Summary:
Learning the Spanish language starts by learning the Spanish alphabet. You will need to fully understand how to say each word and letter of the alphabet with the correct pronunciation. Take some time to study the alphabet to be able to do this. The Spanish alphabet is a combination of the Latin and Arabic languages. You will find that the rules and the punctuation in the alphabet are quite similar to each. For those with this type of language background, learning Spanish w...
Learning the Spanish language starts by learning the Spanish alphabet. You will need to fully understand how to say each word and letter of the alphabet with the correct pronunciation. Take some time to study the alphabet to be able to do this.
The Spanish alphabet is a combination of the Latin and Arabic languages. You will find that the rules and the punctuation in the alphabet are quite similar to each. For those with this type of language background, learning Spanish will be simplistic. In most aspects, the alphabet is that of the Latin alphabet but there are some important differences.
The differences include:
Accent so which is used over the vowels in some cases. Those with the accent are actually variations of those without.
Another differences is the letter n. The tilde can be used in some cases in the alphabet. Each is a different letter in the alphabet.
In addition, there are two letters that are considered diagraphs: ll and ch and therefore are considered to be separate letters all on their own.
Saying The Spanish Alphabet
For those that speak English, much of the pronunciation of the letters is quite similar to what you say now. An example is the letter C, which has two sounds including sounding like K and S. Some letters sound different though. The J sounds like the letter H. The V sounds like the letter B in English. The letter Z sounds like that of S. And, the letter R makes a rolling R sound.
You also need to learn a bit more about some differences in the alphabet. The vowels that have accents do two things. The first is to mark for a stress of that letter which helps you to know how to pronunciation it. In addition, it serves to show differences in two different words.
When you are writing Spanish, the stress is on the last syllable of the world. When a word ends with a constant letter, this provides stress on the last syllable of the word. There are always some instances when this is not true though. For example, if there is an accent on the stressed vowel, there is no stress on the last syllable. In addition to these aspects, there are also rules in the language which provide for syllable count to know when to assign the accents to the Spanish words.
Although these aspects of the Spanish alphabet may seem a bit troublesome and confusing here, the fact is that it takes some practice with saying and later writing the words to learn this. Learning the language is simplified when you give yourself time to do so. You will find many resources available to you on the web to help you to learn Spanish if you are ever in Spain.