Alphabets and Numbers

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Last Updated: Saturday, 29 June 2024 02:03

Published: Friday, 28 July 2023 00:46

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 Alphabets (called as alfabeto in spanish):

Alphabets are the first thing to learn in any language. Spanish alphabets are same as in English. Instead of 26 alphabets in English, they have 27 alphabets. The extra alphabet is ñ (n with tilda on top) pronounced as "ny". ex: niña would be pronouned as ninya instead of nina. Alphabets "ch", "ll" used to be separate alphabets, but not anymore as they were removed in 1994. "rr" is another alphabet, which is controversial. Some claim that it used to be an alphabet, while most sources claim that it was never an alphabet, as no word starts with a "rr". We'll list these 3 letters "ch", "ll" and "rr" separately below, but note that they are not separate alphabets. Pronounciation for alphabets in spanish is different than in English, though they look same. Practice them as below.

More on alphabet sound => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyLl_0d0EBw

One more shorter video => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJQjXAVEWt0

Learn vowels first:

• a => pronounced as "aa" (NOT a as in English), another vowel "e" is pronounced as "a" or more correctly as "eh".
• e => pronounced as "eh"
• i => pronounced as "ee" (so, remember that i pronounced as e, while e is pronounced as "a", and a is pronounced as "aa")
• o => pronounced as quick "o"
• u => pronounced as  "oo", not "u"

Consonants usually have "eh" sound at the end.

• b => beh,
• c => seh when it's -ce- or -ci-, else it sounds like K
  • ch => English che sound, but was discontinued as an alphabet.
• d => deh
• f => efe
• g => heh when it's -ge- or -gi- (remember g for goodbye or hi) else it's "g" as in English. geografia is pronounced as heographia (the 2nd g is still pronounced as g). ex: inteligente => pronounced as in-teli-hente
• h => h has no sound (it's silent). Just skip it when you see it in a word. When in alphabet, it's pronounced as ahcheh.
• j => pronounced like "h" or "hotah" (j is actually h, i.e Jose is pronounced as hose). Remember both g and j pronounced as "h", while h has no sound.
• k => kah, k is rarely used letter in spanish
• l => el-e, letter
  • "ll" is another letter combo (discontinued as an alphabet) pronounced as"jaa" sound or "yaa" sound, so llamas is pronouned as yaamas (or jaamas)
• m => m-eh
• n => n-eh
• ñ => n-yeh (ex: mañana pronounced as manyana, which means tomorrow)
• p => peh
• q => koo
• r => eh-reh. it's not pronounced as english "r", but as "butter" r. "pero" means "but" and is pronouned as "pero" with flat r.
  • "rr" is another letter combo (NOT an alphabet) pronounced by rolling your tongue as doble eh-reh. "perro" means dog, it's pronouned as "perrro" by rolling the tongue when saying r. MEanings completely change based on "r" or "rr". Some ex:
    • pero vs perro: pero means but, perro means dog.
    • caro vs carro: caro means expensive, while carro means car.
• s => ehseh
• t => teh
• v=> veh or ooveh (v is actually pronounced as "b", and there's no diff b/w b and v, ex: Venezuela is pronounced as benezuela)
• w => doble "oo" (i.e double u), or doble veh (i.e double v)
• x => eh-kis
• y => e-gri-ega
• z => zeta (i.e sata) (Z is pronounced same as s, and there's no diff b/w z and s sound in Latin America)

Accent vowels: Intonation is Spanish is deciding which syllable to stress. This is different than English. Depending on which syllable is stressed, the meaning of the word changes, as many words have multiple meanings. These are the rules on which syllable to stress.

• Words that end with any vowel, or end with n or s (consonants) are stressed on the next to last syllable
• Words that end with any consonant other than n or s, are stressed on the last syllable
• Exception to above 2 rules is marked with an accent over the vowel to be stressed. These are the vowels we see with an accent (`) on top of the vowel. These are spoken with stress on the vowel with an accent, and mean completely diff than words w/o an accent. You have to write and pronounce it with an accent to mean what it says.

Usually vowels are important while speaking spanish, and consonants are used just like fillers. If you get consonant wrong while speaking, the word's meaning will not change, but if you get vowel wrong (stressed or not), meaning may change completely.

Few ex:

• el vs él (with an accent on e) => el (without an accent on e) means the, while él (with an accent) means He.
• como vs cómo (with an accent on o) => como (without an accent on e) means to eat (derived from word comer which means eat). It also means "to like". cómo (with accent) means "How?" and is used in questions.
• mas vs más (with an accent on a) => mas means "but" (pero also means but and is used most often. mas is more formal than pero, and used in writing, but not in speaking), while más (with accent) means more or most, usually used in comparisons. More in "number" section below.
  

