Spanish Pronunciation Guide

This Spanish pronunciation guide is an introduction to help you learn to pronounce Spanish letters and words.

In many languages learning pronunciation can be quite tricky: for example, letter sounds can not only change but sometimes may not be pronounced at all!

To give examples, consider the letter "a" in the English words "range" and "rang". The sound of the letter "a" in these words changes according to the letters that follow it. The word "range", also contains the letter "e" which is silent… but it is important as it determines how the whole word is pronounced. This often means that there are rules for pronunciation governed by conditions such as letter order that have to be learned.

In Spanish pronunciation, there is less to overcome in this regard: the sounds of letters rarely change and almost all letters in Spanish words are pronounced in the same way regardless of the letters that follow them. The only letter that is never pronounced is the letter "h", which is always silent: for example, the word "hola" (hello) is pronounced "o-la". This makes reading and writing Spanish much easier for the beginner.

In order to start learning Spanish pronunciation, you should start by learning the Spanish alphabet (el alfabeto). The alphabet and a short guide to pronunciation can be found on our Spanish Alphabet page.