus on your pronunciation. |
| The first prompt is "What letter is that?" |
| Ninoska: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Michael: Did you get it right? Listen again to Ninoska and repeat what she says. Remember to focus on the pronunciation! |
| Ninoska: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Ninoska: ¿Qué letra es esa? |
| Michael: And do you remember how to say "It's ñ." |
| Ninoska: Es la ñ. |
| Michael: Listen to Ninoska again and repeat what she says. |
| Ninoska: Es la ñ. |
| Ninoska: Es la ñ. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: The letter |
| Ninoska: eñe |
| Michael: has only been in the official Spanish dictionary since the year 1803, but it has actually been actively used in the Spanish language since the 13th century! Before that, the few people who knew how to write would use different spellings, such as the Italian gn, a double n, or sometimes ni. The symbol we now use on top of the letter n was invented to save time and paper. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Ninoska: ¡Hasta la próxima! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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