Spelling rules

In general, Spanish spelling is highly phonetic. With the exception of loanwords that have kept foreign spellings, any word’s spelling exactly denotes its pronunciation. (The reverse is almost true but not quite: some sounds have multiple spellings.)

Vowels

Five vowels: a e i o u are pronounced roughly “ah eh ee oh oo.” Important notes for avoiding the worst hallmarks of an American accent:

• Vowels are pronunced with their full quality even in unstressed syllables. For instance, alma is AHL-mah, not AHL-muh.
• The Spanish e and o are pure vowels, not diphthongs like English “long A” and “long O.” (If you pronounce English words such as “bait” and “boat” very slowly, you’ll hear that the vowels are actually combinations of multiple vowels, something like “ay-ee” and “uh-oo.”) English loanwords with a “long A” are usually retranscribed into Spanish spelling with ei; e.g. béisbol “baseball.”

Consonants

This guide is valid for everything except loanwords:

• b has two pronunciations: a “hard” B sound like in English, and a “soft” sound more like a V, but with the lips touching each other rather than with the lower lip against the front teeth as in English. The hard sound is used after the letters m and n, or at the beginnings of words that begin a sentence or clause; the soft sound is used elsewhere (including at word beginnings in rapid speech). Getting this wrong won’t keep you from being understood, so don’t worry too much.
• c has two pronunciations, and this time the distinction is vital. If the next letter is e or i, then it has a “soft” pronunciation. In Spain, the soft c is like English th (voiceless, as in thin); in Latin America, it’s like s. Otherwise, c is pronounced like k. The sounds ke ki are written que qui.
• ch: like English ch.
• d has a hard pronunciation (a regular D sound) and a soft pronunciation like voiced English th (as in the). The short version is that hard d is for the beginnings of words that begin a sentence or phrase, and in the combinations ld and nd. Soft d is for everywhere else: at word beginnings in rapid speech, between vowels, and in other consonant combinations. Again, exact accuracy isn’t worth worrying about. Word-final d can be hard, soft, soft and devoiced (like regular th), or even silent, depending on dialect.
• f: no surprises.
• g: prounounced “soft” before e or i, as a kh sound. (Basically: raise the back of your tongue halfway to the position for pronouncing a K and exhale.) Otherwise, g is pronounced “hard” like a regular G. The hard g sound before e and i is written gue or gui, with the u silent. (If the u isn’t silent, it gets a diaeresis: güero, pingüino.) The u is pronounced in the combinations gua, guo.
• h: always silent, written for etymological reasons.
• j: same as the “soft” pronunciation of g.
• l: few surprises. Always the tip-of-the-tongue sound in lily, not the back-of-the-tongue sound as in bulk.
• ll: usually a y sound (sometimes verging on zh with the tongue very close against the hard palate). In some conservative dialects it’s pronounced as an ly sound, somewhat as in chameleon, but the y pronunciation is the most common in Latin America.
• m, n: no surprises. n is sometimes pronounced ng before back-of-the-throat consonants like c, g, j.
• ñ: like an ny sound, with the blade of the tongue pressed against the roof of the mouth. Try to keep the pronunciation distinct from the combination ni (with the tip of the tongue against the teeth). In alphabetical sorting, ñ is its own letter that sorts after n.
• q: only used to indicate the hard c sound in the combinations que and qui (the u is silent). Otherwise the “qu” sound is indicated by cu, e.g. acuático “aquatic.”
• r: single r is rolled the beginning of a word, and a single tap (like the T sound in a lazy American pronunciation of butter) elsewhere. rr denotes the long r sound elsewhere. Some compound words whose second word starts with a single r have a doubled r to keep the long sound: puertorriqueño “Puerto Rican”, antirrevolucionario “anti-revolutionary.”
• s: always unvoiced as in English dose, not voiced as in rose.
• t: no surprises.
• v: always pronounced the same way as written b would be pronounced; the distinction is purely etymological.
• x: pronounced ks except for a few proper names where it’s pronounced like j: México, Oaxaca, Quixote. (j and x stood for “zh” and “sh” sounds in medieval Spanish that merged and shifted to the modern sound in the early modern period; most words that used x were then respelled with j.)
• y: pronounced like the usual pronunciation of ll. hi+vowel at the beginning of a word also indicates a y sound; e.g. hierba/yerba “herb.” A handful of words have end in vowel + y; the y here is just an orthographic variant of i.
• z: pronounced like soft c, not as in English.

