CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN TO THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE LETTERS OF THE SPANISH ALPHABET.
* As of 1999, certain letters below are no longer recognized as part of the alphabet. Do you know which ones?
Ch-ch-changes: Spanish spelling rules get updated
The Real Academia Española has published a new volume of spelling rules for the Spanish language as of December 2010. It’s the first spelling update the RAE has done since 1999, which was the same year that the ll and ch were officially dropped as individual characters in the Spanish alphabet. Among the new spelling changes are the following:
•The letter Y, formerly called “y griega,” will now be called “ye.”
•The letters B and V will be called by their formal names “be” and “uve” and not “b grande, b larga, b corta or b chica, all common ways of referring to those letters in Latin America.
•The prefix “ex” will be attached to words without a hyphen. For example: exnovio, exmarido, exdirector, etc.
•The words guión, truhán and sólo will no longer have an accent mark (la tilde).
•The letter Q will only appear in Spanish when it is paired with the letter U and followed by either the vowels E or I. (For example: quiosco, querer, etc.). In all other cases, the letters C or K will be used instead of Q. Iraq becomes Irak, Qatar becomes Catar, quorum becomes cuórum.
The Real Academia Española has published a new volume of spelling rules for the Spanish language as of December 2010. It’s the first spelling update the RAE has done since 1999, which was the same year that the ll and ch were officially dropped as individual characters in the Spanish alphabet. Among the new spelling changes are the following:
•The letter Y, formerly called “y griega,” will now be called “ye.”
•The letters B and V will be called by their formal names “be” and “uve” and not “b grande, b larga, b corta or b chica, all common ways of referring to those letters in Latin America.
•The prefix “ex” will be attached to words without a hyphen. For example: exnovio, exmarido, exdirector, etc.
•The words guión, truhán and sólo will no longer have an accent mark (la tilde).
•The letter Q will only appear in Spanish when it is paired with the letter U and followed by either the vowels E or I. (For example: quiosco, querer, etc.). In all other cases, the letters C or K will be used instead of Q. Iraq becomes Irak, Qatar becomes Catar, quorum becomes cuórum.