Spanish pronunciation is quite easy, because everything is pronounced, and each sound has just one value. The rules are much clearer than in English or French, for instance. All new sounds are difficult to imitate al first, but with practice they will become second nature to you.

There are no ¿in-between¿ vowel sounds in Spanish: all the vowels are pronounced as short, open sounds. Example: mañana, which has three identical a sounds.

Just two consonants change sound depending on the vowel that follows: these are: c and g. The table below gives a summary of the Spanish consonants.

B y V: pronounced like the English ¿b¿, but less explosively

C: (in front of an e or an í) pronounced like an English unvoiced ¿th¿ sound (e.g. thank)

CH: pronounced as in ¿Charles¿

D: at the beginning of a word) as in English. At the end of a word and in the group -ado it is much softer, and is sometimes almost silent.

G: (in front of an e or an í) pronounced like the ¿ch¿ in Scottish ¿loch¿ or German ¿machen¿.

H: the only letter not pronounced in Spanish.

J: pronounced as in ¿loch¿ everywhere

LL: resembles the ¿lli¿ in English ¿million¿

Ñ: resembles the ¿ni¿ in English ¿onion¿

QU: pronounced ¿k¿

R y RR: rolled once when in the middle of the word (para), rolled twice when at the beginning of the word, and three times for rr.

Z: pronounced ¿th¿ as in ¿thank¿ everywhere.