Remembering that j and z are etymological soft g and c will help you with a lot of spelling patterns, especially in verb conjugation.

A few other niceties:

• p, t, and hard c are pronounced unaspirated, without the puff of air that distinguishes, e.g., the p in English pin from the p in spin.
• d, n, l, t should be pronounced with the tongue against the front teeth, not the gum ridge.

Syllabification and accentuation

Extremely regular and simple. First, the rules for dividing a word into syllables:

• a e o are “strong” vowels; i u are “weak” vowels.
• A syllable can be a single vowel, a diphthong (two vowels, at least one weak), or a triphthong (three vowels weak+strong+weak). Syllables incorporate as many vowels as they can.
  • In a diphthong, the “main” vowel, which is pronounced longer, is the strong vowel in weak+strong (usuario) or weak+strong (reunáis) combinations, or the second vowel in weak+weak (cuidado, ciudad).
    • In a triphthong, the strong vowel is the “main” vowel: Uruguay, apreciáis. These are rare.
• Weak vowels with a written accent mark are their own syllable.
• The letter h is ignored.

For instance:

• audiencia → au-dien-cia
• sería → se-rí-a (but seria with no accent mark → se-ria)
• bahía → ba-hí-a
• búho → bú-ho
• caer → ca-er
• prohibir → prohi-bir
• Dios → Dios (one syllable)
• oír → o-ír

To find the accented syllable of a word:

• A syllable with an accent mark is accented, of course.
• Otherwise, if the word ends in a vowel (not counting y), n or s, the second-to-last syllable gets the accent by default.
• Otherwise, the last syllable gets the accent.

Philological bonus section

Most Spanish words have a close relative borrowed into English from Latin or French. Knowing a few common sound changes from Latin to Spanish can help you remember English cognates and, thus, Spanish meanings.

• e and i often get mixed up, as do o and u. E.g. Lat. siccus → Sp. seco “dry” (cf. “desiccate”)
• Stressed Latin e and o often become ie and ue. E.g. semper → siempre “always”, ovum → huevo “egg” (cf. “oval”, “ovulate”).
• Latin au regularly becomes Spanish o, e.g. aurum → oro “gold”, taurus → toro “bull”
• Unstressed syllables sometimes drop out, e.g. frigidus → frío “cold” (though frígido also exists as a direct Latin borrowing); regula → regla “rule”
• Latin p t c between vowels often become b d g, e.g. digitus → dedo “finger”, caput → cabeza “head” (cf. “capital”), focus → fuego “fire”, aqua → agua “water”
• Latin word-initial consonant + l clusters often become Spanish ll. E.g. flamma → llama “flame”, clavis → llave “key” (cf. “conclave,” “clavier”), clamare → llamar “to call” (cf. “claim”), pluvia → lluvia “rain”, plano → llano “plain”. Word-internally, these can become j: e.g. oculus → (some intermediate form like *oglus) &rarr ojo “eye”.
• l and r can get confused, e.g. miraculum → milagro “miracle”, arbor → árbol “tree”
• Latin ct (and sometimes lt) can become ch: directus → derecho “right”, pectus → pecho “chest” (cf. “pectoral”), multus → mucho “much” (cf. “multitude”). (Mucho and much aren’t actually cognates, believe it or not.)
• Word-initial s + consonant regularly gets an e prefixed, e.g. sperare → esperar “hope”, strictus → estrecho “narrow”
• Latin initial f often becomes (now silent) h: fungus → hongo “mushroom”, factus → hecho “finished, done”
• Latin li before a vowel often becomes j; e.g. alienus → ajeno “foreign, alien”; similantis → (unattested Vulgar Latin similiantis) → semejante “similar”
• Latin mn and nn often become ñ: autumnus → otoño “autumn”, annus → año “year”, domina → (unattested Vulgar Latin domna) → doña “lady”
• Many Latin word endings have regular equivalents in English and Spanish, e.g. Lat -tio = Sp. -ción/-zón = Eng. -tion, Lat. -tas = Sp. -dad = Eng. -ty, Lat. -tudo = Sp. -tud = Eng. -tude (e.g. revolución, universidad, multitud)

No need to memorize these points, but they can be useful to refer to. I highly recommend you look at etymologies when you learn vocabulary!

Vocabulary

Some standard introductory-Spanish-lesson fodder.

• ¡Adiós! Good-bye!
• De nada. You’re welcome.
• ¡Gracias! Thank you!
• ¡Hasta la vista! See you later!
• ¡Hola! Hello!
• Por favor. Please.