Spanish letter "A":

Letter "a" (pronounced aa) is used in Spanish in a lot of places. It's not used as an alphabet "a" (i.e NOT as a cow, etc) but instead as a totally different thing. It has different meanings depending on usage, and is essential to use where needed.. There are 2 different ways in how "a" is used:

1. Personal "a"(pronouned aa): This is used when "verb" is being done to a person (i.e person is the direct object). It is explained under "pronouns" section.
2. "a" as a preposition: This is when "a" is used as a preposition that links nouns and pronouns to other words as to, on, about, with, etc. When we use "to go to a place", or "going to do something", etc, then we use "ir a". This is explained under "verb ir" section.

Cardinal Numbers (called as Números in spanish):

Cardinal numbers is fancy way of saying "regular numbers" as one, two, three, etc. Numbers are most important in any language (shopping or paying someone) and easiest to learn, so we start with numbers.

NOTE: Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal) go with noun,and are placed before the noun, i.e two cars => dos coches. It's not treated like adjectives, where adjectives come after the noun. i.e fat boys => niños gordos

Very good tutorials on these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIyhRvk7qlk

NOTE: Numbers can be used with masculine or feminine things, so we have to replace "a" (for feminine things) with a "o" (for masculine things). See next section.

Ordinal numbers in Spanish:

Ordinal numbers are used to indicate the position of something, or the order in which something appears, such as first, second, etc. These numbers need to be modified to match both the gender and the number of the noun they are referring to. Ordinal numbers are not used much in Spanish (as all dates, age, etc are in cardinal numbers). The only exception is one, which is usually replaced with "first" when saying dates. The Spanish ordinal numbers 1-9 are as follows (put an "o" at end for masculine, and an "a" for feminine):

• First => primero (m), primera (f). primero is related to primary, hence First. Another form primer is also used before singular masculine noun. ex: Este fue mi primer coche - This was my first car. ex: el primer piso => the first floor (NOTE ordinal number come before noun as expalined above)
  
  • ex: At first, he was tired => Al principio, él estaba cansado. (Al principio is used often for this)
• Second => segundo (m), segunda (f). segundo sounds like second. It also means second as in time.
• Third => Tercero/tercera. Sound like tertiary, so third
• Fourth => cuarto/cuarta. Sounds like quarter or 1/4th. caurto also means room or "quarter (1/4) of time".
• Fifth => quinto/quinta
• Sixth => sexto/sexta
• seventh => séptimo/séptima
• eighth => octavo/octava
• ninth => novento/noventa
• tenth => décimo/décima

Other number/quantity forms: Both male/female forms exist.

Diminutive and augmentative are 2 forms in spanish where we reduce the size or increase the size by adding suffix to nouns, adjectives or certain adverbs.

Diminutive: A diminutive word is used to express urgency, love, and affection or to reduce the size or importance of something.  A diminutive is formed by adding -ito (m) and -ita (f) (for plural add -itos/-itas) to a word in Spanish. The endings –illo and –illa are less common diminutive forms for certain words. 

Augmentative: As its name suggests, Spanish augmentatives are the opposite of a diminutive form. Simply put, we use augmentatives to increase something’s size. We add -ote (m) and -ota (f) suffix for augmentatives,

More detail: https://www.tellmeinspanish.com/grammar/spanish-diminutive/

• casa => casita (small house), casota (big house). Me compré una casita en la playa => I bought myself a little house on the beach. 
• poco => poquito (very little). Words ending in -co/-ca change to -quito/-quita
• perro => perrito (small dog), perrote (big dog). ex: Me gusta ese perrito => I like that little dog
• carro => carrito (little car). ex: Es un carrito muy bueno => It is a very nice little car.
• abuela => abuelita. Here, we express love/affection for grandma. ex: Su abuelita es muy linda => His grandma is very sweet. 
• problem => problemita (small problem). ex: Tengo un problemita => I have a small problem.

Other Numbering:

• next => próximo (m), próxima (f). similar to proximity meaning near by or next to .
• much = mucho, little => poco. Very little or a bit => poquito (see above)
• more/most => más. ex: la más grande ocasión => the biggest occasion. más is equiv of English suffix -er or -est (faster, easiest, etc). Remember this way => accent implies more (without an accent, mas means but. see above).
  
  • ex: me gusta más la playa que la montaña => i like the beach more than the mountain. que here is used as than. "más que" and "más de" are translated as "more than", but "más de" is used with numbers and quantities, while "más que" is used with everything else.
  • ex: la más  hermosa montaña => the most beautiful mountain
  • ex: un poco más => a little more
• last => último (m),  última (f)
• everyone, all, entire => todo/todos, cada. no one => nadie
  
  • ex: every day => cada díá OR todos los díás
• sometimes => a veces. Other common form is => de vez en cuando (from time to time or occasionally. It's literal meaning is "from time in when")
• always => siempre, never => nunca