More on the ah-be-ce-s de espanol

A little more information about the Spanish alphabet, and a link to the Real Academia Espanol, apparently the last word about issues with the Spanish language.

According to the Real Academia Española, which is considered the arbiter of what’s official Spanish, the following letters make up the Spanish alphabet:

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

The following chart shows the capital letters along with name of each letter.

A: a
B: be
C: ce
CH: che
D: de
E: e
F: efe
G: ge
H: hache
I: i
J: jota
K: ka
L: ele
LL: elle
M: eme
N: ene
Ñ: eñe
O: o
P: pe
Q: cu
R: ere
S: ese
T: te
U: u
V: ve
W: uve doble
X: equis
Y: i griega
Z: zeta

It may interest you to know that not all authorities (or at least not all textbooks) agree on which letters make up the alphabet. Some lists don’t include W (sometimes referred to as doble ve) and K, which exist almost exclusively in words of foreign origin, such as kilowatt. And some lists count RR (erre), which isn’t pronounced the same as R.

It used to be that dictionaries would place ch after c, so, for example, the word achatar would be listed after acordar. But that is no longer the case. In most modern dictionaries, the words are alphabetized as they would be in English (except that the Ñ comes after the N).

Note also that the letters B and V have exactly the same pronunciation, and their names are pronounced exactly alike. Some colorful expressions are used to indicate which letter is being used, such as B de burro and V de vaca (roughly, “B as in burro” and “V as in vaca”). Sometimes B is referred to as be grande (“big B”) and the V as uve or ve chica (“little V”).

You will find as you learn Spanish that vowels are often written with accents, as in tablón, and the U is sometimes topped with a dieresis or umlaut, as in vergüenza. However, vowels with such diacritical marks are not considered separate letters as they can be in some other languages.

Note also that the letters of the alphabet are feminine: la a, “the ‘a’”; la b, “the ‘b.’”

–information from about.com

Building Vocabulary

The best way to build vocabulary in a new language is not to memorize lists of words, but to learn words that are relevant to your own interests. A great way to build vocabulary that will be useful to you is to use the text analyzer and vocabulary  lists at:

http://www.online-spanish-course.com/

First, find something you are interested in reading in Spanish, copy it, and past it into the text analyzer page of the site. Press “Analyze Text” and then you can get an English translation of words you don’t know by passing your cursor over the word. Not only does this help you read an article that might be just beyond your level, but you can also add the new words to your own vocabulary list, and practice them daily until they are part of your vocabulary. The site lets you hear the pronunciation, select from multiple choice answers, or spell the word out yourself–you decide. And you also decide how frequently a word appears, and when to take it off your list. A good way to learn words that are meaningful to you! In my trial run, I found about 90% of the words in the article I used to be part of their database.

The Spanish Alphabet

Knowing how to pronounce the alphabet in Spanish is helpful when spelling new words. Here’s a good practice:

http://www.spanishspanish.com/alfabeto_ipower.html

Sounds of Spanish

Building a basic vocabulary is key to getting started in a new language. But learning a new word involves more than just learning the meaning of the word. It also involves learning the part of speech (or, how it is used in a sentence, ie. verb, noun, etc.),  collocations (or, words that it is often used with) and of course, the pronunciation of the word. To start, the following presentation gives a good overview of the differences in pronunciation between Spanish and English.

Interested in Learning Spanish?

I am. My goal is to become fluent in Spanish.

This blog is a record of the resources I find on the internet and the process I go through in order to achieve my goal.

Check back and see what I find. Know of any good resources? I’d love to hear about them!